There was a column in yesterday’s paper about the public meeting regarding the Worcester Youth Center’s executive director using the n-word when dealing with youths.
The author mentions that Youth Center board of directors president Allen Fletcher rambled on about race for awhile, alienating many of those present, and then left.
What the author doesn’t mention is that, immediately before walking out of the meeting, Mr. Fletcher got into an argument with another person about what he (Mr. Fletcher) considered a racist (anti-white) incident at the Youth Center. (I got the impression there was a lot of background here, none of which I am privy to.) So it was even more dramatic than the column describes.
Also, to be fair to the members of the board who spoke after Mr. Fletcher, I had the impression that they leapt to his defense in spite of his comments, not because they necessarily agreed with what he said.
In any case, while this incident was the most memorable part of the night, it wasn’t the most important. It’s disappointing that the columnist gives two sentences to the comments of the non-board members at the meeting. Because that was what touched my heart. I am proud to live in the same city as these folks.
You don’t need me to tell you what they think. You can watch the uncut video of some interviews taped after the meeting. Bits of this were also part of the latest Worcester Indymedia news video.
Lest this post be too negative, here are three nice things: Drupal 5 is out, I started a page on playing with Worcester’s webcams, and my roommate insists I link to Faith Browser. So there you go.