To the editor:
It has taken me several days to formulate a response to the Mount Airy News report on the Surry County board meeting on July 21 (County board decries NAACP memo, July 22). In that time I have found the text of the statement in the Elkin Tribune. If it was available in the Mount Airy News, I did not find it in the on-line version. Your report of the board meeting led me to expect inflammatory language in the statement. There is none. It is a moderate call for recognition of racial inequality throughout our country and a request for collaboration to address the inequality in a “proactive and collective manner.” (By the way, using the word “collective” does not make one a Marxist.)
The statement in no way makes Surry County “look bad,” it calls for collaboration, not confrontation. And the suggestion for “focus on cultural competency, educational training, as well as a review of current hiring practices” is reasonable. Nowhere in the statement is Surry County condemned as racist. Instead, the statement is an effort to encourage the community as a whole to ensure that biased behavior is avoided. Such cooperation is important to avoid an incident such as the death of George Floyd.
It’s pretty clear that Commissioner Johnson needed to seek input from the other members of the board. I can’t help noting that the board is made up exclusively of white male individuals. Overall, a different response was needed from the board. They could have chosen to support the NAACP rather than make predictable rants in opposition. Surry County along with the rest of the country needs leaders to acknowledge problems and choose words and actions that resolve and heal. We need leaders to bridge the social and economic divide, not widen it.
May we all have the humility to seek improvement and reconciliation instead of defensiveness and self-justification.
Christina Connell
Dobson
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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