Every once in a while, conservatives get to experience the delicious schadenfreude that occurs when “woke” worlds collide in Democratic/media circles where one minority group is pitted against another in political campaigns. These situations inevitably lead to heartbreak and feelings of discrimination for one side and fretting by a party that proclaims to be “inclusive and welcoming” to all supposedly “disadvantaged” groups except in all the instances where they’re not so welcoming.
Such a situation has reared its ugly head in the aftermath of the Boston mayoral race. Taiwanese-American Democrat Michelle Wu, a city councilwoman, came out victorious over her opponent and fellow Democrat city councilwoman Annissa Essaibi George, who is white. With her victory, Wu became the first person of color ever elected to the seat.
There were also three black Democrat contenders for the seat: two black women (acting Mayor Kim Janey – who inherited the seat from former Mayor turned Biden Labor Sec. Marty Walsh and city councilwoman Andrea Campbell) and one black man (John Barros, the city’s former econ development chief). But they were eliminated from the competition in a preliminary election that took place in mid-September.
In their reporting on Wu’s victory, NPR took a rather sullen approach to the historic nature of Wu’s win, lamenting the fact that that the black contenders in the mayoral race didn’t even come close. Correspondent Tovia Smith tweeted out the link to her story Tuesday morning, noting that “Wu enjoys broad support, but there’s also more than a tinge of disappointment that Janey & 2 other Black candidates fell short”:
And in a now-deleted tweet (archived here), NPR wrote that “While many are hailing it as a turning point, others see it as more of a disappointment that the three Black candidates couldn’t even come close.” Their original headline on the story read, “Cheers and some letdown as 1st elected woman and person of color becomes Boston Mayor.” It has since been changed to read “Why Boston will need to wait longer for its 1st elected Black mayor.” The featured image was also changed from Wu to Janey:
Other Twitter users took notice, and went off on both their approach and attempted reframing of the story, which fell flat:
Why indeed?
To make matters worse, NPR posted a new tweet with the reframing and in a follow-up tweet apologized for the “harm” they allegedly caused:
Except the problem wasn’t just the tweet. It was the entire article, which quoted a number of “woke” disappointed Bostonians who were upset none of the black candidates came close to winning.
This is what happens when a political party (and compliant media) puts the physical characteristics and supposed victimhood status of a person before the person’s qualifications. I’m not knocking Wu or any of the other candidates. I don’t know much of anything about them. But I do know judging a person by anything other than the content of their character and their qualifications are not what this country is supposed to be about.
Twitter user “A Newsman” summed the whole sordid situation up best, I think:
It’s a warped mindset that can also destroy a country, too, but only if its citizens allow it.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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