Look at your stories as a chance to ‘see beyond skin color’
Editor, Bobby Bryant, I don’t know you nor am I aware of you being present at any (Darlington) City Council meeting. Your refusal to publish a retraction or in the least a further explanation of my words in the context in which I made the black and white comments is an indication of your journalistic character.
What is significant is not what I said, but your decision to extract these specific words from all of the other words I said on how to uplift this broken community. I believe your decision to use the black and white words is divisive and served no purpose for the betterment of the city of Darlington. I believe blacks will interpret them as hopelessness and whites will interpret them as false entitlement.
During that council meeting, the context of my comments followed a white woman who degraded and belittled the good community actions of a new city councilwoman. This white woman admitted that she never attends city meetings and does not serve on any city committees.
In addition, I commented on a very demeaning white woman who feels that she is entitled to photograph every meeting and make ugly, disparaging comments about participants in person and on social media.
You purposefully ignored my opening comments where I stated that I have faithfully attended City Council meetings and serve on two council committees. You also made no mention that I asked the city attorney and the city administrator (because that is their jobs) to help the members of City Council because there is a huge breakdown in the actions of this body striving to represent the citizens of Darlington.
White councilpersons have consistently been demeaning, boisterous and completely out of order during these meetings. Thus, I surmise that in addition to not having a clear understanding of the governing laws of this body, that it is a white and black issue.
I closed my comments with a plea to involve law enforcement in City Council meetings and to change/update the city of Darlington website with words that correctly reflect the climate of all of the citizens of Darlington.
As this paper’s editor, it is my hope that you will consider the divisive community you report news to. Try (to) consider viewing every story as an opportunity to see beyond skin color to the root of reporting the news without bias.
In this age of instant messaging, your articles appear overlong and do not lend themselves to interest in what you report. Change is difficult for everyone. If you ever experienced the sheer joy in reporting without bias, please bring that interest to today and realize everyone wants to be accepted, especially in print.
Gladys Wingate Jules,
Darlington
(When the premise is true and the conclusion is false, the conclusion was not in the premise.)
Editor’s note: Ms. Jules made a formal statement to City Council on Nov. 13 touching on a number of issues. The News & Press quoted some of her comments in its Nov. 21 issue. In our Dec. 26 issue, the newspaper included some of those comments in a feature on “2018: The Year in Quotes.” Ms. Jules felt that it was unfair and “divisive” to print those quotes again. She wrote this letter to elaborate on her view.
