can't uninstall package with pip

Question

I have installed pillow package, and uninstall attempt with sudo pip uninstall pillow leads to this message:

Not uninstalling Pillow at /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages, owned by OS

Manual uninstall doesn't work, because pip writes down installed packages somewhere, successfuly blocking me from installing the package again.

Answer 1

This python library is important to keep Linux Mint Cinnamon running. It could be removed with sudo apt-get remove python-pil (not pip), but it would most likely break the operating system.

Answer 2

This should fix the problem, as it fixed mine on Ubuntu 14.x install pip (even if it is already installed), securely download get-pip.py from here https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/ Then run the following:

sudo python get-pip.py