Lightfoot declares racism a ‘public health emergency,’ will divert $10 mil in Covid funds to it

With murders running rampant in Chicago, the third-largest city in America, Mayor Lori Lightfoot continues to push her radical left social justice agenda, which includes steering money to preferred causes that may assure future votes.

On Friday, the Democrat declared that racism is a “public health emergency,” which will allow her to reallocate $10 million in COVID-19 relief funds to address racism in the Windy City — keep in mind the mayor and police chief are black, as is the city’s top prosecutor, Cook County state’s attorney Kimberley Foxx. Also, 20 of the 50 aldermen making up the City Council are black.

Lightfoot declared Thursday that systemic racism — not the out-of-control killing in primarily black neighborhoods — is a leading factor in a 9.2-year life expectancy gap between black and non-black residents.

“At almost every single point in our city’s history, racism has taken a devastating toll on the health and well-being of our residents of color – especially those who are black,” Lightfoot said in a statement. “Without formally acknowledging this detrimental impact, we will never be able to move forward as a city and fully provide our communities with the resources they need to live happy and healthy lives.”

Speaking at a West Side exhibit honoring Martin Luther King, Lightfoot identified systemic racism as the culprit.

“When we think about racism, many of us think about it in visible and audible forms, but the reality is the insidious nature of systemic racism has other impacts that are every bit as deep and harmful, but often ones that we can’t see, like the impacts on the psyche and other impacts on our bodies that are just as, if not more deadly,” she said.


(Video: CBS Chicago)

The timing of the announcement serves as a nice distraction from the uncovering of emails by the Chicago Tribune that showed atrocious behavior towards her staff.

In one email back in January, Lightfoot told her staff: “I need office time every day!”

To emphasize her point, she repeated the same line SIXTEEN times in a row, like a juvenile might do. She followed that by writing TEN times, “Not just once a week or some days, every day!”

On a roll now, she then repeated SEVEN times: “Breaks or transition time between meetings is not office time.”

As for murders in Chicago, there were 294 through last Saturday, up 20 from 2020, which saw a record number. In 2020, the city recorded 774 murders, an increase of more than 50% from the 506 murders in 2019, according to WBEZ Chicago.

There was a rash of mass shootings this week, with the city leading the nation here.

“With 124 mass shootings since Jan. 1, 2019, Chicago has twice as many as the city with the second-highest tally, a fact rarely highlighted,” the NPR outlet reported.

Shootings that occur in mostly black neighborhoods.

Despite having some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, Lightfoot blames illegal guns.

“What we will likely learn as the details become clearer is that illegal guns continue to plague us,” Lightfoot said, according to ABC7. “Gun violence continues to have a deep and painful history in our city. Unfortunately, Chicago is not unique. We are part of a club of cities for which no one wants to belong, cities with mass shootings.”

All but acknowledging her incompetence, she beseeched the federal government to come help her run the city while declaring: “This is a national problem.”

“Cities individually cannot tackle this problem. We just cannot,” Lightfoot said. “In Chicago, we’ve done absolutely everything possible and we need help from the federal government. When guns are so porous that they can come across our borders as we see every single day in Chicago, we know that we have to have a multi-jurisdictional, national solution to this horrible plague of gun violence.”

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson did a segment Wednesday on the Chicago mayor and he pointed to her policies as a key factor in the crime surge.

“Lightfoot banned the police from chasing criminals, even in the case of some very serious offensives. And her D.A. refuses to prosecute many crimes,” he said.

With racism now a “public health emergency,” Chicago’s public health department plans to allocate nearly $10 million in coronavirus relief funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish six Healthy Chicago Equity Zones.

“The launch of the Healthy Chicago Equity Zones is an extension of the racial and health equity work implemented by community leaders, public health entities, city government, and health institutions,” said Ayesha Jaco, executive director of West Side United, a community-based initiative for Chicago’s western neighborhoods.

Equity being the new key word on the left — which is code for government favoring specific races over others.

Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:

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