Where’s the Outrage?

There’s a place in the mid-west called Chicago, Illinois.  It’s big enough for Frank Sinatra to sing about it, and have a play and movie named after it.

I was in Chicago a couple of times – both for my job and pleasure – and enjoyed myself on each visit.  The pleasure part was when I visited two of the nicest people alive, my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law.

They don’t actually live in Chicago proper.  They actually live in an outskirt town of Pig’s Knuckle, or something.  I don’t actually remember.

If you’re from New Jersey and are now staring at your fingers in an effort to figure this out, they belong to my sainted wife; there’s no blood relation between them and me.  But I digress.

Chicago back then – which was at least a decade ago – has changed.  Rather than morning news and weather, Chicagoans watch news and body counts.   It seems the murder rate there, depending on the source, was about 550 for 2018, alone.  That’s a lot.

I’m sure the Chief of Police is doing a yeoman’s job, but many of those killings go without resolution.  In fact, 11 Alive, a local television station, said fewer than 1 in 6 killings are solved.  That’s not a lot.

But the good news is that Chicago is “gay friendly.”

I believe that your personal sexual preference is yours and yours alone.  It is difficult to find a significant other, although we have a planet of over 4,500,000,000, people from whom to select.  So, of you’re gay, I wish you well.

Chicago had the first gay community, and even rents gay-friendly hotels through Expedia.  The LGBTQWERTY community must be agog.

But just a few weeks ago, America learned people who voted for Donald Trump, President of the United States, are racists and homophobes.

A black gay man named Jussie Smollett claimed he was attacked by a couple of white racists.  He was allegedly approached and beaten, doused with bleach, had a length of rope tied around his neck, all by racist homophobe white guys wearing red MAGA hats.  Did I mention the assailants were white racists and homophobes?

MAGA is an abbreviation for “Make America Great Again,” the slogan for President Trump’s election campaign in 2016.

Chicago police set out to locate the perpetrators of this heinous hate crime.  By the way, a “hate crime,” according to Wikipedia, is defined as follows: A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability.

And the Chicago police did their job and found the racist homophobe white guys wearing red MAGA hats.  The bad news is that those white guys turned out to be two black guys, and one of them actually worked with Smollett.

A grand jury was convened to find evidence of a crime, and the results were less-than-positive for Smollett.  Is seems as though Smollett wrote a check to these non-white, white racists bought some bleach, and rope, and perhaps Slim Jims – perhaps not – with that check money.

That grand jury found enough evidence for 18 felony indictments against Smollett.  Unfortunately, the Chicago District Attorney’s Office has someone named Kimberly M. Foxx on its payroll.  She is the first African-American to hold that position.  Yeah!

Kim and Jussie

Foxx allegedly recused herself from this case leaving another attorney in her office to handle matters.

Foxx proudly announced that no charges would be filed against Smollett by her office because _______________________________________  (you can fill-in-the-blank with your own lame excuse.)  She allegedly received a phone call from former First Lady Michelle Obama’s staffer about leniency, or some such nonsense.  I’m certain that call had no bearing on any decisions made by the first African-American District Attorney in Chicago.  Wink, wink.

The Chicago Police Chief went ballistic, as did Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  They feel their valuable time has been wasted, as well as thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars.

It should be recalled there are tons of unsolved murders there from which resources have been detoured.

Chicagoans should be outraged and demand absolute prosecution of Smollett and Foxx, both.  These actions by Smollett brought America closer to a civil war over racism.  Thanks, Jussie and Kimberly.  You made us all proud to be Americans.