On the road to irrelevancy
Something straight from a script of The Twilight Zone
is happening in our rural county of Talbot, MD. Conflict stripped off the social media pages of the Internet have
been given life by one person - Richard Potter, president of the NAACP of
Talbot County - and has turned the county upside down.
Here's the clincher - most Talbot County residents don't
even know what the conflict is.
We live in unique times.
In the old days, like the days of Dungeons and Dragons, we played our
fantasy games and they were just that - fantasy games. Serious players rarely ventured out of Mom's
basement and, fortunately for the rest of us, their lives rarely, if ever,
spilled out into the real world.
Thanks to technology, the Internet, and social media, the
old game of Dungeons and Dragons has become Quest for Fifteen Minutes of Fame
with the object of the game being to collect as many selfies as possible. While the self-taken pictures are dime a
dozen and easy to amass, the real prize is the selfies that make the virtual
world all about one individual. You
find the outrage of the day, post and share your thoughts about it, and amass
as many likes, shares, and new friends as possible. The more strangers giving you a thumbs up, befriending you, and
telling others about you, the more important you become. The winners of Quest for Fifteen Minutes of
Fame are those players whose posts on social media go viral.
Richard Potter, president of the Talbot County chapter of
the NAACP, set on his Quest for Fifteen Minutes of Fame by putting The Talbot
Boys, a 100-year-old Civil War veterans' monument, squarely in his
crosshairs.
He began his quest over a year ago. Last fall, the Talbot County Council voted
to keep the veterans' monument right where it's at after Mr. Potter requested
its removal. Frustrated, Mr. Potter
found an open meetings statute loophole, enlisted the help of the ACLU, and
forced the commissioners into a public vote.
The public vote was held a couple of months ago with the same outcome as
back in the fall.
Frustrated again, the NAACP of Talbot County, led by Mr. Potter,
posted a link on their FaceBook page
to a Baltimore local news station article
on the vote with the simple comment, "Our efforts will continue
#WeWillRise". Of course, the hash
tag comment begs the question - "we will rise" from what?
Let's not lose sight of how Mr. Potter's efforts to remove
the veterans' memorial came to be. His
efforts to remove the statue began with the discovery of a FaceBook picture
posted by a racist kid in South Carolina, a picture the kid posted long before
he killed nine Black people at a Church.
(No, I'm not naming the kid because he doesn't deserve the recognition.) It was a picture of the kid holding a small
Confederate flag.
 |
| This pic sparked the Great Confederate Purge of 2015. Why didn't it spark the Great Tank Top Purge and the boycott of Gold's Gym? |
This is where Mr. Potter jumped in the game of Quest for
Fifteen Minutes of Fame. Outraged by
the events in South Carolina, he looked around Talbot County for something he
could target for the Great Confederate Purge.
He found it in the Talbot Boys.
For the next almost year, the NAACP of Talbot County
FaceBook page was littered with battles of The Great Confederate Purge of 2015
from across the nation and, of course, extensive coverage of the battle in
Easton over the Talbot Boys led by General Potter.
With the final public vote a couple of months ago, all is
quiet on the Great Confederate Purge of 2015 battle front, both in Easton and
across the country. The Internet
outrage du jour is as fleeting as one's fifteen minutes of fame - if one is
lucky enough to conquer the game. Many
skirmishes across the country were won, but many more lost by those seeking their
fifteen minutes of fame by playing the Internet game. General Potter is one such loser.
Here is where Richard Potter, President of the Talbot NAACP,
has chosen to lead the chapter down the road of irrelevancy. He got so caught up in the Internet game of
Quest for Fifteen Minutes of Fame, he forgot the real world doesn't play that
game nor has time for it. Real change
isn't born from the Internet outrage du jour.
Remember how eBay and Amazon announced they would no longer sell
Confederate merchandise? A quick search
of both sites turned up a couple of flags and plenty of apparel bearing the
likeness of the Confederate flag for sale.
Yes, even for big companies, the Quest for Fifteen Minutes of Fame is a
fleeting participatory event.
Real change and real fame comes from consistent performance,
year after year, and often takes a life time to achieve. It's a much harder game to play than Quest
for Fifteen Minutes of Fame. Had Mr.
Potter's efforts to remove the Talbot Boys been born out of a genuine effort to
heal a community and make it better and stronger, he would be pursuing the
paths the Talbot County commissioners afforded him. He'd be seeking community input for design suggestions of a
Talbot Boys monument for the Union soldiers who fought the Civil War and
looking for donations from the Talbot County community so he'd have something
to approach local sculptors with in hopes of having the courtyard grounds tell
the full story of the veterans who fought both sides of the divisive War.
Instead, Mr. Potter moved on to the next outrage du jour,
police brutality and #BlackLivesMatter.
A few posts were made concerning the injustices - perceived
or real - that Blacks suffer at the hands of police. Two are of real concern and, while not occurring in Talbot
County, have occurred in Talbot's back yard.
The first is a story not of police brutality, but of the
firing of Pocomoke police chief, Kelvin Sewell, who is Black. The second story is of police brutality in
Dover where a video shows Dover police officer Thomas Webster IV kicking a
Black man in the jaw with such force the suspect's hat flies through the air. The suspect, Lateef Dickerson, was in a
prone position trying to comply with Webster's commands, but apparently not
complying fast enough.
Ok, the first story didn't really make waves on Delmarva and
apparently mustn't be that important to Mr. Potter since there has been no
update to the story and the findings of the US Department of Justice about
misuse of federal grant money and voter tampering hasn't even been mentioned.
The second story, also not important to Mr. Potter, is one
that is very important for Delmarva and, unfortunately, not one I have gotten
around to writing about - yet. The
story ended seven months prior to Mr. Potter (or someone at the NAACP of Talbot
County) posting the video to the NAACP of Talbot's FaceBook page. Seven months prior, the jury returned a
verdict of "not guilty" for officer Webster.
While Mr. Potter was busy trying to destroy a monument to
honorable veterans while spitting on the graves of Talbot County families'
ancestors, something very real and more sinister happening in our backyard
escaped his notice. It's not whether or
not officer Webster was truly "not guilty." No. What should've riled
every citizen regardless of color was Cpl Ricardo Torres' testimony. His testimony was a turning point in the
trial of officer Webster.
 |
| Yeah, that's right. I'm coming for you boy! Officer Webster going to trial. |
Without analyzing the video from a layman's point of view, I
think it's safe to say that Cpl. Torres' testimony that this video could be
used as a training video, a training video for recruits like you and me who
also have no police experience just like the recruits going through the police
academy, sets a dangerous precedent for how we police our streets.
Back during the height of the Cold War forty, fifty years
ago, we prided ourselves on not having a police force like Russia's KGB where
people disappeared off the street and police kicked in our doors. Now we have Freddie Grays being thrown in
the back of police vans without being arrested for something and dying as a
result. We have Lateef Dickersons
getting their jaws kicked in and shattered on our streets. And we got Cpl. Torres saying, "Let's
make a training video."
Where is Mr. Potter's and the NAACP of Talbot's posts
showing their proactive efforts to ensure police actions such as happening in
our backyard over in Dover as well as what was happening across the Bay in
Baltimore aren't acceptable practices here?
Where are Mr. Potter's efforts to ensure that our police aren't being
trained to snatch people off the street without cause or kick in suspects'
jaws?
Oh yeah. I
forgot. All that was going on in Dover
and Baltimore occurred when Mr. Potter was on his Quest for Fifteen Minutes of
Fame.
I reckon it's a whole lot easier to fight soldiers who died
a hundred fifty years ago than it is to fight the real live perpetrators of
injustice today.
TL;DR folks
Richard Potter, president of the Talbot County chapter of the NAACP, has spent the better part of the year fighting to remove a veterans memorial. In the meantime, he's missed ample opportunity to lead the NAACP in a fight against real injustices and help improve the lives of everyone in Talbot County while making our communities stronger and better.
For your listening pleasure:
Related Links
A month's journey circles back to the Talbot County Commisioners
Maybe Union soldiers aren't welcomed in Talbot County
Why did the NAACP let the Yankees die?
NAACP and Mr. Potter fighting to tear down the Vietnam War Memorial
Only time will reveal the true motives of Talbot Boys detractors
Final thoughts on the Talbot Boys
No to trash-talking our veterans
The Great Confederate Purge of 2015
The insolence of youth
An open letter to Talbot County
The first secession from the United States, 2015
Letter to the House in SC
The cultural cleansing
The Great Confederate Purge of 2015
The insolence of youth
An open letter to Talbot County
The first secession from the United States, 2015
Letter to the House in SC
The cultural cleansing
Posted by Five Drunk Rednecks
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