Why I Write

I pondered why it was that my city, my world, was so divided by color.

By Ellis Cose | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Nov 19, 2007

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  • Posted By: julieboland @ 11/13/2007 12:48:53 AM

    Well, I know I am late with this comment, but I feel that is still relevent. WHAT are you thinking when you downplay racist images? "Ignore the Noose Makers"? In your commentary, you make it sound like the charges against the Jena 6 were reduced quickly -- it was months. It was a horrible. It was inexcusable. As a black man, why are you defending racists? I am a 54 year old white woman who finds the situation in Jena LA to be totally inexcusable. Why are you defending it? The noose is quite definitely a threatening symbol. If you came to work tomorrow morning and found a noose on your door, wouldn't you feel that is was a real threat?
    Julie Boland
    901-337-0087

    • Posted By: jade7243 @ 12/01/2007 10:08:24 PM

      To Julie Boland: Did you really want to post a phone number in this comment? Not such a smart idea.
      Second, I think we black folks can decide "who we deserve" and we don't need your help. Third, all black people do not share the same opinions just as not all white folk think like you.

      Mr. Cose is entitled to express his opinions and we all -- regardless of race or ethnicity or any other delimiter -- are free to decide whether or not we agree with his position. Now, I don't see anything here in this column that is "bigoted." If you disagree with his position on the complicated situation in Jena, LA, you are free to do so. But your disagreement with his opinion -- clearly articulated and well presented -- does not make Mr. Cose a racist. Perhaps it paints you as less tolerant because you seem to suggest that you -- the 54-year old white woman -- knows more about racism and the symbolism of nooses that Mr. Cose or any other black person.

  • Posted By: cuilu19880208 @ 11/16/2007 8:01:00 AM

    write for the truth ,write for your conviction

  • Posted By: jabailo @ 11/15/2007 12:50:41 AM

    The post-riot architecture of wasted buildings became the model for the black community all through the 70s and 80s. You note that some flowers are growing where there used to be rubble.

  • Posted By: juancarlos19evc @ 11/14/2007 11:36:02 PM

    I wasn???t born at that time yet, but I think I can understand or imagine how black people felt. 60's were really difficult for them. I think the writer is just expressing his feelings when he was just a kid, that time wasn???t easy is like a war hearing explosions, and see people trying to find an escape. I can guess how he felt when his friends Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were killed. So I can understand him perfectly. For him wasn???t easy trying to be free in his own country.

  • Posted By: s7818 @ 11/13/2007 5:26:49 PM

    I also lived through those harrowing days but at a greater distanse than the writer.It is amazing that one so young was able to capture the prevalent feelings at the time so accurately.i






    i might add

  • Posted By: julieboland @ 11/13/2007 12:59:58 AM

    You should be ashamed of yourself. You have succeeded, but as your last column "Ignore the Noose Makers" and this column show, you are as bigoted as any conservative in the country. My God, black people deserve better than you.

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