You can be Mayor or Black, but not both

(Fred Weinberg) – Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Blake (under normal circumstances you are only allowed one last name in this publication) went on a predictably friendly CBS Morning News last week, where she apologized for calling a bunch of rioting thugs, thugs, defended her record of handling crisis as mayor and generally spewed leftist bullcrap in an attempt to explain away days of riots.

Here’s what “journalists” Charlie Rose, Nora O’Donnell and Gale King DIDN’T ask her:

Madam Mayor: Did you really say that you gave space for people who wanted to destroy the city to do that?

Madam Mayor: What is the out-of-wedlock birth rate in the black community in Baltimore?

Madam Mayor: Would a whole lot of black fathers who appear to be missing in action have made a difference?

Madam Mayor: Why is it that most of our urban distress zones are currently run by and have been run for the last 50 years by Democrats?

Surely those would have all been journalistically reasonable questions.

Here’s an example of an answer that Madam Mayor was allowed to give without challenge:

“If it were just about Freddie Gray, on the day that his mother begged the city, his family begged the city for peace so that she could mourn, you wouldn’t have seen what you saw on Monday. It’s about larger issues and those are those issues that we’re working on.”

Mayor Blake is trying to be both “black” and Mayor and you cannot do that, any more than you can be “black” and President.

When you are elected to an office and assume command responsibility, you cannot see that responsibility through the lens of being black, Hispanic, Jewish or Christian or any other modifier.  Your responsibility as the Mayor, Governor or President comes first and the rest comes after.

You cannot modify your responsibility to match your ideology or upbringing.  If people need to be arrested, you need to have them arrested.  You can’t tell the cops to “stand down” when rioters are burning down a CVS drug store.  If bad cops need to be fired, you need to fire them.  You cannot allow people to riot because you are black and fancy yourself to be one of them.

Like it or not, when you get elected to an executive position, in the parlance of the 60’s, you become “the man” and you need to worry about fixing the problems, not making people adore you.

The rest of the week brought fairly quick charges against the six cops involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray and predictable wailing from the left that what’s needed here is more money for the inner city to “break the cycle” of poverty and no education.

Check and see how much money has been spent by liberal local Democrat administrations in the last 50 years in Baltimore.  I’d be willing to bet you could buy the entire population a $50,000 house with what has been pissed away in Baltimore on “anti-poverty” programs.  The government—at any level—cannot eradicate poverty.  Only people who no longer wish to be poor can get out of poverty.  You cannot shower someone who doesn’t care with money and get a positive result.

Now, all of that said, I’m also going to bet that the Freddie Gray arrest was wrong, that the cops deserved—for the most part—the charges which were leveled and that what happened in Baltimore is not happening in a vacuum.

If you treat people like animals, they will almost always exceed your expectations.

I saw a black guy who is now a writer but used to be a banger tell a TV network that he had never had a positive interaction with the Baltimore police.  Never a “hi, how are you?” always a “what the F are you doing on this corner?”

What would your reaction to that crap be?

Mine would be to elect a new Sheriff.  Of course, that’s just me……

Mr. Weinberg is publisher of the Penny Press. Get to know more about him by visiting www.PennyPressNV.com.