Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: McQueary's fake apology. Assures us she is 'not a racist'.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: McQueary's fake apology. Assures us she is 'not a racist'.:

McQueary's fake apology. Assures us she is 'not a racist'.

I wrote what I did not out of lack of empathy, or racism, but out of long-standing frustration with Chicago’s poorly managed finances. -- Kristen McQueary

Take note: Whenever a writer has to explain to readers that they're not really a racist or lacking in empathy -- they probably are.

Kristen McQueary

McQueary's apology ("Hurricane Katrina and what was in my heart") for wishing an apocalyptic disaster on Chicago, is not an apology at all. Rather, it's just more of the same, a doubling down in fact, but with this little caveat:

Many readers thought my premise — through my use of metaphor and hyperbole — was out of line. I certainly hear you. I am reading your tweets and emails. And I am horrified and sickened at how that column was read to mean I would be gunning for actual death and destruction.

Yes, you read it right. She's not apologizing. She's only sorry we took it that way. She's shocked that we read her orgasmic descriptors (think Meg Ryan in When Sally Met Harry) of a storm in Chicago — "an unpredictable, haughty, devastating swirl of fury. A dramatic levee break. Geysers bursting through manhole covers", the way we did.

Yes, she's even reading our tweets and emails (there have been hundreds) and saysshe hears us. How could she not? I can't remember blow-back like this to any previous Tribune editorials. Not even the one where the board called for aMike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: McQueary's fake apology. Assures us she is 'not a racist'.: