News-Record.com

Allen,

Help me out here. Several articles have Bellamy-Small stating "When I was a police officer..."

What is her police background? What did she do and how long did she do it? I'm just curious as to her police credentials.

thanks,

MD

Now all we need is a schoolboard Florence and there's hope.

Florence is apparently the only member of our City Council with some Spauldings in between her legs and some gray matter in between her ears.

I don't think Bellamy-Small needs to resign. She just needs to grow up.

I guess it's a good thing I'm not living in the city limits. Yet...

I am no fan of Councilwoman Bellamy-Small's behavior (or politics), but the call to resign is ill-advised on several levels.

First, we need to respect the democratic process, even (especially) when we don't like the outcome. The voters have to take responsibility here. Elected officials should only be removed under extreme and rare circumstances. Unless something else comes to light, the Councilwoman's petty misdeeds don't seem to rise to this level. The risk of setting the bar for recall or forced resignation this low is that it leads to never-ending, tit-for-tat political fighting. One side gets their trophy this cycle, while the other side gets theirs in the next.

Second, it's just bad politics to over-reach like this. To date, there has been absolutely nothing redeeming in Councilwoman Bellamy-Small's behavior. However, now she can claim (with some justification) that she is fighting for the voters that put her in office and fighting so that their voices will be heard. Why make her a hero? She was already doing a great job of marginalizing herself.

This may be great theatre, but it's crummy and needlessly distracting for the city.

Mad Dog, Bellamy-Small was a Greensboro police officer some years ago but I don't recall any stories that gave the years of her service.

As I commented on the story on yesterday's N&R website, the questions about DBS will be answered by the voters of her district, and I am a voter in this district. What disturbs me is that FG has previoulsy expressed some comments and behavior that I don't like either and she only won by a very narrow margin herself. She's not one to make this call. The voters of this district will do what needs to be done when the time arrives.

Mad Dog and Jaycee, as I recall, Bellamy-Small was a police officer very briefly. I'll check our files.

Robin:
I agree, although I wonder why this district has such trouble fielding strong (and yes, I know the same could be said of Billy Yow's commissioner district).

,,or Skip Alston's district,,,or Bruce Davis' district,,,,

Enough already Allen, get over the T-Shirts from a few years ago. Billy Yow represents his district just fine.

dave ribar: your comments shed needed light! while I don't agree FG over-reached, what is at stake, as you pointed out clearly, is something much more important: the democratic process, a value deserves to be protected above all costs. it's unfortunate our community, et al, has invested (read: wasted) seemingly endless amounts of resources in an activity and an individual offering such little expected return, but that's life. she was doing a great job marginalizing herself, as you said, now let's stop encouraging her. when the voters in her district realize she's failed to deliver, the democratic process will work to give them someone who will.

Dave Ribar wrote, "...the Councilwoman's petty misdeeds don't seem to rise to this level."

Petty misdeeds...Ok, let's examine the facts. She refused to sign an affidavit stating that she did not share, copy or otherwise disclose the contents of the RMA report to anyone. Furthermore, it has been forensically proven that her copy of the report was the one leaked. Bellamy-Small's only comments on the matter are carefully worded and state that she was not the one who leaked the report. Obviously, this could be true as the person in which the report was shared with is the "actual" leaker. She's playing a carefully orchestrated word game to avoid implicating herself. If she was truly innocent, she would have signed the affidavit - plain and simple... What has she to hide??? Her behavior is a joke and an embarrassment to this City...

I strongly disagree with your comments and am quite frankly sick and tired of all the reverse racism that our City and County governments endure. Officials of color in this town have elevated the playing of the race card to a carefully crafted science. The sad truth is that no one has the courage to stand up for what is right anymore. Everyone is worried about the potential political fall-out by waging such a defensive.

What's amazing is the TV interviews in DBS's district yesterday. Many still support her despite (or perhaps because of) her recent dubious actions.

Great quote in the Robin Williams movie "Man of the Year" that would cover both the DBS and Dot Kearns situation,

"Poiticians are like diapers. They should both be changed often, and for the same reasons."

I think this is a win-win for both FG and DBS. FG will court favor with the majority of the city that finds DBS obnoxious, and DBS will reap the more localized benefits of being attacked by a white political leader. Contrary to Allen's claim that DBS will be voted out because of her actions, I predict that she'll win. I hope I'm wrong, but one of the easiest ways to mobilize black sentiment is to position oneself as the victim of racial prejudice. Recall that over 2/3 of black Americans professed to believe OJ innocent. I doubt that most of them really thought that, but rather felt compelled to stick by "one of ours" who had been the victim of Mark Fuhrman and Co. The same, I suspect, will hold true for DBS: her constituency will view her dubiously, but feel compelled to support her as "one of ours." Surely she'll paint her opponent as a toady of white interests.

Well, Brian444 has just been proven the winner here. DBS has gotten the local communist and TRC guru to pull out the old standy in Greensboro, the culture of white racism card. Johnson's statement even weaved the racism against black cops within GPD into his defense of DBS. The Pulpit Forum's statement was not as blatant as Johnson's, but they were able to mention white racism against DBS as well.

I guess Greensboro can now forget this incident. DBS has received the race innoculation. Any criticism or action against her is just more of the culture of racism that is so prevalent in this city. Who knows, DBS now may decide to run for mayor; Holliday better seek cover, and Gatten's political career in Greensboro is history.

Brian:
In my defense, I made my prediction before the Pulpit Forum decided to embrace Bellamy-Small.
Now as it turns out, they and Gatten have done Bellamy-Small a huge favor.
Now an issue that had absolutely nothing to do with race has benn recast as black-and-white.
This should have remained a matter of a bad city council member not deserving re-election and getting her come-uppance. This should have been a matter of the voters in District 1 showing Bellamy-Small the door, which I believe would have happened.
Now all that may have changed.
Until today Luther Falls would have beaten Bellamy-Small handily in the next election.
As of this week, the race got closer.
And as of this week what had been a mere distraction has become something bigger ... and potentially uglier.

Allen,

How can you possibly spin this as Gatten and the city council's fault? DBS deserved the criticism that she was getting, and because someone called her on it, it's there fault now? Greensboro does, indeed, work in mysterious ways. Calling someone a racist is the quickest and surest way to attack and destroy your critics and enemies in this town, especially when you do not have logic or truth on your side. It never fails to work for certain, selected elected officials.

"And as of this week what had been a mere distraction has become something bigger ... and potentially uglier."

Really, Allen, how can race issues get any uglier in this town? This town thrives on it.

Oh, I'm not blaming Gatten. Nor am I calling her a racist. But she has, perhaps unwittingly and unintentionally, done Bellamy-Small a big political favor.

Allen, I made my prediction before the releases, too. That kind of prediction seems like shooting fish in a barrel.

I was interested to see, however, that her opponent--drawing a blank on his name and too tired to click back to the story--also came out in support of her. What a shrewd move. Maybe he'll get elected after all.

Allen,

It looks like several people called this one.

This morning's N&R editorial, however, was intriguing. On the one hand, the paper essentially called any recall effort a waste of time, as it would only shorten Councilwoman Bellamy-Small's term by a few months, at most. On the other hand, it provided detailed step-by-step instructions for how to carry out the recall.

The N&R wouldn't be trying to pour gasoline onto this particular fire, would it?

The juxtaposition of this story and the column describing Louis Farrakhan's farewell, and a line within that column about "circling wagons" was also interesting. Any comments on what the paper was trying to accomplish this morning?

Actually I agree with Allen, I think Ms Gatten's actions have basically rallied the black community behind Diane Bellamy Small which will likely reassure her re-election next fall. If Ms Gatten had not brought this to the public's attention, she probabally would lose next election because she was very close to losing last election. I dont think Ms Gatten made it a racial issue. I think our blac an white citizens made it an racial issue. But because of that, expect the troops to rally behind Diane Bellamy-Small and expect her to get re-elected.

Dave:
Dave, there's no hidden agenda.
We were simply explaining how the recall process works and the timetable involved because it was pertinent to the point we were making -- that a recall election would be so close to the regularly scheduled election why bother? You could accomplish the same goal in the regular election without the extra bother or expense.
As for the Page column on Farrakhan, no agenda there, either.
Page regularly runs on Fridays. That's the topic he happened to choose this week.

Whether FG intended it to be a racial issue is a moot point: any issue involving persons of more than one race will become a racial issue. The N&R will help the racialization process along with front page coverage (see today's paper).

We had a discussion a while back about the relative power of the N&R and Simpkins PAC endorsements in the black community. I predict that we'll get some information on this come election time.

So, you're saying the placement of the story makes this a more racial issue?

I'm saying that if anyone, anywhere in the eleven-county area says, protests, or otherwise indicates using any media that anything of any nature has anything at all to with anything pertaining to race, the N&R will put in on the front page in black and white. That includes protests that the N&R is a tool of racist stooges.

If I informed your editorial desk that (a) my black lab had been bitten by a yellow lab, and (b) I considered the yellow lab racist, I should expect to read about it on the front page tomorrow.

Race is the privileged analytical category of your paper; everything is filtered through a racial prism. The effect is to validate publicly the racialization of everything. Because race is so overwhelmingly salient to you, I suggest, you cannot see a dog fight for a dog fight.

You will surely recognize a difference between your own take-the-air-out-of-the-balloon comments about the Guilford hate crime--er, fight--and the breathless coverage it received on your front page in the hopes that it was a hate crime.

Allen:

I have to agree with Brian (to a point--some chihuahua on spaniel violence would make it to the front page of the N&R, but not lab on lab). The N&R has a tendency to try to have it both ways. It plays up stories, partly by placement and partly by repetition, and then also says that people should cool off.

Is the recall effort to oust Councilwoman Bellamy-Small likely to go anywhere? Does Councilwoman Gatten have any chance of getting the resignation? Has there been any hard evidence that racism is behind any of this as the Pulpit Forum claims? The answers are "no" all around, yet the N&R has given all of these stories prominent play. Much of this could have been given a paragraph or two on the second page of the local section, but instead has made it onto the front pages and the editorial pages. And, of course, all of this follows several months of juicy TDBS stories, each repeated a couple of times for emphasis.

If the N&R wants to go after Councilwoman Bellamy-Small, then the paper should do it consistently. However, it's unseemly to swim in, take a bite, bloody the water, and then "tsk tsk" as the inevitable feeding frenzy ensues.

I don't think that the N&R's behavior here has been intentional. With respect to the earlier post, I don't think that there is an "agenda" to create these kinds of issues. But unintentionally, the N&R does seem to contribute.