Right and wrong in black and white by Tom Bonnette - posted Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 @ 1:30 pm  E-mail Story |  Print Story  Headlines depicting the recent flap over the firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod because of comments she made at a NAACP is proof-positive that the ugly specter of race politics has reared its head in the nation. I hope that we can be spared such nonsense here at home, but there are always some who want to see the world through race-colored glasses and we all lose when when we let black and white cloud our vision of right and wrong. In the past week, I have received two letters alluding to the fact that my reporting and editorializing has been racially tinged because of criticisms I have had of Jackie Johnson, the first black man to be elected mayor of Winnsboro. One of these letters can be found on page 5A of this week's Franklin Sun. As I have written in past columns, we should all get behind Johnson and wish him the best. If he succeeds as mayor it's good news for everyone, regardless of skin color. I have praised Johnson when I felt he deserved it and I have been critical of him when I believed it was warranted and I will continue to do so. If anyone believes that race has anything to do with my dealings with Johnson, they should have a conversation with the mayor of Alexandria—a white man. I think he would attest to the fact that I was always fair with him when I worked as a reporter for The Town Talk, although I wasn't always easy on him. The reason that race-baiting continues to survive long after it should have suffered a well-deserved death is that it is often an effective tool to blunt criticism without those who hurl accusations of racism having to back their assertions with proof. There is real racism, but there is no race that has a monopoly on hatred. Racism is a human problem and since we are all human there is no group of people that can say that there are none among them who don't subscribe to this dangerous brand of ignorance. When we ascribe racism to what isn't, however, it dilutes the indignation we should have when confronted with true racism. Like the boy who cried wolf, we are ignored when we try to alert others to the danger among us because no one takes us seriously any more. One of the saddest aspects of the race argument is that people often confuse race with ethnicity and use the two words interchangeably. Race denotes ancestral groups based on heritable characteristics. Ethnicity goes much deeper. It's based on people with a shared experience and culture. A white man from Mississippi has much more in common ethically with a black man from Louisiana then he does a white man from Europe. Similarly, a black man from Mississippi has much more in common with a white man from Louisiana then he does a black man from Africa. Everyone has unique experiences that make us different from one another. Most of us come from different families and have different people who have shaped our lives. People in Winnsboro, however, have much more in common with each another than superficial divisions of race. It's beyond human power to peer into each others hearts to learn what makes us tick, but we are known by our actions. There are many things that make a person worthy. Happily, race isn't one of them. Having beat this horse to death, I would be amiss if I didn't use the remainder of this column to question Johnson on his attempt to replace two long-time Winnsboro employees for no good reason that I can figure out. A new mayor has a right to have a say in who he will have to work with, but, by all accounts, city attorney Tab Singer and fire chief Truman Welch are good men who are competent in their jobs. Replacing Singer with Carol Lexing, a Monroe attorney, would have cost Winnsboro tens of thousands of dollars. Replacing Welch would have been as unnecessary as it would have been foolish. This is especially true since Johnson admittedly never checked the credentials of Sykes Hamilton, the man Johnson wanted to be fire chief. While Johnson said that Welch wasn't working out as fire chief, I find that hard to believe. If Welch, a 40 year veteran of the Winnsboro fire department who has served as chief since 1991, wasn't doing his job, we at The Franklin Sun would have known about it before now. One former firefighter I talked to about the matter described Welch as a competent man who is "great to work for." I can't look into Johnson's heart to discern why he would want to replace these men, but I hope that color didn't have anything to do with it. Johnson has billed himself as a man who would work to unify Winnsboro and I hope he keeps that in mind as he continues to serve as mayor.