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Sally Brown: Let Them Drown


Yes, I know I already wrote about this. Alas, it’s back for another season and the plot line is pathetically similar.

Recap:

Falling In, March 25, 2023

About the new Mall restrictions on teens, and reflecting on this quote from the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in. 

White Grievance HoCo Style, September 1, 2024

About the new YEP programs for youth and the disappointing (but not surprising) response from racist trolls.

Dear me. It is so terribly hard to be white. Imagine spending one’s days looking for opportunities to complain that Black people may possibly be getting something that you didn’t get. 

Guess what? They’re still doing it. Yesterday’s update on the YEP programs brought out the same old, same old. If these folks don’t see enough white faces in the pictures, they are sure someone is up to no good. 

Welcome to Howard County, where folks see racism everywhere but where it actually is - - in the mirror.

Everyone is up in arms about those young people causing trouble at the Mall or at school. “Somebody should do something!”

Well, guess what? Somebody did do something and is still doing something by responding to a community need and investing in young people.

But that’s not what they wanted, was it? They wanted something punitive, something exclusionary. Most of all they wanted a big, scary, incendiary issue to flog the County Executive with. The Black, Democratic, elected-easily-for-two-terms County Executive.

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in. 

But these folks seem to think,

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. Just let them drown.

They don’t want to know why they’re falling in. They just want them out of the way. 

The truth is that the reason these folks are so uncomfortable seeing so many happy and successful Black residents on the County Executive’s Facebook page is because there have never, ever been enough there before he was elected. Where were they before? They certainly belonged there. 

If previous local leaders tended to include only as many nonwhites as would not make white folks uncomfortable, that’s not representation. It’s tokenism.  (White Grievance HoCo Style)

Most of all, it reinforced the lie that a reasonable and accurate representation of people who aren’t white is something to feel uncomfortable about, even offended.

This whole situation reminds me of a verse in the Book of Matthew (wild paraphrase ahead). 

We played wedding and you wouldn’t dance, we played funeral and you wouldn’t mourn. - - Matthew 11:22

Or maybe it’s simpler than that: damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 

Today’s post is dedicated to a very good person who rolled up her sleeves on the County Executive’s page and refused to let the trolls go unanswered. Brava.





Post Script: About Sally Brown

All I want is what’s coming to me. All I want is my fair share.

The reason I keep coming back to Sally Brown year after year is this: in this moment she looks to be a harmless-looking child, but, all the while, she is spouting the demands of complete selfishness. She has no concern for anyone but herself, no awareness about how her “fair share” may far outreach what is reasonable if others are not to be left wanting. - - The Villain I Fear, December 20, 2021


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