Tulsi Gabbard’s time in Congress may have come to an end, but the Hawaii Democrat continues to serve as a valuable liberal voice willing to critique her own side. The former congresswoman’s latest bold stance came on Friday when she called out a prominent elected Democrat whose addiction to identity politics had gone so far as to become openly racist.
The controversy here stems from a diversity initiative by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who announced plans to exclude white journalists from interviews on the anniversary of her inauguration as mayor.
“It’s a shame that in 2021, the City Hall press corps is overwhelmingly White in a city where more than half of the city identifies as Black, Latino, AAPI or Native American,” Lightfoot tweeted. “Diversity and inclusion is imperative across all institutions including media. This is exactly why I’m being intentional about prioritizing media requests from POC reporters on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as mayor of this great city.”
The mayor later confirmed that this does, in fact, mean explicitly excluding white journalists from anniversary interviews. This quickly earned the ire of conservative critics. But even Gabbard, who has endorsed both Sen. Bernie Sanders and President Joe Biden for president, blasted Lightfoot’s move as “anti-white racism” and called for the mayor’s resignation.
“Mayor Lightfoot’s blatant anti-white racism is abhorrent,” she tweeted. “I call upon President Biden, Kamala Harris, and other leaders of our country—of all races—to join me in calling for Mayor Lightfoot’s resignation. Our leaders must condemn all racism, including anti-white.”
Gabbard is not alone in making this critique. Even many figures from the liberal-leaning media spoke out against the move.
“I am a Latino reporter [for the Chicago Tribune] whose interview request was granted for today,” reporter Gregory Pratt noted on Twitter. “However, I asked the mayor’s office to lift its condition on others and when they said no, we respectfully canceled. Politicians don’t get to choose who covers them.”
Similarly, the National Association of Black Journalists publicly denounced the mayor’s discriminatory stance:
<bsp-quote data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1621628165769,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000166-a247-d45e-a96f-bbefe96e0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1621628165769,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000166-a247-d45e-a96f-bbefe96e0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"quote":"Although we cannot support the tactic, we applaud the mayor’s sensitivity to the lack of diversity among the people who cover city government.
While the mayor has every right to decide how her press efforts will be handled on her anniversary, we must state again, for the record, that NABJ’s history of advocacy does not support excluding any bona fide journalists from one-on-one interviews with newsmakers, even if it is for one day and in support of activism. We have members from all races and backgrounds and diversity, equity and inclusion must be universal. However, the mayor is right in pointing to the fact that Black and Brown journalists have been quietly excluded from a number of access points over the years. We know first hand it is painful and unhealthy for our communities.","_id":"00000179-9092-da70-a3ff-9bb713ce0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b92f10002"}”>Although we cannot support the tactic, we applaud the mayor’s sensitivity to the lack of diversity among the people who cover city government.
While the mayor has every right to decide how her press efforts will be handled on her anniversary, we must state again, for the record, that NABJ’s history of advocacy does not support excluding any bona fide journalists from one-on-one interviews with newsmakers, even if it is for one day and in support of activism. We have members from all races and backgrounds and diversity, equity and inclusion must be universal. However, the mayor is right in pointing to the fact that Black and Brown journalists have been quietly excluded from a number of access points over the years. We know first hand it is painful and unhealthy for our communities.When even woke journalistic groups are distancing themselves from your “diversity” initiative, you know it’s gone too far. We should all be able to agree that explicit racial discrimination by elected officials is never acceptable. There’s nothing “progressive” about further dividing people into racial groups and treating them differently. As a nation, we certainly haven’t always lived up to colorblind equality as an ideal, but it’s nonetheless the only ideal worth striving toward.
Of course, Democratic officials and liberal voters won’t be convinced by conservative backlash. Appeals from their own side are much more likely to persuade. So, we should be immensely grateful to have left-leaning voices such as Gabbard still speaking out for equality — and against newfangled woke racism.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast.
