Chicago Alderman Joe Moore's Racially Insensitive Yearbook Photos

(Updated, 2-20-2019)~ Years ago, while still in college, future Chicago Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward, Rogers Park) hung with a crowd that some might call racist. The nearly-all white group of students apparently thought it was funny to mock ghetto life.

These are photos (click them to enlarge) from Moore's 1980 yearbook, when Moore was a senior. How do you interpret "The Ghetto" in these images?

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam got in trouble in January, 2019 for yearbook photos showing him in blackface.

Will Northam's fellow Democrat Joe Moore be held to the same scrutiny? (Don't hold your breath.)

What Moore and his gang did is not much different than what a fraternity did in San Diego years later. That fraternity was accused of racism for allegedly mocking Black History Month.  The Associated Press reported this:

Administrators at the University of California, San Diego are investigating a ghetto-themed party organized by fraternity students to mock Black History Month, and will determine if the students involved should be disciplined in the next few weeks....


A party invitation posted on Facebook told students to wear large T-shirts, rapper-style urban clothing by makers such as FUBU, and gold chains, according to a copy posted on the Web site for San Diego TV station 10News. Women were urged to go as "ghetto chicks." The post said such items as watermelon and cheap beer would be served.

What were Joe Moore (photo, right) and his college posse thinking when they created "Joe's Ghetto?"

Moore graduated with a B.A. from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois in 1980.

Related Articles:

Why yearbooks keep revealing skeletons in politicians’ closets (Vox)

Blackface, KKK hoods and mock lynchings: Review of 900 yearbooks finds blatant racism (USA Today)

Joe's Ghetto: The Early Years (Chicago News Bench)