NOW HERE’S SOMETHING YOU DON’T HEAR EVERYDAY
During my tenure as a journalist/commentator/talk show host I have been called a lot of things by a lot of people. Most of them roll off me like the water off a duck’s back. However, yesterday I was called something that stuck a little bit longer than usual. I was called the “grandson of Willie Lynch.” Now if you have a propensity to sunburn easier than other people because of your melanin deficiency you probably have no idea about what I’m talking about. However if you grew up watching Good Times and What’s Happening you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Willie Lynch was reportedly a famous slave owner who gave a speech in 1712 regarding the control of slaves. The speech was heavily circulated over the Internet in the 1990s, even though there is a school of though that says Willie Lynch never existed. I won’t go into the details of Willie Lynch, but you can find it here. What’s more important though is the fact that the person who called me Willie Lynch’s grandson was City-County Council Attorney Aaron Haith, who is African-American.
Haith called me “Willie Lynch” as I was questioning Council President Monroe Gray about his latest scandal. Gray actually took the questioning in stride, but Haith was a different story. He called me a slave holder, which meant I wanted to oppress Black politicians. He also implied I want to beat them, whip them, enslave them and lynch them. Yes a very high-profile African-American government official accused another African-American member of the press of wanting to “lynch” African-American politicians for the stories that I write about their own bad behavior.
I’m not sure what was going through Haith’s mind. He’s not a bad person. Maybe it was the stress of representing clients like Ron Gibson and Monroe Gray who can’t seem to stay out of trouble or the media spotlight for bad behavior. Maybe it’s the stress of manipulating the procedural rules of the council so debate can be stymied and the people can’t have their voices heard. Or maybe it’s something else I’m just not getting. But for Haith to equate me with someone whose name is synonymous with slavery, oppression and lynching is beyond the pale.
