TKR Tuesday: Music Concert Masking and B.S. From Former Bull
TKR Tuesday: Music Concert Masking and B.S. From Former Bull
Orgs can't move on from forced masking and Steve Kerr emerges as NBA Woke Daddy No. 1
Happy Tuesday ! A spat of hot weather hits Chicagoland this week. Begs the question…are two days of 90+ temperatures best labeled a heat wave or spell? I lean towards ‘spell’ or ‘spat’ but I can be sold on ‘wave.’
Either way, summer may not be officially here but it will sure feel like it this week. Support local businesses – stop by your neighborhood lemonade stand.
On with TKR Tuesday:
FORCED MASKING AT MUSIC CONCERT
This past weekend, the Illinois Music Association hosted its annual contest at Wheaton College. The concert featured hundreds musicians from all over the state performing piano, vocal and all different types of woodwind and string instruments.
Between performers and spectators, organizers expected as many as 5,000 people to filter inside and out of Barrows Auditorium on the campus of Wheaton College Saturday and Sunday.
Aside from a love and appreciation of live musical performing, one other requirement for all participants – masking.
The board of directors – made up of volunteers all over the age of 60 – voted earlier this winter to include the mask requirement. They did not reverse the requirement before this past weekend’s event.
“We knew that masking would be a subject of controversy. Across the country, people agree or don’t agree,” Pat Bartell, co-President of the IMA told The Kerr Report.
Bartell said her concerns were with volunteers (many of them elderly) who were on site all day long Saturday and Sunday. She said the IMA was having a hard time getting volunteers for the event this year due to fears over Covid.
When participants registered for the event, organizers put in a disclaimer about masking and that it could be mandated for the contest. I received multiple emails and messages from parents upset that the IMA remained stubborn about the requirement. In the days leading up to the event, IMA officials sent out a letter saying non-compliance “could result in criminal trespass charges” as businesses and organizations “have the right and authority to demand that customers wear masks on their property or at an event.”
When I spoke to Bartell by phone last week, she failed to grasp why spectators might object to such threatening language.
“I don’t understand why they are complaining. They knew it was a possibility yet they agreed to it,” Bartell said. “I don’t know what to do.”
What she and fellow board members could have done was do as most businesses/schools/events are doing now that insist on making masking an issue – make it optional. Scare tactics make these organizers come across as petty, thuggish and even more worrisome, monocratic.
DuPage County (where Wheaton College is located) and Illinois Department of Public Health do not recommend forced masking. It begs the question:
Can a private organization force people into complying with a public health policy not supported by government agencies?
“You can’t get arrested for not wearing a mask,” City of Wheaton Deputy Chief of Police P.J. Youker said in an interview with TKR.
Youker said where these arbitrary restrictions get complicated is when there are multiple authoritative bodies involved and how “each layer of government can restrict usage if they have the authority over an area of land or lease agreement.”
He equated the IMA situation with that of a concert when an organizer refuses to allow flash photography or video to be taken of a performance. If a spectator takes out their cell phone and shoots a picture or video, that person can be asked to leave.
If they refuse, then things can escalate.
“They can be put on notice (given a warning). If they still don’t abide, police could be involved then,” Youker said. “Someone in authority could say they are no longer welcome and it could be considered trespassing and if they wanted to pursue charges, they could technically be arrested.
“Law enforcement will never get involved unless there was actually criminal trespass.”
I did not hear of any trespass issues out of the IMA concert this past weekend, although there were a number of non-compliers.
Bartell admitted the IMA was in no position to enforce its ‘mask mandate.’
“Are we going to call the police? No. Are we going to force people out? No. All we can do is ask politely and if they don’t (wear a mask) there’s nothing we can do about it,” Bartell said. “We’re not going to have an argument in front of hundreds of children.”
While the IMA deserves accolades for its service to the arts, it deserves admonishment for its dishonesty on its toothless masking policy.
Private and public organizations cannot impose rules they have no legal authority to enforce. Forcing spectators to mask, or show proof of vax or negative Covid test, these are all requirements that must be supported by a public health agency under guidance from the state legislature. The courts over the past year have affirmed that stance. Bartell and the IMA ignored all of this and went rogue. They surfed the internet (“I searched various police sites, and that was what I found,” Bartell said) and came up with a bogus rule and pass it off as law. That type of autonomous policy scheming is reckless and dangerous.
What’s to stop another organization from trying to pull the same stunt?
They will when organizations like the IMA get away with it.
STEVE KERR AND FALSE VIRTUE
In the spring of 1998, I was a young reporter (certainly younger than I am now) covering the Chicago Bulls NBA title run. This was the Bulls team featured in the great 2020 ESPN “Last Dance” documentary.
Amidst the craziness of that time, the ceaseless media fascination and scrutiny, reporters could always seek shelter by the locker used by one voice of reason.
That voice was often Steve Kerr.
Kerr (no relation to the author. If you saw me play basketball, you’d know) would answer questions with a matter-of-fact humility, grateful to be part of the insanity and greatness of the Bulls dynasty.
“I’m just along for the ride,” Kerr would always say at one point during every interview.
Almost a quarter century later, my how things have changed.
Now the coach of the Golden State Warriors, Kerr’s worldview has not aged well.
It’s gone from common sense populism to overbearing wokeism.
During the NBA Finals – Kerr’s Warriors team is playing the Boston Celtics – we’ve been spared Kerr’s lectures on gun control and Covid. In pre-and-post-game comments, he’s sticking with basketball.
But over the past few weeks, Kerr has not been shy about sharing his opinions on the recent school shooting in Texas and then, lobbying for stricter gun control laws.
Here’s what he said after the mass shooting at a Texas school in late May:
This was Kerr during a June 5 press conference pleading for tighter gun control legislation:
Notice the Virtue Signal Batman costume.
Throughout much of the NBA playoffs, Kerr has coached while masked.
This even after he got infected with Covid. It makes no sense.
Not a single member of corporate media covering the NBA has asked Kerr about why he wears a mask or challenged him on his statements in the wake of the Texas shooting.
Not a one.
That’s because he’s part of the NBA ruling class – a championship player and coach who spews the leftist, wokeist messaging celebrated by those who cover The League.
And his emotion-laden rants reverberate across social media. That’s how the algorithms work – rewarding bluster and swagger.
Kerr has plenty of that. But not much substance.
There’s no data to support his perpetual mask wearing. And his current views on gun control white wash his comments from two years ago after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In June of 2020, Kerr joined the Bay Area activist group Black Organizing Project in calling for the removal of police officers from an Oakland school district and replace them with “non-uniformed peacekeeping ambassadors.”
Kerr’s comments at the time:
This to me, what it’s about. Because you got to learn, you have to understand what is happening out there. If you care about something you got to add your own work, your own impact, that’s what I’m trying to do.
You really have to listen to the community in terms of what’s happening and what’s best for the community. That’s what the community is calling for and I’m all in support of that.
Let me get this right.
Less than a month ago, Kerr calls for immediate legislation to protect kids from guns.
Yet in 2020, he wanted police officers removed from schools because he felt kids aren’t safe with a law enforcement presence on school property.
So what is it Coach Kerr? What do you actually believe?
I think he’s drunk on social media reach and media adulation.
A heckuva basketball player and coach, Steve Kerr.
But a hypocrite on social issues.
I’m calling it out because no one else will.
NUT JOB PHOTO OF WEEK
Want to know what mental illness looks like?
This is what it looks like.
This woman is in her house. She has kids living in the house.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of people in this country living the same way as her.
The virus ain’t the problem, folks.
Have a good rest of your day and week. Talk soon.
For story ideas, article comments/feedback, media inquiries and more, drop note to jonjkerr@gmail.com, or @jonjkerr on Twitter.
Thanks for keeping the focus on the face diapers (gas masks) and related topics!
I think this aspect of things that we went through should have been behind us quite a while ago, but because of certain people, we are still reminded of the idiocies of the past. That picture is horrifying, and her poor kids. ;(