Why Wasn't Pritzker 'Furious' About Mass Shootings In Black Chicago?

CHICAGO — A North Suburban young man with a history of suicidal tendencies shot up a Fourth of July parade in the white, suburban utopia of Highland Park.

All Illinoisans got was an election-season lip service from Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

"There are going to be people who say that today is not the day. That now is not the time. To talk about guns. I'm telling you, there is no better day and no better time," Pritzker said shortly after seven people were shot dead and dozens were wounded — hoping, I assume, to sound like a future candidate for U.S. President.

Pritzker's obvious political pandering made headlines, but given his track record, it isn't likely his hubris produces any significant reduction in mass shootings — or any shootings for that matter.

During his first term, Pritzker has regularly shouted of injustice and inequity while failing to deliver on promises, particularly in poor minority enclaves.

He's a proven purveyor of "fakequity."

The governor's recent appearance on CNN was just another example.

"State of the Union" host Jake Tapper asked Pritzker to respond to Black people who say mass shootings in poor minority communities don't get the same attention as the massacre in Highland Park — where about 90 percent of residents are white, and the median household income is $147,000.

“Well, I can speak at least for myself. I'm not giving more attention to one than another,” Pritzker told CNN.

“In fact, much of what we have done in our budget over the last six months for this current fiscal year is to put money into programs that serve Black and Brown communities throughout Chicago, in fact, throughout the rest of the state, particularly communities where there's been a high degree of violence.”

What Pritzker didn't tell the national cable television audience is that his administration didn't follow through on his promise to provide "immediate" funding for anti-violence programs.

Indeed, state bureaucrats say they're slow to dole out cash earmarked for slowing the shooting problem in violent parts of the state because they're unsure the programs work, according to WBEZ.

During the interview, Pritzker also claimed to "have been to and spent time with the communities and families that have been affected on the South Side, West Side of Chicago."

Tapper didn't toss the obvious follow questions: How often? Which people? And when was the last time one of those visits wasn't for a news conference or to film a campaign commercial?

Instead, Pritzker quickly steered his comments toward the high-powered rifle used in Highland Park by a 22-year-old shooter who bought it legally with permission from a parent and approval by the state police.

The governor added a misleading caveat.

"Talking about assault weapons isn't the only thing we ought to be talking about. It's of course the issues of the underlying challenge that lead to violence. We need to reduce poverty in our nation. Here in Illinois, we're trying to do that. We need to lift up these communities that are so often left behind," Pritzker said on CNN.

Tapper probably doesn't know the governor was stretching the truth while preaching to the choir on cable TV.

Pritzker's administration hasn't done much to meet vague goals for reducing persistent poverty, other than create a blue-ribbon committee that meets twice a year to come up with suggestions and strategies.

That's not exactly responding to the causes fueling street violence in poor minority communities as a "public health crisis"— a catchphrase Pritzker commandeered in an executive order issued to bolster his re-election campaign.

MORE ON PATCH: Despite Violence 'Public Health Crisis,' Pritzker Breaks $50M Promise?

Pritzker's national media appearances allow him to spit partisan talking points without having to answer for his failure to address the dilapidated state of minority communities home to prolific mass shooters for his entire first term.

Consider this: There hasn't been a mass shooting in Highland Park since July 4.

Chicago hasn't been so fortunate.

Since Independence Day, there have been three mass shootings on three separate days — July 6, 7 and 10th — in Chicago.

Between January 2019 and mid-June, at least four people have been shot and wounded around the same time in the same place in our town more than 124 times, twice as many of any other American city.

Since 2018, 811 people were wounded in Chicago mass shootings.

And so far this year, mass shootings in Chicago have resulted in 105 people wounded, 12 fatally, according to gunviolencearchive.com.

And plenty of people noticed that it wasn't until shots rang out at the Highland Park parade that Gov. Pritzker rushed to the TV cameras and read from his notes: "I'm furious. I'm furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence."

The governor's political messaging didn't play well with people who live in poor, minority neighborhoods in Chicago, where generations of government neglect and systemic racism created a clannish, cut-throat underground economy that provides motives for my city's shooting problem.

Radio host, Kimberly Egonmwan, is one of them. She didn't hold back on a recent show on WVON 1690, a station dedicated to chronicling the Black experience in Chicago.

During her afternoon show, Egonmwan ticked off a handful of senseless shootings that didn't enrage powerful politicians and asked the same question that Pritzker dodged on CNN.

"Why is it not enough when it happens to us?"

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots.
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