By Doni Glover, Publisher
(BALTIMORE – September 20, 2023) – In one corner, there is Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Is he perfect? No! Is he doing his best? Presumably so. In the other corner is former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. No, she is not perfect. And yes, there are those keen observers of politics who recall when Baltimore was safer under her watch.
A recent editorial by Baltimore’s favorite mainstream press (just joking), the Baltimore Sun, brings up – you guessed it, her indiscretion of the past. Yep, the gift cards.
The first thing that comes to mind, oddly, is the day now-Congressman Kweisi Mfume announced his run for Congress. There were three white reporters present, and three Black reporters. While I do not recall the names of the whites, I do recall standing beside Marsha Jews and Charles Robinson. The three of us asked Mr. Mfume about his plans. All three of the white reporters asked about his sexual history.
To say the least, there is a major difference in the way the two communities represented view the news.
Black people could care less about who you are doing. We just wanted to know what you are going to do. The white reporters, clearly following a mandate from their superiors, were sent there to the Reginald Lewis Museum to eviscerate Mr. Mfume. They were not there to cover the news. They were there to attempt to frame the news. There’s a difference. And frankly, that’s not their job.
They were so consumed by the thought that this brilliant Black man was the recipient of unconditional love from his community that they had no other choice but to attack him.
Sheila Dixon experienced a similar attack on her character in the Sun editorial and also on the day of her announcement. They brought up the gift cards that Pat Turner left on her desk in an unmarked envelope – as if the Sun cares about Baltimore’s poor.
What comes to my mind is the day Marsha Jews speaks of so often. She went to the Sun to speak directly to their editorial board about STEM in the Black community and – as she reports it – the Sun editors told her they could care less about the Black community.
No, I wasn’t there. Yes, this is second-hand information. No, Marsha Jews has never lied to me. And yes, I do believe her story because the Sun has never been a friend of Baltimore’s Black community.
Personally, I recall the day the Sun sent reporters sneaking into Congressman Parren J. Mitchell’s hospice room to get some kind of scoop. These disrespectful rats spied on a dying man. They had no shame. They demonstrated no dignity. And one of the reporters was Black. He was so embarrassed that he left town. His name was Ivan Penn.
What strikes me more than any of the above is that the Sun has put more time trying to downplay Sheila Dixon’s ascension than it has covering the disgusting white male Republican traitor named Donald John Trump who could still win the Republican nomination for President of these United States. Just so we are clear, had President Barack Obama done a fraction of the dirt that this dirty rat did on and around January 6th, he would have been locked up a long time ago.
These same reporters whose bosses found it okay to raid a sitting mayor’s house over some damn gift cards are quieter than a hooker on the front row of an Easter service in West Baltimore when it comes to the most egregious politician of the last 100 years. Go figure! Maybe, that’s white privilege incarnate. Maybe, it’s just the diabolical nature of racism in Baltimore, the home of segregation as espoused by the Father of Segregation (Baltimore Mayor J. Barry Mahool). Maybe, white reporters for the Sun just don’t care, won’t care, and have never cared about the 63% Black population in Baltimore – long a haven for Black people going back to pre-Civil War days when we had the largest population of free Blacks in the nation.
Maybe, they are still shellshocked by all of the great Blacks that left their footprint here, including Isaac Myers, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman. Or, maybe these white reporters for the Sun are simply employed by an institution that finally apologized for its racist coverage of Baltimore’s Black community after the Baltimore Banner hired half of its staff (a whole other story).
All I know is I can never put any faith in the Sun or its bosses because they have never loved my community. They are critical of powerful Blacks but a rotten son of a bitch named Donald Trump could be the next President. Please, kick rocks!
