I had planned on writing about news and events that may impact the local community at a state or national level over the next several months. However, I have found a topic that I feel requires me to lend my observations and opinions here locally and immediately: Editor Jack Ryan and The Enterprise-Journal.

And I have so much to say to you, as a respresentative of the Black community down here in Southwest Misssissippi. This is going to take a lot of newspaper issues to get it all out. So, let me start with an introductory letter:
Shame on you.

You have an award winning newspaper that I have a great deal of respect for and I am a subscriber of. But you are treating me and people like me with the same contempt that your predecesors demonstrated to Black people.

And, why wouldn’t you? You’ve never been faced with Black people in control of local government, or even having our own newspaper to add “balance” to what has been a consistently unbalance news media.
Your news reporting and editorial naturally have and continue to have a white point of view that has been forced down the throat of the Black community.

No more. We must balance this out. There are many viewpoints in the deep South. And there are many different interests. The interest of the poor, of the wealthy, of the educated, of the sports fan, of women and of men, of Blacks and whites. Everything is okay when those interest do not conflict with each other. But what happens when one interest is regularly enforced over another?

For example, what happens when the interests and preferences of white people are placed before Black people? History has demonstrated that the interests of Black people are often ignored, discarded or watered down when our interest conflicts with the viewpoint, preferences and activities of white people. At times, it is almost like we, i.e., Black people are invisible in this country and especially in Pike county. Even when Blacks are in positions of prominence or power, we are expected to act and think according to a standard that is acceptable to white people.

The Enterprise-Journal is a good example of that. It reports news and publishes articles that prioritizes the white community’s viewpoint. However, by doing it this way, the true thoughts, activities and viewpoints of the Black community is often negelected or ignored. It is so normal and expected to happen that way. But, it’s time for a change.

Your newspaper must be held accountable.
Maybe now some of are white readers will understand why so many Black people in Pike county were outraged when Editor Jack Ryan stated that the Black community was fed up with Mayor Zach Patterson and no longer supported him. How can any white person speak for Black people, who until now, have been barely audible in Pike county. Of course some white people will never get it. Some just don’t care about the ‘folk on the other side of the track’.

But, I don’t blame you, when Black people have stood by and allowed this to happen. Everything had to be on your terms, even if your terms were biased and sometimes corrupt. Yes, corrupt when you have used your newspaper as a tool to purposely attack and attempt to end the administration of one Mayor Zach Patterson, a Black man with some backbone who is not afraid to stand up to the established and racist system of government and economy in McComb, Mississippi.

So, news flash to Jack Ryan, the Enterprise-Journal, and the white community: You will be held accountable. Those days of business as usual and good ole’ boy system is coming to an end.
Shame on you Jack Ryan and Enterprise-Journal. You are doing a great disservice to the entire community by waging what appears to be a personal campaign.

In your editorial dated August 16, 2007 titled “The silence of the lambs”, you invited the selectmen to join David Myers and stand up to the mayor. This was one of many more editorials and articles to come where you instruct the selectmen what to do against Mayor Patterson.

You later call his actions “silly” and show great disrespect to a man in his position in another article that you are quoted, several times. Indeed, his treatment by you in some of your newspaper articles, some of your editorials and some of the guest editorials you have allowed, appear to be calculated against him.

Now, I don’t go along with everything Mayor Patterson says or does. But, he is the mayor. I have seen no record that shows that you have treated any other mayor the way you have treated him.
If you don’t believe me, then tune in next week for my next letter. I’m going to give you my “two cents”. The difference is: I will not be a coward and not put my name behind my opinion.