Saturday, August 15, 2015

Revealing One’s Real Thoughts

In the last few months a string of racial incidents have come to light all across the US that have made crystal clear that the country has not yet overcome its past and its differences when it come to whites and minorities, especially African Americans.

I came across this article on Rawstory and was blown away by how messed up, inappropriate, outrageous, and just plain wrong what this journalist had to say was:

A white Chicago Tribune columnist is sparking outrage after writing a Thursday column expressing “envy” over Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history as the anniversary of the storm approaches.

Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005, killed almost 971 people in its direct aftermath. According to Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals, the majority of the victims were elderly black people.

“Envy isn’t a rational response to the upcoming 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina,” Tribune editor Kristen McQueary writes in the column originally titled, “In Chicago, wishing for a Hurricane Katrina.”

[…]

I find myself wishing for a storm in Chicago — an unpredictable, haughty, devastating swirl of fury. A dramatic levee break. Geysers bursting through manhole covers. A sleeping city, forced onto the rooftops,” McQueary wrote. “That’s what it took to hit the reset button in New Orleans. Chaos. Tragedy. Heartbreak.”

McQueary apparently yearns for Katrina-scale death and destruction in Chicago because New Orleans city leaders used the storm as an opportunity to furlough and fire city employees, and convert the public school system into a private venture.

“Chicago is so good at hiding its rot,” she writes. Its gravest issue — more than crime, education and poverty? Overspending.

“You’d never know it by the casual approach of government, both at City Hall and Chicago Public Schools, toward spiraling debt, and our elected officials’ continued practice of the risks that got us here,” McQueary writes.

One commenter on Twitter had the perfect retort:

"I wish the Enola Gay would fly over Chicago and drop its payload. That's what it took to hit the reset button in Japan." -Kristen McQueary

It just seems incredible that someone could say something like what McQueary said.  But the most worrisome thing is that these people really do feel and think like that and occasionally their insanity, hatred, and racism bubbles up.  But it’s always there.

An even scarier thought? These people live amongst us. And they vote.

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