Twenty-two years later, some things haven’t changed

Early morning, June 2, 1999. I remember exactly where I was at and what I was doing. More on that later.

This morning, though — June 1, 2021 — I woke and got straight to work, jumpstarting my day early to make up for the Monday holiday. First thing I did was listen to a story on National Public Radio by Smoky Mountain News Politics Editor Cory Vaillancourt about the small motel in Maggie Valley with the controversial sign that was the catalyst for a community rally in support of law enforcement.

If you haven’t read the story or don’t know what I’m talking about, go to our website and you can find the print version, or go to Blue Ridge Public Radio’s site and find the radio version. This is not just an important local issue but one that’s been debated everywhere from the Oval Office on down to the county courthouse lawn.

After listening to the story and re-reading the print version, I started thinking about an opinion piece I could write for this week’s edition. Then I re-read Smoky Mountain News Staff Writer Holly Kays’ story — also in last week’s edition — about the plans for the Confederate statue on the steps of Jackson County’s iconic courthouse. County commissioners plan to alter the statue’s inscription by covering “Our heroes of the Confederacy” and replacing it with wording which says the statue was erected “… in memory of those who died during the American Civil War.”

The decision is stirring feelings on all sides of this emotional issue, and commissioner themselves were not unanimous in their vote to make the changes. How to handle Confederate monuments is a sensitive, delicate topic that is evolving even as I write this today, an issue I’m sure we’ll be writing about well into the future.

While reading the stories from The Smoky Mountain News and several other media outlets — national and regional — regarding police reform and Confederate monuments, I was reminded of how good reporting can enlighten one’s thinking. Too often the stereotypes regarding what “real mountaineers” believe or what “outsiders” believe turns out to be just plain wrong. Young versus old, Boomer versus Gen X’er, conservative versus progressive, local versus transplant, immigrant versus seventh generation American — however you want to slice it, more times than not if you really listen you’ll find that most people have more in common than some want us to believe.

As we mark the 22nd anniversary of this newspaper’s founding, there is much that has changed very little in that time span. While the larger media world has undergone a metamorphosis none could have predicted during this time, the foundations of good journalism remain the same. And please, don’t confuse the media bias on cable TV and their lunatic talking heads with what those of us in the trenches of local journalism are doing. We are fighting for our lives doing what I think is important work while they get million-dollar salaries for spewing hate and division.

Back 22 years ago in our first issue, I described what we at The Smoky Mountain News wanted to do: “If this newspaper has a mission, it’s to help the people in this region make informed decisions. As the pace of change cascades like a waterfall upon us, we’ll need to be armed with good information if we are to make the best choices.” That simple truth still guides us as we move into an unknown future.

And back then on June 2, 1999? Well, we had spent a year planning this newspaper’s start, what it would look like, what stories would be in the first issue, who we could get to advertise, all of that. That Wednesday morning, though, we — me, Greg Boothroyd and Neal Torda — found ourselves staring at a mountain of 12,000 newspapers and wondering how in the hell we would ever get them distributed in a four-county region and then find time to do it all again in one week.

It was game on, so we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Some things never change. (Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

Scott McLeod Editor

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Some need to expand their news sources

To the Editor:

As an occasional writer of letters to the editor I sometimes receive feedback, mostly positive but sometimes negative or dismissive. Most of the time I don’t hear anything, which causes me to wonder if I was just speaking to the void. I was very surprised then to see my name at the beginning of a guest column, no less. I am, therefore, gratified that people are indeed paying attention.

I am old enough to remember the old South with its white only rest rooms and water fountains. I don’t have a personal acquaintance with the situation that she described but I am not unmindful of them. I know that things like that occurred. Maybe Mrs. Curry thought that I didn’t know rather than being, like some, determined to live as if it were perpetually 1965 in Selma, Alabama. We have certainly come a long way since then. The death of all accusations of systemic racism should have been final with the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and his re-election in 2012. If there is still a racial disparity in various areas, we should look for other reasons rather than resorting to knee-jerk racism accusations

It is to the credit of the writer and her husband that they didn’t teach anything like what I referred to in my letter. What I am referring to is of fairly recent vintage and perhaps was not on their radar by the time they retired. I also was not saying that Critical Race Theory was presently being taught in our local schools but it is being pushed elsewhere as I will soon explain. Bad ideas seem to have the ability to really get around so — as the financial people like to say — past performance does not predict future results. It is easier to confront these damaging ideas before they take deep root. Of course, it can be denied that CRT is being taught if they don’t call it that. “Equity” should set off alarm bells as well. Poison by any other name is just as toxic.

It is very likely that the writer and I inhabit different media universes. While the alphabet media is not above promoting completely false stories, its main deficiency is what it does not report at all. Therefore, many people never hear of important developments. I had heard of CRT through Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” and Ibram Kendi’s “How to Be An Antiracist” where one is automatically racist for being born white and any defense against the charge of racism proves that you are racist and are demonstrating white fragility. You cannot keep your head down and let it pass by without saying anything because now “silence is violence.”

Of course, this is absurd and should never be taken seriously and is totally inappropriate for children. I have no problem with teaching history, warts and all, but to teach everything from the false basis that this country was founded to perpetuate slavery as the “1619 Project” would have it is totally misguided and pits people against one another for no good reason.

The first time I was aware of any effort to include math in the antiracist effort was an article in Powerline. The Oregon Department of Education sent a letter to math educators telling them about a virtual course in math equity (A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction) that they could sign up for. The claim by this group is that white supremacy culture can appear in the classroom in ways such as when “the focus is on getting the ‘right’ answer” and by requiring students to “show their work.” These quotes are from KATU-2, an ABC affiliate in Portland. Powerline picked it up from the Fox station there but no matter. This course also supports confronting ways that “math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.” A Google search will find similar results from other parts of the country.

At the time I wrote the original letter I was aware only occasionally of these stories but recently there has been a spate of news reports. For instance, there is a parental revolt against CRT in Loudon County, Virginia. Similar uprisings against school boards have occurred in other parts of the country. A Google search will yield results; just type in keywords. Google’s algorithms may discriminate against some outlets so searches with other search engines is a good idea as well.

Going to the news sources themselves will be fruitful. Facebook and Twitter censor what they don’t like so a lot of good information is choked off to people who rely on these platforms. Give these websites a try: The Federalist, American Thinker, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit, Real Clear Politics (has everything right, left and center), The Epoch Times, American Greatness, etc. Don’t be afraid of Fox News. I know it may be fashionable in some circles to knowingly sneer at people like Tucker Carlson or Rush Limbaugh, but they are more right than the so-called mainstream with their corporate “narrative.” I even like to read some left-of-center journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. I don’t always agree with them but at least they are unflinchingly honest. If inquiring minds really want to know, please expand your news sources. Dave Parker Sylva