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Taking The Next Step
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
Big 'ol headline in today's Sun-Times: "You Can't Play With Them". It's an interesting story about how St. Sabina School was rejected for membership to the Southside Catholic Conference because the school is predominantly black and the conference in predominantly white. A very sensational story that on the surface looks to be an outrageous injustice.
Or is it?
Before I start, I'll just say that if I have any opinion on this story, it's in agreement with the assessment that this school was excluded mostly based on race.
However, a few things bugged me while reading this story, and I am hopeful another journalist will eventually take this story to the next level.
TABLOID
Despite the fact that the term "tabloid" refers to the layout of a paper, it also has a negative connotation referring to screaming, sensational and not always fair/correct headlines and stories. The Sun-Times is physically a tabloid paper, and its headline today was in "tabloid" style. This is the second straight day the Sun-Times has had a "tabloid" style headline. Yesterday's "Daley Fires Spitball at Schools Chief" was a stretch. It sure ticked Daley off and really wasn't accurate anyway. When Daley shrugs his shoulders and is non-committal when asked about anything else, he's just being Richie Daley; yet when he shrugged his shoulders and was non-committal about Paul Vallas, the news media somehow reacted as if he'd never acted that way before. The Sun-Times went a bit overboard. Anyway, the Sun-Times milked this story for all the sensationalism it could-which immediately sent up warning signals in my head. I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how the Tribune treats this story, but I'm very interested in how TV news treats it tonight.
FACE VALUE
The Sun-Times story was written by their religion reporter, Cathleen Falsani. I don't know anything about her, but I assume she's a competent professional. She must be good because she scooped all local media on this story. Unless...Rev. Michael Pfleger came to her with the story. Knowing how this story came to be is very important. If the good Rev. served up this story on a platter, then one must question the motives behind it: Help St. Sabina? Take a shot at the Catholic archdiocese? Advance his own personal agenda/fame? The story definitely reads from the perspective of Rev. Pfleger and jumps to conclusions that are apparent, but are supported solely by he said/she said facts.
RESEARCH
Falsani only provided one part of this story, albeit the major component. But another step needs to be taken--a step that will provide damning evidence (pun intended) or will cast doubt on the conclusion. That step is a look at crime statistics. Quite simply, what needs to be created is a list of all assaults that have occurred in St. Sabina's neighborhood-as well as the neighborhoods of all the schools in the Southside Catholic Conference. The main argument that the league cited was safety. Why didn't anyone pull the latest stats to see if that argument held up? The Sun-Times could have had another reporter do the legwork and get the stats--assuming they don't already have them--but they didn't. My guess: the safety argument would not hold up, thus confirming the suspicion that race was the major factor.
Gimme all the facts, not just the heresay!
THE ACTIVIST
Rev. Pfleger is both a Catholic priest and a social activist. On one hand, he is part of a large organization that prefers to settle problems in-house (like the problem of alter boys molested by priests). On another hand, he just LOVES publicity! In the spirit of other activists in our time (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Paul Jakes, etc.), Rev. Pfleger knows how to manipulate the media in getting his views told. In the business world, people like that are known as "Public Relations" people. The news media likes to scrutinize and ridicule PR people (flaks) whenever they get fed lines from them, but when it comes to activists, most things are taken at face value. For anyone who thinks the title "Reverend" equals 100% truth, I will only say two words: "Tawana Brawley". Everyone in the Chicago Catholic archdiocese knows of Rev. Pfleger's media influence, so it is off that they would act in such an obviously racist fashion. It's also odd that Rev. Pfleger didn't react to the snub by quietly reminding the league that he's got media connections and they may want to reconsider their racist decision. Yes, that's close to blackmail but so is organizing the boycott of a store because it sells a product you don't like. Cardinal George is already attempting to eradicate racism in the archdiocese, so why didn't Rev. Pfleger go through the internal channels to rectify this injustice? Surely the Cardinal would recognize it and put his foot down immediately. If the Reverend took this story to the press, then one must ask what his motivation is.
Sadly, the most high-profile activists these days seem to be concerned primarily in advancing their own interests (or that of their sons).
THE KICKER
The second to last paragraph of Falsani's report: "Pfleger said his parish no longer is interested in joining the league".
Huh? What happened to the Catholic spirit of forgiveness?
Oh, wait...I think I remember the story in the Bible of the prodigal son, and how he asked for his father's forgiveness and his dad told him to kiss his ass. Uh-huh.
As I said, I totally believe that St. Sabina's could be snubbed because it's racial makeup.
It's just that no one has given me the full story...and I hope someone gives it to me.
Only 51 More Weeks to Go!
Today is May 31st. The Sun-Times still has a giant banner on their building announcing that Sears on State opens May 23rd. Nice.
NOTE
Check in tomorrow for another issue of the Examiner.
Published weekly...or so--usually on Friday.
If you'd like to contribute, e-mail your article to the editor
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