Kyle Hendricks putting horrific April in the rearview with strong Mayon May 22, 2021 at 4:50 am

ST. LOUIS — The beginning of 2021 has been a learning experience for starter Kyle Hendricks, who has had to do some serious soul-searching after the worst month of his career in April.

While slowly putting starts together in an effort to return to the caliber of pitching the Cubs have expected from him, Hendricks discovered something during his previous start in Detroit. Even in a signature performance — eight innings of one-run ball — what he’s searching for is consistency.

“I want to be that guy that my team can rely on,” said Hendricks, who took the next step Friday night, allowing seven hits and one earned run, striking out four and walking one in 6 2/3 innings in the Cubs’ 12-3 win against the Cardinals. “They know what they’re going to get when I take the ball out there that day. . . . Today was another step in the right direction.”

Hendricks (4-4) was in a rhythm from the first pitch against the first-place Cardinals, throwing easy, 1-2-3 innings in the first and second. He allowed just three hits over his first five innings.

“I made a lot of good pitches tonight,” he said. “Really only three or four hard-hit hits, so it’s a good sign that my stuff is moving well, and I’m changing speeds well.”

In the sixth, things got dicey for him after three singles and an intentional walk loaded the bases and tied the game at 2. Hendricks was able to escape the jam without further damage, getting Yadier Molina to pop out and Harrison Bader to ground out to end the threat.

“That was big,” he said. “It was really cool being in that situation, honestly. That’s the loudest we’ve heard a stadium in a while. It was really cool feeling that energy — just telling myself to take a deep breath and ‘Just got to make a good pitch here.’ “

Said manager David Ross: “I thought he looked sharp all night long. It is nice to get some traffic out there and get out of it.

“I think we need Kyle to be who he’s been for us historically to win baseball games. We trust that sometimes guys that have the track record don’t get off to the best starts. We’ve started to see vintage Kyle the last few times out. . . . We’re gonna need him to be that version of him throughout the season for us to have success, for sure.”

Hendricks has now gone at least 6 2/3 innings in three of his four starts this month and has a 2.39 ERA in those starts.

The Cubs’ offense came through right away Friday. Joc Pederson continued his torrid month with a leadoff homer in the first and added a sacrifice fly for a run in the fifth.

The Cubs took a 3-2 lead in the sixth when Nico Hoerner scored on a wild pitch and an error by Molina. Kris Bryant’s RBI double later in the inning — his major-league-leading 16th double of the season — extended the lead before the Cubs piled on a staggering eight runs in the eighth to blow the game wide open.

Kyle Hendricks putting horrific April in the rearview with strong Mayon May 22, 2021 at 4:50 am Read More »

Hundreds march in Loop to show support for PalestineTyler LaRiviereon May 22, 2021 at 2:31 am

Around a thousand people march on Wacker Dr. in the Loop, during a pro-Palestinian protest, Friday, May 21, 2021. — Around a thousand people march on Wacker Drive in the Loop Friday during a pro-Palestinian protest. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Protesters gathered in Congress Plaza Garden, at Ida B. Wells Drive and Michigan Avenue. Various activists, politicians and religious leaders spoke before the group marched north on Michigan Avenue to Wacker Drive.

A rally and march was held in downtown Chicago Friday mark what pro-Palestinian organizers said was the “victory” achieved by the ceasefire in Gaza after 11 days of fighting.

That recent conflict was sparked by days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa mosque. Heavy-handed police tactics at Al-Aqsa and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers had inflamed tensions.

Then on May 10, Hamas militants in Gaza fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem. Continued rocket barrages brought life to a standstill in much of Israel but were seen by many Palestinians as a bold response to perceived Israeli abuses in Jerusalem, the emotional heart of the conflict.

In Chicago, hundreds of protesters gathered in Congress Plaza Garden, at Ida B. Wells Drive and Michigan Avenue. Various activists, politicians and religious leaders spoke, including U.S. Rep. Marie Newman.

From there, they marched north n Michigan toward Wacker Drive.

So far, the conflict has left more than 250 dead — the vast majority Palestinians.

Contributing: Associated Press

Hundreds march in Loop to show support for PalestineTyler LaRiviereon May 22, 2021 at 2:31 am Read More »

Non-Alcohol Beer Preview: Ceria Brewingon May 22, 2021 at 1:26 am

The Beeronaut

Non-Alcohol Beer Preview: Ceria Brewing

Non-Alcohol Beer Preview: Ceria Brewingon May 22, 2021 at 1:26 am Read More »

Republican Bailey describes sex education bill as teaching ‘perversion’ — sparking Democratic outcryAndrew Sullenderon May 22, 2021 at 12:25 am

State Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, left, earlier this month; State Sen. Mike Simmons, D-Chicago, right, in February. | Facebook; Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file

The Senate bill on sex education seeks to standardize the curriculum in Illinois schools, ensuring each grade “has the opportunity to be safe and … have access to age- and developmentally appropriate and medically accurate information,” according to the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago.

SPRINGFIELD — Two of the state Senate’s newest members — the chamber’s first LGTBQ senator and a Republican farmer from southern Illinois — clashed Thursday over legislation meant to standardize sex education curriculums in the state.

State Sen. Darren Bailey, a downstate Republican running for governor, accused the bill’s Democratic sponsors of “pushing perversion in our schools.”

North Side state Sen. Mike Simmons, who is gay, called Bailey’s remark “deeply offensive” and asked that it be stricken from the record.

In the House, members advanced legislation that would require menstrual hygiene products to be available in bathrooms in every school building, male and female — a bill that also prompted a heated verbal exchange.

Starting in second grade, students would learn to define consent, gender identity, and different types of families, including cohabitating and same-sex couples. Villivalam said those standards help students “understand a healthy relationship.”

But Bailey objected.

“Teachers who work hard to teach our kids about proper education have absolutely no reason in teaching this … absolute nonsense,” said the Republican from downstate Xenia, a former House member elected to the Senate in November.

In a statement following the vote Bailey denied his remark about “perversion” referred to teaching students about same-sex relationships.

“It’s a bill teaching children sexual acts and more that should not be taught in public schools,” he said. “[The Democrats] know it’s wrong and they don’t want parents to actively know what they’re trying to make our schools teach their kids.”

Other Republicans in the chamber said that the standards in the bill were being pushed by “dark money” abortion rights groups that support educators providing graphic images to minors.

Then state Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, speaks at a protest against Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order in Springfield last year.

“One of the organizations that’s advocating for this, a portion of their curriculum has photographs that 10-year-olds will be looking at with complete frontal nudity including pubic hair — both male and female – [and] one picture that has a male erection,” said state Sen. Terri Bryant, R-Murphsyboro.

In an interview with the Sun-Times the next day Simmons characterized Bailey’s remarks as an attack on the LGBTQ community.

“I took it as a dog whistle intended to dehumanize a whole spectrum of diverse families…that includes LGBTQ people,” Simmons said. “I felt like it also was intended to shame young people – shaming their bodies. The reason I rose to have that stricken from the record is I don’t want anybody reading that and internalizing even more, you know, this kind of self shame. It’s time for that type of stuff to end.”

Simmons said “it was difficult to take in good faith” that Bailey’s words weren’t targeted at LGBTQ people, saying that Bailey should “be more careful with his words.”

State Sen. Celina Villanueva, D-Chicago, said that she had worked as a sexual health educator and that “misinformation and a lack of knowledge for our students” leads to serious consequences.

“I’m not going to allow it to happen when people decide that they want to call this bill ‘perversion.’ Because let’s be completely honest, when you use your Trumpian talking points about a bill teaching children about their body and [would] also educate them about the predators that actually exist in this world — you’re just using them to get a soundbite.”

The bill passed in a partisan 37 to 18 vote and advanced to the House.

That chamber saw its own verbal fireworks over a bill that would require menstrual hygiene products to be made available “in bathrooms of every school building that are open for student use in grades 4 through 12 during the regular school day,” according to a synopsis of the bill.

State Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, said the bill is important to young “menstruators who are not able to purchase products, and they need this as an emergency situation.”

State Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, last year.

State Rep. Andrew Chesney, R-Freeport, asked Hernandez “why you feel it’s appropriate to put menstrual products in a male bathroom?”

“As a male who did go to a public high school, as a male who went to bathrooms from sixth grade to 12th grade, I can promise you, not one of my male friends ever needed these, and I would really appreciate if the sponsor would stay the hell out of my bathrooms, and I promise her I will stay out of hers,” Chesney said.

Despite the division, the bill passed 68 to 43 with seven members not voting.

Republican Bailey describes sex education bill as teaching ‘perversion’ — sparking Democratic outcryAndrew Sullenderon May 22, 2021 at 12:25 am Read More »

Georgene Campion, a friend and dinner companion, was the sum of so many moving partson May 21, 2021 at 11:32 pm

Goodbye to ‘George’ . . .

It should NOT have been a surprise.

But it was.

My friend “George,” 88, a survivor of the pandemic but not dementia, died Thursday.

Quite frankly, Georgene Campion had been an unexpected friend.

Although my childhood swimming pool was public and George’s was country club private, it came to pass, George and I crossed paths.

And a decade ago, George became a beloved Sunday dinner companion with our friend Kate van Dyke; a trio taking turns in the chat and chew category, despite George’s delicious option of a country club reservation when it was her turn to cook.

Our three-generational gabfest — each of us separated by a 10-year age difference, became a lesson taught by an elder.

In George’s case, it was a course in radical acceptance; the life lessons of an only child of affluent working parents who knew what it was like to be alone.

“George didn’t let difficult things happening in her life make her a victim,” said van Dyke.

“She didn’t carry a grudge; she moved forward.

“Her generation was a couples world; her husband, Frank, died of cancer years ago; and George could have become a hermit and a miserable person because she had loved her married life,” added van Dyke.

“But George was going to be happy.

“She was going to have a good day.

“And along the way she made you feel great.”

I met George in her dotage; a widow; mother of two grown adults, Kate and Jeff; and a life far different from her halcyon days at the Indian Hill Club circuit of the North Shore.

Still adored by her trove of longtime friends, George opted to sell her family home to become the trailblazing occupant of what she described as her beloved “woman cave,” a modest condo in a new Glenview development.

I did NOT know George as the young model/photo stylist in 1950s-60s world of New York’s “Mad Men” advertising scene, where she met a “weird” shoe designer named Andy Warhol and the ultimately famous fashion photographer Richard Avedon.

I did NOT know George when she married Frank Campion, who worked for the Young and Rubicam marketing company in New York, and became part of the weekend Amagansett social scene hanging out with socialite Dina Merrill, daughter of heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post (original owner of Mar-a-Lago), and wife of actor Cliff Robertson.

By the time I met George, she was living on her own as an artist who had become an entrepreneur, a painter of flowers and dogs and things that do not go bump in the night.

A purveyor of magic, a giver of hugs, a shoulder to rely on, George was also a volunteer reader of books to needy children, fierce foe of gun violence, and early advocate of gun control — and the one who personally placed the newspaper in front of everyone’s door in her building.

A sum of so many moving parts, George loved accessories, crossword puzzles, newspapers, shopping at HomeGoods, making artichokes with hollandaise sauce, lunching at Costco where she knew every single person working the front door. She also liked their pizza and hotdogs.

And she timed her morning medicine intake exactly 30 minutes before she ate a breakfast slice of brown bag apple pie.

A collector of an army of Staffordshire dogs, George overpopulated her galley kitchen with blue and white china, tended to sick friends like her army of magnificent window sill violets, nicknamed every one of her cars, and was the smile in each of her beloved “woof” (dog) portraits.

Although the star of George’s living room was a stunning oil portrait of her commissioned years ago decked out in her favorite “hot pink” color, it shared star quality space across the room with “Buck,” the deer head she bought at a flea market and loved.

“There’s Buck,” she would say. “There he is for all to see in all his glory.”

Sadly, came a time when George’s stories were becoming more than repetitive, sentences becoming stumbles, words becoming lost, and a firestorm seemed to be moving quickly through her brain.

Her daughter, who had become a fourth member of our Sunday dinner threesome — adding another 10 years to our now four decades of generations — soon helped her mom transition into a world minus our Sunday dinners.

“Mom just decided early on she would always be happy — no matter what came her way,” said Kate.

“A lot of good things happened in her life, but a lot of good things didn’t when she was young. So she chose to be happy — and it was infectious.”

So it came as no surprise when I was told George had worn a hot pink feather boa when the residents at her facility celebrated Mardi Gras this year.

I’d like to think someone sweetly looked surrounded by a pink feather flourish and said:

“There’s George. There is George in all her shining glory.”

Sneedless to say . . .

It’s been a year of living dangerously.

Living in the cloister of the pandemic.

Enduring the chaos of the invisible schoolroom.

Listening to vaccine deniers, and the cancellation of good sense.

And the inconvenience of truth when political careers are on the line.

Then again, America, it’s spring.

The roses are coming, the tree peony is blooming, the roar of the mighty cicada is a whisper away, and the rare and elusive scarlet tanager flew into my backyard last week.

Good things.

Good juju.

In sight, a future of living safely.

Sneedlings . . .

Saturday birthdays: Naomi Campbell, 51; Julian Edelman, 35; and Morrissey, 62. . . . Sunday birthdays: Drew Carey, 63; Jewel, 47; Joan Collins, 88; and a happy early birthday to Marie Costello, 90, ageless and priceless.

Georgene Campion, a friend and dinner companion, was the sum of so many moving partson May 21, 2021 at 11:32 pm Read More »

White Sox manager Tony La Russa isn’t going to temper his words foreveron May 21, 2021 at 11:32 pm

Think old-school Tony La Russa must have “unwritten rules” tattooed somewhere on his body? In fact, he doesn’t even particularly favor the term.

“They’re just common sense, you know?” he said this week, his most challenging of the season with the White Sox. “We were taught from Day 1: Respect the game, respect the competition, respect the opponent.”

La Russa isn’t going to come around and agree with the army of critics ripping him for his disapproving opinions about Yermin Mercedes’ ninth-inning homer — on a 3-0 count, with the Sox ahead by 11 runs and a position player on the mound for the Twins — Monday in Minneapolis. He doesn’t even buy that his critics are all that convinced he was wrong.

“Beating one club up — I’ve been on both sides of it — I’m not sure fans enjoy that,” he said. “So if a guy hits a home run against a position player, I don’t believe they think it’s exciting.”

La Russa sure doesn’t believe he was over the line in any way by chastising — and apologizing for — Mercedes in comments to reporters.

“OK, I repeat: What did I say publicly?” he asked. “I said the young player made a mistake, which, by the way, he did.”

There might not be much about baseball that La Russa, 76, is ever going to see anybody’s way other than his own. And that’s fine. He’s the manager. Just ask him.

“If there’s a disagreement [with a player],” he said, “you remind them you’ve got the office and they’ve got the locker. That’s the way this manager is going to play it.”

Like him or not, the second coming of La Russa on the South Side is going to be interesting to observe. Fun, too, if you ask me. Then again, I sometimes find humor in dark, uncomfortable places. Did I mention I’m secretly counting down the days until La Russa’s first all-out blow-up at reporters in this, his fourth big-league managing gig?

These days, La Russa seems to be making an effort to keep his aggravation level low in daily Zoom press conferences. Perhaps the virtual buffer helps with this. He sits, considers his words, speaks almost softly. It’s nothing like he appeared after games during his long run in St. Louis, where he’d stand and grip a podium and stare at questioners in a manner rarely described as friendly.

By Friday, before the Sox took on the Yankees in New York, La Russa was sick of explaining himself on the Mercedes front.

“This is the last time I’m going to try it,” he said. “I’ll give it one more shot.”

Again he stayed calm, but there were subtle signs of Temperamental Tony in his answers. After all, there are only so many ways to say the same thing.

“Respect for your profession and your peers, is that something that’s not important anymore?” he said. “That’s what everybody is telling me about the way this game should be played, everybody that is negative about it. But do you feel like you should respect your profession? Do you feel like you should respect your peers? Is there anybody that doesn’t believe that? I’d like for them to tell me now why they don’t think respect is important.

“I’m waiting.”

That old temper is in there, though not boiling yet. It took only six games of the season for it to arrive in 2011, La Russa’s last season before this one. The Cardinals started out with a 2-4 homestand, mustering a puny 15 runs in all. Reporters asked him about — what else? — the lack of offense.

“I repeat: It’s the first week of the season,” he said, dismissing the line of questioning early on.

But he got mad right after that, shouted at a local beat writer, accused the writer of intentionally trying to upset him and stormed out of the press room. Oh, and then the Cardinals went and won the NL Central and the World Series. Almost forgot to mention that.

I’m not trying to goad La Russa, but maybe that’s the formula. Go off on the next scribe he sees, then win the World Series with the Sox. No? You’re right, that’s a stupid premise. Never mind.

But La Russa’s temper has always been one of the things that has fueled his greatness as a manager. And that temper is coming sooner or later. This is a man who, while with the A’s, once heaved a bat into the screen behind home plate in a game against the Sox. That was an extreme circumstance — one of his players had been hit in the head by a pitch — but what a spectacle.

There was the time he got so fed up with questions about steroids in baseball — shortly after Mark McGwire’s public admission — that he swore on the radio. There was the time he called Brewers fans “idiots.” There was the time, before a series against the Cubs, he refused to answer questions from anyone with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch because of a lighthearted story that poked fun at the Cubs’ championship futility. That one ended with a storm-out, too.

We’re going to meet that guy again at some point, one can only assume. And here’s a thought: It just might make some of his Sox-fan critics kind of like him.

White Sox manager Tony La Russa isn’t going to temper his words foreveron May 21, 2021 at 11:32 pm Read More »

All in the family: All is well in White Sox clubhouse, Tim Anderson sayson May 21, 2021 at 11:42 pm

White Sox players might not see eye to eye with manager Tony La Russa’s stance on the unwritten rules of baseball, but it’s not a big enough deal to divide a clubhouse that shortstop Tim Anderson said remains strong.

La Russa, 76, called out Yermin Mercedes for missing a take sign and hitting a homer on a 3-0 pitch against the Twins Monday. La Russa explained his position to the team. And everything is cool, Anderson.

“For us, it’s OK,” said Anderson, the vocal leader and the most prolific “Change The Game” face of the Sox franchise. “Tony is like the dad, we’re like his kids. We’re like the bad kids that don’t listen. But we all get along.”

And they’re all winning together, which is what matters more than anything.

“So we’re just going to keep pushing and he knows,” Anderson said. “We’re going to go out and play and have fun. The ultimate goal is to get wins and enjoy the game. Hopefully we can just keep pushing and move on past this.”

Welcoming back reigning MVP Jose Abreu after he missed the Twins series with a inflammation in his ankle, the Sox entered a weekend series against the Yankees with the best record in the American League. The widespread commotion throughout baseball caused by La Russa apologizing to the Twins for Mercedes’ homer should be quieting down any day now after a five-day news cycle.

When the Sox caused a commotion by hiring La Russa out of retirement last offseason, how he would mesh with the new breed of player — Anderson in particular because of his fun-loving, bat flipping style — was an instant concern. But so far, it remains a non-issue.

“It’s really just noise,” Anderson said. “That goes for people that don’t really know me, for me to not get along with him. I get along with everybody. The clubhouse is great. Everybody is happy, enjoying the moment.

“Regardless of what Tony said to the media, he’s still our manager. We’re getting along just fine. He’s going to put us in the best position to be successful. That’s what he’s been doing.”

The Sox entered Friday with a 26-16 record, winners in 10 of their last 13 games and leading the majors with a plus-73 run differential. They had outscored their opponents 88-43 in their last 15 games.

Told that Anderson described him as a dad, La Russa smiled.

“Well, I think any father would like being a dad of a son like Tim because his bad just means he went from very, very good to just good,” La Russa said. “There’s no bad with Tim.

“That’s why I made it a point to explain the 3-0 deal. Once they understood it, it’s just a matter of opinion, but they knew where I was coming from and I was coming from a place that truly meant to protect our team.”

Presumably to protect players from getting thrown at, which is what Twins pitcher Tyler Duffey and manager Rocco Baldelli did anyway and got fined and suspended for Thursday. Mercedes took a fastball thrown behind him the day after his controversial homer.

“The Twins throwing, it’s definitely showing a sign of weakness,” Anderson said. “You got a guy [Mercedes, a rookie] who has been playing really well. He doesn’t know better in that situation. There’s really no right or wrong.”

Anderson and teammates are supporting Mercedes to keep his confidence from wavering, “because at the end of the day, it’s really about us,” Anderson said. “We are trying to win. That’s really about it.

“We’re not going to always agree, and that’s OK.”

All in the family: All is well in White Sox clubhouse, Tim Anderson sayson May 21, 2021 at 11:42 pm Read More »

Chicago rapper Smba rebuilds pop punk into uplifting rapLeor Galilon May 21, 2021 at 9:00 pm

Chicago-via-Michigan rapper Smba plies pop-punk aesthetics to make hip-hop tracks soaked in melancholy. These songs could tentatively be described as Soundcloud rap, since that term (which took hold of hip-hop four years ago) has already been stretched far enough to include any MC with a Fall Out Boy T-shirt, but they have enough dimensions that not even the loosest label can contain it.…Read More

Chicago rapper Smba rebuilds pop punk into uplifting rapLeor Galilon May 21, 2021 at 9:00 pm Read More »

Gang members believed they were targeting rival when firing at SUV, wounding 2-year-old: prosecutors.Matthew Hendricksonon May 21, 2021 at 9:27 pm

Chicago police work the scene where a 2-year-old girl was shot in the leg in the 2800 block of West 26th St. in the Little Village neighborhood, Friday, May 14, 2021. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

David Contreras, 18, and Rodolfo Irigoyen, 21, were arrested Wednesday after officers saw them in the Honda Accord used in the attack, Chicago police said.

A group of Two-Six gang members believed they were targeting rival Latin Kings when they followed an SUV and shot at the vehicle near the Leighton Criminal Courthouse last week.

Instead, they struck and wounded a 2-year-old girl who was riding in the SUV with her parents and 9-month-old sister, Cook County prosecutors said Friday.

The toddler is recovering at Comer Children’s Hospital and will need surgery on her knee cap and physical therapy, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said.

David Contreras, 18, allegedly admitted to firing at the SUV on May 14 after he was arrested this week and charged with attempted murder. The 9-mm handgun believed to have been used in the crime was found under the seat of the Honda Accord Contreras and Rodolfo Irigoyen were riding in at the time of their arrest, Murphy said.

Irigoyen, who admitted he had been driving his mother’s Accord during the shooting, has been charged with aggravated battery, but the 21-year-old may also be charged with attempted murder, Murphy told Judge Charles Beach.

A preliminary analysis of the 9-mm handgun showed a “high confidence correlation” to the shell casings found at the crime the scene and Contreras said the weapon was used in the shooting, Murphy said.

A third gang member who was in the Accord at the time of the shooting and gave the order to open fire is also being sought by police, Murphy said.

“I’ll note that this happened at 6 p.m. when a lot of civilians — normal people — are going to and from work, with their families, going to dinner, [and] are out on the roads,” Beach said before ordering Contreras and Irigoyen held without bail. “This put so many people in jeopardy.”

The wounded girl’s family had been traveling north on California Boulevard in a 2017 Buick Encore and did not know they were being followed by Two-Six gang members in a minivan and the Accord, Murphy said.

The uncharged co-defendant in the Accord with Irigoyen and Contreras was allegedly communicating with his fellow gang members in the minivan with his cellphone as both vehicles pursued the SUV.

When the family stopped at a traffic light at 26th Street, the uncharged co-defendant told Irigoyen to pull up to the SUV and ordered Contreras to “shoot, shoot, shoot,” Murphy said.

Contreras extended his handgun out the Accord’s window and fired at least five rounds, Murphy said.

After the family in the SUV pulled over on 26th Street and saw that the 2-year-old was wounded, they drove to Mount Sinai Hospital.

The girl was the youngest of 48 people shot last weekend, the most violent of the year so far, according to the Chicago Sun-Times’ records.

Authorities were able to track the Accord to an address in the Back of the Yards after part of its license plate was captured by a Chicago police POD camera, Murphy said.

Contreras and Irigoyen live with their parents, an assistant public defender said Friday. Irigoyen works for a food products supplier and Contreras works for a medical supply company, the defense attorney added

Both men are expected back in court on May 28.

Gang members believed they were targeting rival when firing at SUV, wounding 2-year-old: prosecutors.Matthew Hendricksonon May 21, 2021 at 9:27 pm Read More »

Dear Mayor Lightfoot, thank you for acknowledging the elephant in the roomJohn W. Fountainon May 21, 2021 at 9:41 pm

Mayor Lori Lightfoot | Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Black journalists are still largely MIA from nightly national newscasts as anchors, mostly invisible on editorial boards and as news directors of television networks.

I am an American journalist in deep dark Black skin. And I have borne, over a 36-year journey in American journalism, the weight of “reporting while Black.”

I know well that among some white colleagues the skin I’m in too often ignited their presumption that I was somehow “less than,” not up to snuff, unqualified or unprepared for the job. This was my constant anvil to bear.

Truth is, by the time I arrived at the Chicago Tribune in 1989, many of my Black colleagues and I were college degreed up with journalism internships to the hilt. And yet, my sense was that Black journalists were always “incompetent” until proven “competent.”

I later learned that some white reporters who became foreign or national correspondents and major section editors did so without having even one college degree.

I also learned, perhaps too late, that to break your silence on matters of race or on your news organization’s glaringly biased coverage, was to risk being labeled a whiner or malcontent. It meant risking possible career castration.

I got the sense early on that “diversity” in American newsrooms was a game of cat and mouse. I sometimes wondered whether our Black faces were simply window dressing for the diversity firestorm the Kerner Report lit in 1968 with its scathing critique, “that the news media have failed to analyze and report adequately on racial problems in the United States.

“…Slights and indignities are part of the Negro’s daily life, and many of them come from what he now calls ‘the white press’—a press that repeatedly, if unconsciously, reflects the biases, the paternalism, the indifference of white America,” the report continues, saying this is, “not excusable in an institution that has the mission to inform and educate the whole of our society.”

It is still inexcusable.

By the time I began entering American newsrooms as an intern in the mid-1980s, it was clear that Black faces were at least present. But whether we were celebrated or valued was an entirely different matter.

As a Black journalist, I always had the sense that my voice — and my pen — no matter how celebrated beyond the newsroom were not as valued within it. That a “Black” story told by a “white” reporter always held greater “legitimacy” and “authenticity.”

And this: That to examine racism in America, reporters never need venture beyond the American newsroom.

“Some would say you’re an affirmative action hire,” a white female colleague once said as we stood in the New York Times Chicago bureau, where I was then a national correspondent.

Hmmm… Years earlier, she was just an intern when I was already a full-fledged Tribune reporter. I had more degrees, more experience and had arrived at the Chicago bureau at least a year before she had. But I was the affirmative action hire? Puh-leeze.

Fifty-three years since the Kerner report, Black journalists are still largely MIA from nightly national newscasts as anchors, mostly invisible on editorial boards and as news directors of television networks — something Mayor Lori Lightfoot pointed out this week to a lot of people’s chagrin.

She didn’t lie, though she clearly stepped on toes.

Dear Mayor Lightfoot, Thank you, for acknowledging the decades-old journalism elephant in the room.

Black journalists’ perspectives, insights and ideas remain sparse on the daily platter of American journalism.

This despite the Kerner report’s recommendation long ago that news media hire, promote and retain reporters and editors of color. This amid the perpetual lie that, “We can’t find talented journalists of color.”

Truth is, I never wanted to leave Chicago. But to achieve my journalistic dreams, I had no other option. It’s simply my journey of reporting while Black.

[email protected]

Send letters to [email protected].

Dear Mayor Lightfoot, thank you for acknowledging the elephant in the roomJohn W. Fountainon May 21, 2021 at 9:41 pm Read More »

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