Over the last few months, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has come under criticism. She famously refused to be interviewed by white reporters for the two-year anniversary of her assuming office in the midwestern metropolis. Now the mayor has come forward to issue a complaint against a Scooby-Doo meme that was posted to Twitter by the Chicago Teachers Union. The meme featured Lightfoot dressed up as a white male police officer while she was being unmasked by the characters of the Scooby-Doo gang.
Lightfoot (above) said that she did not personally see the tweet but had the image described to her. She decided to speak out about the tweet as an aside during a news conference about ongoing repairs to the Lakeshore trail.
She said: “Let me say this: If that kind of tweet, which is clearly racist, had been put forward by a right-wing group, we would rightly be denouncing them, and I think our scorn should be no less because it was put out by the CTU,” adding, “It’s certainly disappointing when a group that professes to be educators, people who are in our classrooms, teaching our young people, would engage in these kinds of really deeply offensive and disappointing tactics.”
CTU spokeswoman Chris Geovanis responded to the powerful Chicago mayor by criticizing her for recent decisions, including the choice not to defund the Chicago Police Department despite being pushed to do so by Black activists.
“To every demand, this mayor and this administration have offered a resounding ‘no,’” Geovanis’ statement read in part. “It’s striking that so many of those outraged over a meme has little to nothing to say about the nullification of those most responsible for this moment,” she stated, adding that the union empathizes “with our black brothers and sisters who are triggered by an image that reminds us of the violence perpetrated against us in this land over 400 years and counting.”
Meanwhile, Twitter fumed that the Chicago Teachers Union would post the racist tweet. Nevertheless, union vice president Stacy Gates doubled down, writing: “Miss me with the ‘racist meme.’ Talk about the real issue. The manufacturing of outrage? There’s real outrage abt real racism & injustice.”
ABC 7 Chicago ran a report on the racist meme and uploaded the video to YouTube. The following comments were shared by viewers like you:
“The meme is about defunding the police. If the mayor was a white person, there would be a white person tied up in the meme. Let’s not take this out of context; it only has to do with defunding the police.”
What do you think about the Scooby-Doo meme?
