Board unfair to Sigcho Lopez

Board unfair to Sigcho Lopez

 

 

It’s fine for the Tribune Editorial Board to editorialize against Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez calling Mayor Brandon Johnson’s aldermanic opponents “the new Vrdolyak 29.” But did it occur to the editorial board that it was engaging in derogatory characterization of Sigcho Lopez?

 

 

Announcing Lopez as “socialist” in the editorial is clearly intended to discredit him before the board even delves into his inflammatory rhetoric. Conservative readers in particular will view the “socialist” charge as a tell that Sigcho Lopez is not a good person, much less a worthy alderman.

 

 

But the editorial board goes further to discredit Sigcho Lopez. “The 25th Ward alderman, who has made a name for himself by, among other things, inveighing against Israel’s war against Hamas while standing in front of a charred American flag, repeatedly has employed this objectionable terminology to refer to colleagues who happen to think differently from he and the mayor.”

 

 

What is objectionable is interpreting the U.S.-enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza as “Israel’s war against Hamas.” Some 40,000 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians, en route to possibly hundreds of thousands dead from disease and starvation, is not “a war against Hamas.” It is genocide. The displacement of more than 75% of Palestinians is not “a war against Hamas.” It is genocide. The destruction of nearly all hospitals, schools and water treatment facilities, making sustainable life impossible, is not “a war against Hamas.” It is genocide.

 

 

And it isn’t Sigcho Lopez standing near a charred American flag that is disgraceful. It is President Joe Biden besmirching the American flag by forever associating it with Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The Tribune Editorial Board’s mantra appears to be: Do as we say, not as we do.