I am writing in regards to your paper’s decision to ignore the protest walk from Saturday, June 13.
The citizens of Creston have no way to fully understand what minorities go through if they are silenced like that. Here is an example:
Because my wife and I are white and our son (Austin) is mixed raced, our personal perspective on how minorities are treated has changed over the years. There are racists in Creston. My son has been asked to leave homes by parents and we’ve had police to our house many times to deal with racist vandalism. Seven times we’ve had racist acts committed at our house. We’ve had 2 broken windows, trash dumped on our driveway the day after the KKK pic hit the news; our front door was tied shut to the railing; a sweet potato was tied to our door; banging on our house and I was met by three people yelling “fuc... nig...!” as they fled. So many other events happened away from home such as at the high school when a student was arrested for threatening to kill “s ... Nig... and his family.” After that we had him switch schools.
Now I respect the police, but I take issue with this – during the first 3.5 months my son drove, he was pulled over 13 times by Creston, Des Mones, Greenfield, and the highway patrol. Never a ticket, just harassed and often searched. Once they pulled guns. Compare that to me – I’ve been pulled over two times in 20 years, both times my son was sitting next to me.
Our only voice, which your publisher refuses to [publish], was to peacefully walk on Saturday with my son carrying a “End racism” sign. Austin and his best friend, Kylan (also mixed raced), were flipped off and given hateful looks and comments. Please don’t misunderstand me, there are so many proactive positive people in this community, from Nancy Loudon to Dr. Ralston to Tiffany Gale, to so many others (like my neighbors) who pay attention to what’s happening outside of their own lives and they choose to help.
That peaceful walk Tiffany (Gale) started was news worthy and healthy for this community. I ask that you review your publisher’s decision to muzzle its affect.
It’s healthy to look at our own thoughts and decide if helping others is truly worth our time.