Where Hate Has A Home: Oak Park, Illinois – Videos

By: Mark Glennon*

Despite national embarrassment from an initial incident earlier this month, many Oak Parkers are doubling down. They seem intent on making their town a national showcase for the manic intolerance of diversity of opinion into which identity politics have devolved.

Oak Park, Illinois: A fine community in many ways

Oak Park, a well-off Chicago suburb with a population of 52,000, has long history of genuine diversity and integration in which it justifiably took pride. But now an extreme approach to race and gender is on full display in Oak Park: unashamed intolerance, dishonesty, hypocrisy and hatred, all waged under the banner of “equity.”

It started at an early October Village Board meeting debating a statement on inclusion, particularly the term “system of oppression,” which some members thought might be interpreted as an unfair smear of the town’s police department.

That’s when Trustee Susan Buchanan let loose, telling the white males on the board to “shut up,” and much more. If you haven’t seen the video, watch it. Keep in mind that one of the targets of Buchanan’s comments was the mayor, Anan Abu-Taleb. He’s a Palestinian immigrant born in the Gaza Strip as the second oldest of 13 children and came to the Chicago area at the age of 18 to attend college. Among her comments:

You shouldn’t have an opinion on that. That is the point. Why do you have an opinion on equity? You’ve never experienced oppression so shut up…. Just stop… You are not oppressed…. Enough… You stop it! You are a white male. Your skin is light enough. Stop it.”

That video went viral on social media and got substantial coverage in local and national media – The Chicago Tribune, CBS Chicago, PJ Media, The Daily Caller, The Blaze and others.

You’d think criticism of Buchanan would be so overwhelming that the story would have ended there, perhaps along with Buchanan’s political career.

On the contrary. Buchanan’s supporters have come back screaming about white supremacy, terrorism and more. Though many Oak Parkers are critical of Trustee Buchanan, the loudest voices support her, go further and perhaps represent a majority. A petition is circulating not for Trustee Buchanan to resign but one of her opponents on the matter.

That’s Dan Moroney, who was among the trustees who questioned the wording of the original diversity statement. They’ve selected him as scapegoat for the bad press Oak Park got from Buchanan’s words and for the threats she says she and her family received.

The travesty they say Trustee Moroney committed was an appearance on a conservative radio show where he talked about the initial Buchanan outburst. It’s because of that appearance, many are saying, not Trustee Buchanan’s comments, that Oak Park was “targeted by white supremacists.” That’s why she was threatened and that’s why “terrorism” came to Oak Park, they tell us.

But Moroney’s interview on the talk show wasn’t until October 18! That’s long after all those national and local stories about Trustee Buchanan’s initial outburst were published and well after Trustee Buchanan reported she’d been threatened. The social media traffic was earlier, too. CBS Chicago had already reported the incident, which they initiated, not Moroney. The initial public meeting with Trustee Buchanan’s outburst, the video of which was posted by the village, was more than two weeks earlier on October 7.

And now we’ve had the latest village board meeting. An angry mob showed up last week to defend Trustee Buchanan and put their intolerance on full, public display. Clips of some of those who commented publicly are below, and the entire meeting is linked here.

Watch the comments yourself.

-Among them are a woman lecturing about listening skills to defend Trustee Buchanan’s order to “shut up.”

-Another says “trolling white supremacists” are threatening the values of the community.

-Another says Trustee Moroney chose not to distance himself from white supremacists and he needs to reject calls to violence (which he long ago did firmly) or resign.

-There’s something about Trustee Buchanan’s critics being “vile and Bret Kavanaugh-like,” whatever that means.

-And one white guy, not being facetious, says to loud applause, “I know I have to shut up. That is my responsibility as a white person in America.” White males’ opinions evidently are welcome so long as they agree with the mob.

Surely the saddest clip in that segment is the last one by somebody who stood up against the mob. The biggest applause of the night came when he said he and his family had decided to move. He said his decision was not because of the town’s commitment to diversity “but because of the groundswell of self-righteous citizens who are intolerant of anybody standing in their way.”

The talk show host they are referring to is Dan Proft of AM560. I’ve been on his show and he once interviewed me in depth.

He’s unapologetic, tough and frank, but he’s often focused on the particular hardship inflicted on minorities by Illinois’ failed government. The first time I was on his show, as best as I recall, was about Wirepoints’ initial work on the acute problems in Chicago’s south suburbs, which are heavily African-American. He has returned to that subject often.

Trustee Moroney’s appearance on Proft’s show was respectful, balanced and professional, a claim the mob at the town meeting laughed at. You can judge that interview for yourself here.

The local news source, OakPark.com, piled on with the mob. Its editor and publisher wrote, with no supporting facts, “Dan Proft is a right-wing conspiracy hack. He hosts a low-rated Chicago radio talk show that speaks mainly to white supremacy.” And if you talk to Proft, as Trustee Moroney did, then you’re part of that, too – as the mob sees things.

If you drive around Oak Park to see its nice architecture you’ll notice something else — lots of those “Hate Has No Home Here” yard signs. They have a Facebook page dedicated to that, too, loaded with pictures of the signs, to assure themselves and others of that truth.

Perhaps you’d like to ask them why their tolerance doesn’t extend to people with different opinions. Trustee Buchanan already gave her answer and her defenders are effectively saying the same thing.

Their answer is “Shut up.”

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.

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Admin
4 years ago

Be sure to see what Obama said yesterday about the “woke culture.” Oak Parkers would ridicule him, too, if he were white and said this at their board meeting. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/31/774918215/obama-says-democrats-dont-always-need-to-be-politically-woke

Ray Simpson
4 years ago

I have lived in Oak Park for 50+ years and things are a lot different here now. Meet the real residents at a block party and you will find nice people of all sizes, shapes and colors who enjoy each others company and friendship. Conversely, attend any board meeting, special interest group kvetching session or speak to the owner of the local news rag and you will be treated with unbridled intolerance. I was called out by the local opinion editor in a half page hit-piece because I support the second amendment. I am still here and find some enjoyment… Read more »

Admin
4 years ago

The Daily Wire has a new story up on this: https://www.dailywire.com/news/illinois-town-tries-to-release-statement-on-inclusion-chaos-ensues. So does PJ Media though they just rewrote ours and gave us no attribution. Local coverage like the Tribune whitewashed it by not printing the worst of the comments from Buchanan and others. When that happens on something as bad as this, we just have to go to the national press and have them beat the daylights out of the culprits.

Porky
4 years ago

Well, being an old white male, Probably means I’m irredeemable and need to just shut up. I hope I live long enough, these SJWs will be eating each other, after they run everyone else they hate out of their “village”. Their divide is the separation from reality with anything they say they are standing for or against. Just a bunch of people with not enough to do, with hate and loathing for anyone not like them. They hate themselves for what they are or are not, and project their hate to everyone that doesn’t agree with their delusions. These kind… Read more »

4 years ago

These are the radical leftist socialist communists driving all Whites (Protestants, Roman Catholics, Atheists, etc.) into New Right quasi-Jesuit Fascism. Being a White man that is a saved AV1611 Bible believing Baptist Calvinist-Dispensationalist, I preach against this design of the Jesuit papacy for America all the time. The plot of establishing a New Fascism here in North America can be read in The Beast Reawakens by Martin Lee. The large Jewish Community in Oak Park should be aware of this conspiracy against themselves and resist the Leftist Communists that are the real enemies of the Jews in general.

Mike
4 years ago

Hackity hack hack. Opportunistic trolling of the Oak Park community from an old white lawyer whose knowledge of the subject matter begins and ends with a YouTube video? No thanks, Mark Glennon. This ignorant take on the community three weeks after a fiery city council meeting is just a weak writer looking for likes. You’d have been better off posting a kitten to your Facebook page. Hit pieces are exciting. Drives traffic. But following Glennon from his Oak Park=hatred thesis to his attack on Susan Buchanan to his infomercial of AM560 and Dan Proft was literary vomit. The paragraph disclosing… Read more »

DOUG
4 years ago
Reply to  Mike

“old white lawyer” You’re a racist fascist with hate towards free speech.

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Mike

” If a moment at a council meeting is enough for you opine about an entire community, than I’d say reading just one of your pieces is enough for me to conclude you’re an insignificant hack. ”

Oak Park’s sordid reputation long precedes this city council debacle. I’ve purposely avoiding spending any time or money in that community for nearly two decades now because I find the people in the town to be fake, hateful and petty. Your comment further confirms my bias.

Platinum Goose
4 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

I grew up in a neighboring town and I have to agree with Debtsor. Can’t remember the last time I was in Oak Park.

Admin
4 years ago
Reply to  Mike

You seem nice. Not like one of those haters or anything. Uh uh.

Rick
4 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Buchanan is how I judge oak park now. She has made very clear the hypocrisy of her words against the actual town. She tries to be the white knight for black people yet lives in a town that intentionally red lined blacks out. Either by constructing impassible streets to Austin, ridiculously high property taxes, very little section 8 housing, no rent controls, no active programs to increase black population, no programs to reduce the ridiculous he prices. She did not once suggest ways to lower property values in oak park so that poor blacks will want to move in. Buchanan… Read more »

Joan
4 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Just a moment at a council meeting, you say this was? Did you stop reading after the first video? Watch the second video and listen to the ugly comments and the cheering. Read all the other similar comments in your local press about this. You should thank God we have no hate speech crime laws or you would all be in jail.

Willowglen
4 years ago
Reply to  Mike

Mike – I think you can help me. I am from Illinois, from poverty stricken circumstances, and have done quite well and am fortunate enough to be educated at two of our nation’s best schools, no doubt due to white privilege and not in any way due to receiving an athletic scholarship or hard work. I can accept that. But I need help in interpreting Buchanan’s admonishment as to who can speak. The Palestinian mayor of Oak Park who seems quite admirable having left Gaza to come here and succeed was deemed sufficiently white so as to merit a direction… Read more »

Governor of Alderaan
4 years ago

Crazy also has a very nice mansion in Oak Park. It lives right next door to Hate

Admin
4 years ago

What makes this so terrifying is that about half of America has no concept of the First Amendment and the sanctity of diversity of opinion. See this new poll: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7613617/Americans-want-Amendment-changed-reflect-cultural-norms-today.html. They don’t see that speech like you see in the videos here would easily become criminal hate speech, subject only to the happenstance of who is in power.

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

Mark, it’s not only terrifying because they have no concept of the First Amendment and the sanctity of diversity of opinion, its even more terrifying because they hate America, and you, and me, and everything they incorrectly believe we stand for (today it’s oppression, yesterday it was white privilege, tomorrow it’s free speech that is hateful). And they would rather burn the constitution to ashes just so they could put people like us in jail (they would prefer death camps). They’re not really worried about the happenstance of who is in power, because once they get rid of us, the… Read more »

Big Mitch
4 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

Impeach is coming. Then redistribute the ill gotten riches.

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Big Mitch

Yes, but conviction is not coming, not by a long shot. What will you do in November 2020 when he is reelected? And in case you haven’t read the articles, Trump National Doral Miami is quite the dump these days. He’s trying to sell the Trump DC hotel too. The man is losing a lot of money becoming president. He knew that beforehand too. He’s also putting himself in harm’s way from Democrats – all for the benefit of the nation, that sniveling progressives like you are to infected with TDS to understand. Payback is coming for this impeachment inquiry,… Read more »

Platinum Goose
4 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

And they’ll be scratching their heads wondering why their far to the left candidate lost.

Mr_Common_Sense
4 years ago

And, she is a M.D.!…..someone file a complaint against her medical license.

Freddy
4 years ago

Probably taking most of the medications she prescribes.

Pete
4 years ago

And what’s the complaint…dont like her politics. they’ll laugh at your complaint.

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Pete

her general hysteria makes her unfit and unstable to practice medicine.

Admin
4 years ago

Yes, she’s an M.D. I wonder if any white guys see her for annual prostate exams. Let’s just say I’d be a little, well, nervous.

Pete
4 years ago

Identity politics.

This spat is the symptom of the erosion of white hegemony. The old majority is losing its leadership and dominance over America. Many times in the past the majority (white) told others to “shup up”. Now they are being told to “shut up”, and they dont like to be told “shup up”…..now you know how they feel.

Pete
4 years ago
Reply to  Pete

Hurts to be told “shup up”…..esp when a minority tell that to a white dude.

Shane
4 years ago
Reply to  Pete

White women aren’t a minority.

Admin
4 years ago
Reply to  Pete

It’s more a symptom of erosion of understanding about freedom of expression. Anybody in the past who told a minority to shut up was wrong. Anybody who does so today is wrong. Anybody who tries to suppress the opinions of anybody else is denying the foundational principle of liberal democracy, which is the marketplace of ideas

debtsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Pete

What that lady did was incite hate and violence. We just witnessed early stages of a pogrom. Replace jew with ‘white person’ and it won’t be long before they run around downtown Oak Park smashing windows of the ‘white’ business owners ‘oppressing’ the residents. This stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It starts somewhere. And it starts at the top and works its ways down. Pogroms during the middle ages started when the local lord started ranting about jews. 800 years ago they were blamed for imaginary poisoned wells; today white men are blamed for invisible oppression. I mean really,… Read more »

Joe
4 years ago
Reply to  Pete

You are a clown. Pathetic.

Frank
4 years ago

The Civil War in the USA has never ended.

An author once said: “Americans are good in understanding themselves, but are are terrible in understanding others.”
Id like to say

“People are good in understanding their own group, but are terrible in understanding other groups”

Illinois Entrepreneur
4 years ago

I got through 1:53 in the second video and I couldn’t take it anymore.

What a smug, vile hypocrite that woman is. There is nothing worse than a virtue signaling person who smugly talks about free speech while condemning free speech.

Simon
4 years ago

this the same Oak Park that got itself in a flap over murals from the 30s?
https://wgntv.com/2019/04/16/historic-mural-removed-from-oak-park-school/

Joan
4 years ago

I watched that second video twice. Those people are just insufferable. And the way they cheered at the gentleman who said he and his family had decided to move was so cruel and vicious.

Mike Hunt
4 years ago

Liberals love to think everyone cares about their ridiculous ravings. People who actually produce things and have lives couldn’t care less. The best thing to do is let them stay busy banning straws, it keeps them out of the way of really important things.

Charlotte
4 years ago

And in a story that’s maybe related, Oak Park recently announced that it has become dementia-friendly. https://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/10-22-2019/Oak-Park-to-become-dementia_friendly/

danni smith
4 years ago

raise her taxes. she is a goon and loon and I would enjoy watching her oppressed into black brick-ok white brick. Mental illness is easy to recognize by the well..I heard the Proft interview-they are more inflamed because the trustee was fair, balanced and made sense-which the banshee cannot

Mike Molloy
4 years ago

Hemingway was right when he described Oak Park as being a town with broad lawns and narrow minds.

DOUG
4 years ago
Reply to  Mike Molloy

Yes, closed minded intolerant hateful racists against white men.

DOUG
4 years ago

Oak Park should welcome illegal mexican alien gang members and hordes of muslim migrant men while at the same time driving away all the white men, that should do wonders for their property values and city finances.

Pablo
4 years ago
Reply to  DOUG

Racists Person you are.

dlj
4 years ago

Apparently the City should change its name to Susan Buchanan Hate Town. She appears to be the real problem…

Rick
4 years ago

I heard the radio show it was completely respectful. The white trustee that got yelled at by the white hysterical woman because he was white showed a lot of class and restraint. He didn’t go after her at all. He simply stated his case. I don’t see oak park inviting much section 8 housing, or tearing down the impassable streets they built to keep black Austin residents out of town. I don’t see them taking in low income black residents. I don’t see rent control so blacks can afford oak park. I see a hysterical left winger that is all… Read more »

DOUG
4 years ago

White men are persecuted in Oak Park, Illinois. Unbelievable.

Douglas
4 years ago

These people have zero understanding of human behavior. Within progressive/communst circles, it is not only accepted, but encouraged to attack white males. This only encourages white males to unite, as they feel under attack.

MikeH
4 years ago
Reply to  Douglas

Exactly. They spend so much time in their progressive echo chamber that they forget there are others out there who disagree with them. And since they’ve been conditioned to believe that they have the moral high ground, they respond to said disagreement like wounded animals.

DantheMan
4 years ago

I’ll say it again. Illinois woes stem from liberalism. Debt is a result, not the cause. Unlike most Wirepoint stories, this story doesn’t focus on money. It focuses on liberal thinking for which there is no known cure. That is why Illinois is doomed and many of us commenters see no option other than to vacate the premises.

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