To the editors:
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So that organization called NOW is going to make the Reader and Mr. Nelson apologize for disrespecting the black woman. The insult I felt as NOW stood around posturing as if this foul-mouthed brute represents the black woman cannot be put into words. I will never forget this and neither will any other woman I could ever influence when it comes to NOW. How dare YOU NOW. That school Dorothy attended didn’t tell her it is an honor, privilege and duty to vote for whomever will serve us best? Being the same skin hue is not all you need. The people in the Third Ward might be awake in the next election and send her to join Tim the “heir apparent” Evans. This woman has completely fluffed a wonderful opportunity to be a great example to those in one of the three or four worst wards in the city. Instead of acting in a manner that says “come on up here with me, go to college like I did, run for office and change things as I work to do,” she walks, talks, and my God, does she ever speak in a manner that says “watch me act stupid, wave my gun and let’s squat in the squalor of stupidity together.” Some example! I wonder what her motive is. Have those people in her ward ever wondered what motivates her behavior?
This is the same Dorothy Tillman that, along with Timothy Evans and a few other brains, gathered busloads of people with plastic sacks on their heads to go to the Regal and boo, heckle and curse the then mayor Sawyer (there are numerous tapes with her ridiculing him as an Uncle Tom) on national television. This was done because he never said he hated white people, he supposedly made deals with ’em. Ms. Tillman does not know that that is what we vote for, the best deal we can get. That is the problem with Dorothy’s Third Ward, all these years she has been alderperson she has not made any deals to better that pigsty. When Harold Washington died he was making a deal with Pucinski for his daughter Aurelia. I can’t think of anyone in the City Council who treated Washington with more disdain than Pucinski, but pols make deals. Dorothy Tillman has done nothing down in the Third Ward so she uses the ruse of poor white trash our parents used to tell us about. My folks, southerners, told us of the beatings and murders that occurred because some white woman who no respectable white man would be seen with in usual circumstance, could yell that a “niggah” had looked at her in disrespect. That would fire up the haters. Their trash was too good for “niggahs.” Trash was the star of the show for a little while. It didn’t change her image among the haters, they still didn’t want or respect her, so how important was she for hurting someone innocent? But her few minutes in the limelight was enough to kill her conscience and to feel her sins were OK with God. That seems to be Dorothy’s ploy, to take attention away from her trifling ineptness in getting any real work done for those she is supposed to serve. But the people living in it are not fooled. How many of them were among the 200 demonstrators reported to be pickets in front of the Reader? Are these the same folks we saw getting off the bus at the Regal to boo Sawyer? Check out just who was there, Gus Savage! Gus Savage upholding the idea of respect for a woman! Gus Savage the toilet-mouth and -brain of Congress, the guy that thought it was alright to grab a young girl in his limo who was assigned to work with him. The old fart dismissed it with something like “I’m a healthy man and I act like one.” Didn’t hear a thing from the Chicago thugs or NOW about that. Guess she didn’t represent enough stupid. Not the image of black women they want to promote, kinda like Ms. Fitch at the Thomas hearings. Showcase the ones among us that act like neanderthal inbreds, better to keep us looking like a backward people. What is the motive? Wasn’t Allan Streeter one of the tramplers of the First Amendment? Who cares what Willie “fur coat for everyday of the week” Barrow has to say? And Lu Palmer, the biggest sack of unadulterated hate I have ever heard in my life. He has always reminded me of the Klan, only in black. All who doubt that need to read his old articles and listen to his old shows that white Ill. Bell used to sponsor so he could tell them how much he hated them. Then read his column castigating Avis LaVelle for being the mayor’s press secretary (a job she surely earned), I was afraid for the woman. The stench from this group is awful. Finally, read that Monique Davis thinks we as black folk are so stupid that we’re all going to jump on their broken down bandwagon for someone like Dorothy Tillman, as impotent as she has proven to be, and vote all of these keepers of shanties and pistols into higher city office to show the disrespectfuls some respect. Is it in something they are being fed? The longer this goes on the more we are convinced these people are loose without their medicine. Harold Washington was elected not because he was black, but the best guy being fielded, he had paid his dues with years of experience, making the right deals with the right people, he got great service for the neighborhood he represented. He, I’m sure, had his prejudices, but didn’t stand around yelling honky and crying foul if someone yelled back. He treated the people like he wanted to be treated. He gave respect. That’s what you do if you want some respect.
Maryanne Burgess
