The Rev. Cardes Brown (center left) is leading an effort to get Mayor Bill Knight to apologize for a statement he made about police Chief Tim Bellamy.The Greensboro NAACP reiterated a call for Mayor Bill Knight to apologize for a statement expressing the view that Tim Bellamy and predecessor Robert White were selected as police chief because of their race.
I and another reporter asked the Rev. Cardes Brown, president of the Greensboro NAACP, why objections were not raised against candidate Knight's remark during the election, when voters might have considered it while evaluating Knight against his opponent, Yvonne Johnson.
Brown responded, "Some would say that hindsight is 20/20.... There are many regrets as it relates to things that have happened and that could have happened." (Some timely reflection on the significance of the remark here.)
The formal statement by the local NAACP and other groups is that "the language Mayor Knight used is not only divisive and offensive, it misrepresents the truth; and whenever falsehoods are declared they should be recanted and those who have been injured by them should receive an apology. It is troubling that the mayor's ramblings would indicate that one third of the city's population could have been selected as chief of police, based on his assessment, because one third of the population of Greensboro is represented by people of color."
Brown went on to say, "I want it to be understood that there are differences of opinion, as it relates to issues, with the chief of police. These differences, however, are in respect to issues, and not his qualifications to be chief of police."
UPDATE: The News & Record's Doug Clarke, the only other working print journalist present when Knight made his infamous remark, notes that his paper endorsed against Knight partly on the basis of the remark and voters didn't seem to much care at the time.
1 comment:
It is not racist to state that a person was hired because of his or her "color." It is simply stating an opinion and in this case probably a fact. The City of Greensboro has hired according to color in the past so it is about time this issue was brought into the open by a couragious elected official. For example, I think the entire MWBE office staff is black. What about that? Do you think they were hired because of color? Of course they were.
Years ago UNCG stated that it preferred a female chancellor....and then it hired a female chancellor. You could say that UNCG hired according to "sex" and you would be right.
Those blacks who are all upset about Knight's statement are out to make something out of nothing...which they do at every turn.
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