Helen Gym begins to show her true colors

And now, Helen Gym begins to reveal her true self.

The true self that is consumed with nonessentials and superficials.

She lifted the curtain at a Thursday forum sponsored by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists in an exchange with Jeff Brown, another mayoral candidate.

They were asked how they would cut the lengthy wait times that plagued people attempting to buy properties through the Philadelphia Land Bank. 

Not the most burning issue for most people, but what the hell. (Land banks are public authorities created to acquire, hold, manage, and sometimes redevelop property in order to return these properties to productive use, such as increasing affordable housing.)

Brown said the bank should be shut down and its assets sold off to Black and brown developers, which would create wealth in the minority community.

Gym countered with a clunky reply that said Brown doesn’t “have an understanding of how we direct a real, city-led vision for affordability in an environment in which market forces destroyed Black and brown communities.”

Kind of a combination of racist theory and Marxism, but OK. 

“Helen is the least informed person on this stage,” replied Brown. “She knows nothing about the free market. She knows nothing about real estate.”

A little rough, but probably true. Notice he attacked her knowledge, not her gender or her race.

Gym responded, according to the Inquirer, that Brown “sounds like an angry man right now” and “has no respect for women.”

Bingo!

She takes a legitimate policy difference and twists it into some kind of misogyny. Criticism of her becomes an attack on all women. This is slightly different from her usual approach, which is to racialize almost any issue.

It immediately brought to mind a famously racialized mayor, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, who took any criticism of her half-witted policies to be racist, misogynist, or homophobic. Lightfoot is a Black, and lesbian, who at one point said she would not take questions from white reporters. 

Say what you will about pinhead Jim Kenney, he never called his critics anti-male, anti-white, or anti-Irish. (He would not answer questions from me,  but that wasn’t because I am white. It was because I condemned his ridiculous actions.)

The shrewish Gym also said Brown “has no respect for people who have a different vision from you.”

This is hilarious coming from a loudmouth who has as much respect for different opinions as Vlad Putin.

As a political analyst once observed, “If you are in Philadelphia politics and haven’t been attacked by Helen Gym, you aren’t in Philadelphia politics.”

The idea of four years of identity whining from a Mayor Gym makes my blood run cold.