In San Francisco’s Bay Area there’s a public that doesn’t believe indignation and confrontation are best left to the local press. Consider this article I spotted the other day on the CNN Web site:
Where are Chicago’s agitators?
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Cell phone videos of the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant were quickly posted on YouTube, and these fanned the flames. But in 2007 the Reader posted a similar video and it rolled off Chicago’s back. Security cameras had recorded Michael Pleasance, 23, being gunned down by a Chicago policeman at the 95th Street Red Line station in 2003. When John Conroy learned from lawyers for Pleasance’s mother that the video existed, he watched it and described what he saw in the Reader: Officer Alvin Weems, waving his gun as he tries to deal with Patrick Anderson, a participant in a fight that had broken out near the turnstiles. Pleasance approaches with his jacket in one hand, stands in front of Weems, and says something to him. “He seems to be disputing Weems’s take on the situation, but he’s not overly agitated or gesticulating,” Conroy wrote. Pleasance raises one hand, but not, Conroy thought, in a threatening way. Then: “Weems raises the Ruger and shoots Pleasance in the head.”
But big news in Chicago can be something of an illusion. Look closely after a media feeding frenzy subsides and you’ll often see that not only has little or nothing changed but no actual confrontation of any consequence has taken place between the powers that be and any combination of outraged elected officials, activists, and citizens. Chicago has its watchdog groups, but where are our insufferable Al Sharptons—the opportunists who know exactly how to mau-mau the establishment and inflame the street? Jesse Jackson hasn’t filled that role in decades.
In assuming there’s actually a period when people do pay attention, the editorial gave the public the benefit of the doubt. After all, the citizens of Illinois had four years to pay attention to Rod Blagojevich before reelecting him governor in 2006.
