I submit Cate Plys’s review of the City Council meeting (City Council Follies, April 21) as an example of subliminal racism. It seems she wanted to poke fun at some of the aldermen and curiously, she chose members who are African-American.
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Watson wished to express his opinion on the subject of the airport authority as did all the other aldermen present. His speech was impassioned but no more so than the aldermen who favored Daley’s plan. “I was before any of those,” Plys quotes Watson saying to Alderman Lorraine Dixon, who was presiding as council chair in Mayor Daley’s absence. “Je-sus Christ, this is my last meetin’ . . . and they still wanna disrespect me.”
Dixon “droned in the bored monotone she uses for a public speaking voice” when responding to Watson’s attack. In this reporter’s opinion, Dixon conducted herself professionally given the number of council members who wanted to speak that day on the airport and the pay raise.
Perhaps Plys could trade her tin ear for the works of author Charles Chesnutt. Chesnutt lampooned the stereotyped speech patterns of African-Americans and the tendency to present them as authentic.
I don’t find anything curious about choosing Alderman Dexter Watson to poke fun at–his was easily the most entertaining speech of the meeting in question. However, Mr. Laff’s contention that Watson’s speech “was impassioned but no more so” than the other aldermen is very curious indeed. Watson was screaming so loud spectators could rightfully worry that he might suffer a seizure. None of the other aldermen appeared in danger of causing themselves physical harm with the intensity of their speech.
