I was horrified by a letter in Thursday’s Sun-Times in which a reader, a former Chicago police officer, suggests that the police resume a policy of stop and frisk. This is a policy that gives the police the authority to stop and search anyone in relation to a crime based on nothing more than an officer’s suspicions.
New York City enacted such a policy in the 1990s. Not only is the data too murky to suggest that it had any sort of positive impact, but a majority of those stopped and frisked were people of color, who already were suffering from high rates of police brutality and corruption.
If the police want the communities they patrol to trust them once again, giving them more power to abuse is the wrong way to go.
Jae Celer-Robling, Oak Park
Mayor Lightfoot deflects blame
As a Black man, longtime Chicago resident and former Chicago cop, I am offended at Mayor Lori Lightfoot saying 99% of the criticism of her performance is because she’s a Black woman. Please. We don’t hear nonstop criticism of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and last I checked she, too, is a Black woman.
Lightfoot is criticized because she is ineffective. Crime is up, the city is deteriorating, people (like me) are moving, and schools are failing as the Chicago Teachers Union dominates her and gets what it wants.
To blame criticism on her race or gender is ridiculous. It’s like a magician trying to distract us with a shiny object. Mayor Lightfoot needs to look in the mirror and own it, or get out the way.
Malcolm Montgomery, Hammond
Chicago gets it right with Ida B. Wells
What a beautiful new monument for Ida B. Wells. Why couldn’t we have done something like that for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable and not messed with Lake Shore Drive? Ridiculous!
Virginia Dare McGraw, Naperville
Mexican Art Museum a true treasure
Yes, as a Sun-Times editorial pointed out this week, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen is a wonderful place. About ten years ago, we took relatives there who were visiting from New York and it was a fantastic discovery. Then we found a luncheonette in the neighborhood and enjoyed Mexican food together. (I always say there’s no Mexican food in New York City, or at least there was not when I was growing up there.)
Thank you to MacKenzie Scott, the philanthropist who recently gave the museum $8 million, and to all the wonderful museum staff
Emily Carroll, Lincoln Park
