Letters to the editor — Monday (1-11-2016)
Published 12:06 am Monday, January 11, 2016
How segregation persists in 2016
What does segregation look like in 2016? Forget the Whites Only drinking fountains. Forget the separate entrances to movies. Forget the We Don’t Serve Coloreds.
2016 is so much more subtle, so insidious, so easy to ignore, shake your head — Gosh what do they want now? 2016 segregation looks like this: A small town just north of Salisbury, NC, with a predominantly black population, has NO school (not for decades!), NO library, NO health center, NO enclosed recreation center, NO laundromat, NO grocery store. But, what it does have is a very high poverty rate which conveniently allows the county to use that demographic to seek and get federal funding for goods and services. But, gosh, no funding for a school, a library, a health center — and that’s a whole other story … Why was the funding granted for a health center in East Spencer used to put it in Spencer? Oh! East Spencer didn’t have a building. Didn’t have a building? Really? A $2 million grant (+ or -) and East Spencer couldn’t find a building? What?
And meanwhile, the county says they’ll give the town $65K to match a grant for a splash pad in the park — which is far removed from the most populated areas of East Spencer, and which would only be open three months of the year? Wow — and NO school, NO library, NO rec center, etc.
That’s what segregation looks like in 2016 … or is it (rhetorically) more a form of social engineering — this stepping on the necks of the poor, isolating an entire municipality from being a viable community? And don’t assume that this is throwing rocks at white people, because it isn’t only whites involved in these manipulations of the lives and (not so-)wellbeing of the poor.
— Whitney Peckman
Salisbury
It’s shameful to blame the poor
We have already contacted Greg Edds and requested a meeting. We believe that Pierce’s and Edds’ comments were discriminative, racist and cruel. These people are willing to sue to use a good man’s name, fighting to talk Jesus but refuse to represent him.
I’m sure Jesus would not permit a racist attack on people or blatant disrespect for the poor. County commissioners are supposed to serve all citizens of Rowan County regardless of social, economic or political status. To blame poor black and white people for the county’s economic downturn is ignorant, shameful and unwarranted.
Mr. Edds needs to realize you shouldn’t have to own a home to be considered worthy of respect. Mr. Pierce needs to understand that all black people can’t be bought for a barbecue pork shoulder, color TV or a few dollars.
— Scott Teamer
Scott Teamer is president of the Salisbury-Rowan Chapter of the NAACP.
Higher-wage jobs will boost economy
This is in reference to the commissioners’ retreat concerning poverty in Rowan County:
A man told me years ago that Rowan County doesn’t want any industry that would bring higher wages because the current business owners would have to increase their employee’s wages to keep their employees. I didn’t quite understand that as a young man, but as the years have gone by I’ve seen business come and go in Rowan County and learned that, for the most part, he was right.
Who is elected to the commission? By and large, business owners! They try to keep the wages down by “recruiting” cheap wage industry and retailers. They just don’t seem to understand that increasing the income of Rowan County citizens would help everyone. It also means that those business owners would have to do something they don’t really want to do … pay better wages to keep their employees!
I commend the current board chairman, Mr. Edds, for his stand concerning that very issue. I really believe he would like to see income levels go up.
If we don’t get better paying jobs in this area, people who get laid off from low wage jobs will never have an incentive to get back into the work place. They can do just as well with food stamps and welfare assistance as they can working on that low wage job. Retail business usually pays minimum wage or just above it and has very few if any benefits. Industry is what we need to elevate the overall pay rate in Rowan County. Industry also brings benefits!
Our Cabarrus County neighbors are doing that and enticing the people of Rowan County to go there to work. People who work here will spend money here and what does that mean? Tax revenue! It also means people will be paying more in property taxes when they can afford better housing and vehicles. Let’s get busy bringing industry that will increase the wage rates for the good people of this county.
— Jimmy Miller
Salisbury
Motto just a form of manipulation
It’s so interesting to watch the same people who so unwavering decry the fabricated threat of Sharia law applaud its Christian equivalent in my hometown of China Grove. Do you not even realize that this is politics?
If putting “In God we trust” on everything save Otis the drunk were that important, I think we would have done it sometime within the last 50 years that it has existed as our “motto.” Politicians know what you’re afraid of and they know how to manipulate it.
If Mayor Lee Withers cared about this town and the people in it, would he be wasting his time and energy on meaningless platitudes or would he be focusing his efforts on revitalizing a community that has long been suffering from economic hardship?
— Jonathon Bost
China Grove