Chicago Mayor Tells Black Teens on Playground to Go Home, Gets Roasted in Response on Camera

Black youth in Chicago were already a little wary of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the first mayor for the city who is a black woman and member of the LGBTQ community. During her historic mayoral campaign young activists frequently took Lightfoot to task on how she would ensure more accountability in the Chicago Police Department, given her background as president of the Police Board in a city replete with cases of police killing Black teens and covering it up.

This history may help explain the on-camera roasting Mayor Lightfoot got this weekend when she strolled up to a group of teens on a playground in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood while backed by an entourage of cops and a whole gang of other people. The mayor may have been attempting to channel the role of Party-Pooper Auntie she’s been playing on in a tongue-in-cheek way online to remind people to stay inside during Illinois’ shelter-in-place order due to COVID-19.

But if Mayor Lightfoot was trying to create a meme moment it didn’t quite work out in her favor, since the kids didn’t take too kindly to her strong-handed approach. See for yourself in this video of the interaction shared on Twitter:

Now I’m the first to say that youth should respect their elders and that young men in particular should speak to women with respect. I also appreciate the very real concern that the great weather Chicago and other places across the country experienced this weekend has tempted people to forget we still need to be social distancing.

But I also can’t say that I didn’t laugh at “baldheaded ass.”

Meanwhile GoodKidsMadCity, a group of youth fighting to end violence in cities through more resources in their communities rather than police made a good point in their response to the mayor’s on-camera roasting. The day before Mayor Lightfoot tried to make an example of the teens on that playground, a crowd of predominantly white protestors had been posted up in Chicago’s Downtown area defying the stay-at-home order:

“She didn’t tell they asses to go home or that they may infect they Mommas,” GoodKidsMadCity tweeted. “But she got smoke for Black kids though?”

You can’t say the kids aren’t woke.