Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.
This afternoon will be sunny, with a high near 89 degrees. Tonight’s low will be around 66 degrees. Tomorrow will be even hotter: sunny with a high near 94 degrees ahead of a stormy weekend.
Top story
Lightfoot calls ‘Scooby-Doo’ meme of her posted by CTU ‘clearly racist’
In the latest back and forth between two fierce political rivals, Mayor Lori Lightfoot expressed outrage today over a tweet by the Chicago Teachers Union that she called “clearly racist” and an example of a “right-wing” tactic.
After months of accusations by the CTU that Lightfoot’s school policies are racist, the tables turned as the mayor accused the union of tweeting an offensive meme.
The CTU tweet, posted last night, is a play on the ending of many episodes of the mystery cartoon “Scooby-Doo,” when the characters on the show capture and unmask the villain. In this case, the meme reveals the villain is Lightfoot in a Chicago police officer’s uniform. She is tied up with a rope around her torso and surrounded by the show’s characters, who are all white.
The tweet was captioned with calls to defund police and remove officers from Chicago Public Schools, two policy demands that the mayor has so far adamantly rejected.
Y’all too much sometimes. #DefundthePolice #PoliceFreeSchools #CopsOutCPS (IG: @electricstripe) pic.twitter.com/I4ryy3vOvM
— ChicagoTeachersUnion (@CTULocal1) June 18, 2020
Lightfoot said she hadn’t actually seen the offensive tweet, “but it has been described to me.” She branded it “clearly racist,” “deeply offensive” and “borrowing a playbook from the right-wing.”
“If that kind of tweet, which is clearly racist, had been put forward by a right-wing group, we would rightly be denouncing them. And I think our scorn should be no less because it was put out by the CTU,” the mayor said today.
David Goldenberg, the Midwest Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights against anti-Semitism, also condemned the meme: “Deeply concerned about this tweet and image,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that the CTU “needs to do better than this” and owes Lightfoot an apology.
But Stacy Davis Gates, one of the mayor’s harshest critics and herself a Black woman, took to Twitter after initial criticism of the meme to redirect the conversation to issues activists have decried for years.
“Miss me with the ‘racist meme.’ Talk about the real issue,” Davis Gates wrote. “The manufacturing of outrage? There’s real real outage [about] real racism & injustice.”
“[T]he meme is racist. Not the murder. Not the coerced confessions. Not the unjust decades long prison sentences. Not the abuse. Not the brutality. Not the murder. The meme. Got it,” she continued.
Read the full story from Nader Issa and Fran Spielman.
More news you need
- Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Chicago statues of Christopher Columbus vandalized repeatedly since the death of George Floyd should not be torn down. Instead, they should be used to confront the nation’s history and trigger a “reckoning” that’s long overdue, she said.
- Mia Wright, the woman who said a police officer dragged her by her hair from a car and knelt on her neck at Brickyard Mall last month, is asking the city to drop a disorderly conduct charge against her stemming from the incident. By continuing to charge Wright, her attorneys say, the city is asking her to pay a fine “for being a survivor of police brutality.”
- Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, the highest-ranking Illinois politician known to have tested positive for the coronavirus, said he’s currently “stuck in solitary confinement in my bedroom.” He talked to Fran Spielman about his symptoms, which started with sweating, shivering and a sore throat that was “out of this world.”
- Illinois gamblers can now place bets from their cellphones following this morning’s launch of the state’s first online sportsbook. Rivers Casino in Des Plaines, which opened the state’s first retail book March 9, was first out of the gate once again with its BetRivers mobile betting app.
- Chicago Fire Department investigators determined that an employee did not move aggressively with his car toward a crowd of protesters in Little Village earlier this month. But a truck driver who attacked activists is no longer working for Sunbelt Rentals.
- The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that misconduct records related to Chicago police officers that are more than five years old must be preserved. The Fraternal Order of Police had sued the city, arguing that it violated its collective bargaining agreement by failing to destroy the old records.
- Chicago’s iO Theater, the longtime comedy hub, is closing its doors indefinitely. The founder and co-owner of the company said the revenue loss brought on by the shutdown was the deciding factor.
A bright one
606 trail to open Monday — though some aren’t waiting
Another Chicago hotspot that’s wildly popular during the summer months is set to reopen just in time for the season’s true start.
Officially, the 606 trail on Chicago’s Northwest Side reopens Monday. But unofficially, it’s already being used. Despite the city order shutting it down in March, warm weather has been too tempting for some.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20041908/606_reopen_061920.jpg)
Several cyclists, runners and stroller-pushers were on the trail this morning. Traffic barriers meant to block people from a trail entrance at California and Bloomingdale venues lay on the pavement. Police tape used for the same purpose had been shorn.
The Lakefront Trail also reopens Monday. When both are officially open, there will be restrictions, including hours of use (6 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and reason for use, namely, just exercise or transit. The Lakefront Trail will have “social distance ambassadors” — Park District volunteers — in place to enforce proper spacing.
Read the full story from Fran Spielman and Mitch Dudek.
From the press box
Working with a group coming off a disappointing season, new Bears offensive line coach Juan Castillo knows how he’ll get better results: “It’s about fundamentals, man.” Getting the most out of James Daniels, Germain Ifedi and company will be crucial to the offense next season.
Your daily question ☕
How do you plan on celebrating Juneteenth this year?
Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.
Yesterday, we asked you: What’s your favorite beer that’s brewed in the Chicago area? Here’s what some of you said…
BA Malevolence by @SpitefulBrewing is the best beer I've ever had but that's a rare release so a more usual go to is Le Jus by @AlarmistBrewing
— matt, from chicago (@mateodechicago) June 17, 2020
Any of the Whitespace, Knockout, or Shortcuts from @LoRezBrewing
— Rob Youngsma (@rob_youngsma) June 17, 2020
Sour Bridgeporter from @marzbrewing
LeTub from @whinerbeer
Butterfly flashmob by @solemnoathbeer
— , alison (@hoppyalison) June 17, 2020
Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
Sign up here to get the Afternoon Edition in your inbox every day.
