Saturday, March 10, 2007

Anger in Barry County

So much anger in Barry County.

Two weeks ago Don Johnson wrote a letter to the Banner and it was published in the letters to the editor. In this letter he made many harsh and very untrue statements concerning race, our country’s history, and what should be the outcome of the Dickinson murder case suspect. This letter was not truly surprising to those that are regular readers of the Banner as we have witnessed Don’s letters in the past. He always seems to be attacking someone, somewhere.

What was so surprising was the response to this particular letter. Instead of someone rebutting the claims of the letter most wrote in to personally attack the writer and even the paper for publishing the letter. And if that were not bad enough, a few even went so far as to personally attack David Young as he is the one ultimately responsible for the letters published. Only one writer, Stacy Garrison, attempted to take this on in a constructive manner. He mentioned several black famous people and somewhat refrained from attacks.

My hats off to you Stacy.

What was even more interesting was the writers on several blog sites concerning Barry County. Most of these writers took the low road themselves and made personal attacks. Even when one was challenged to do this in a positive manner the writer choose to continue with bigotry and verbal assaults instead of taking on the actual subject. It seems this writer choose anonymity and cowardice instead of strength of character.

What this original letter did was expose so many like individuals. Even though they are on opposing sides of this matter, they are one and the same. They each carry the same anger, the same ignorance, and the same preset ideas. This is a very sad statement of the writers in this county.