A group of predominantly black ministers on Thursday called the treatment of beleaguered City Council woman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small “mean-spirited, manipulative and deeply rooted in racist assumptions and values.” Florence Gatten’s litany of documented offenses by Ms. Bellamy-Small:
- Failing to pay her (TDBS) property taxes on time.
- Questioning a HondaJet official rudely.
- Giving away too many free city bus passes.
- Gatten said her ability to tolerate being treated disrespectfully by Bellamy-Small “has been exhausted.”
- forensics investigators hired by the city determined that it was her (TDBS) copy of a confidential police report that had been leaked to a local Web site.
- she (TDBS) filed a complaint against a police officer who gave her a verbal warning for speeding. She (TDBS) told the host of a local radio program last week the officer had treated her rudely.
- Bellamy-Small complained she wasn’t given the cubicle she wanted in the Melvin Municipal Office Building.
Hogg asks, “An elected white person criticizes another elected black person for something that would be deemed understandable and defensible had it been white-on-white, or black-on-black criticism. But when said criticism (justified or not) crosses racial lines, charges of racism arise from the black community and there-they-go-again indignation arises within the white community.”
In any other business’s chain of command, would Ms. Bellamy-Small still be working there? Isn’t it time we looked beyond race and focused on performance and the greater good? What’s the answer to this question: How does this make Greensboro look to ourselves and to the rest of the contiguous 48 + 2?
[...] Update: Sue, after recapping Bellamy-Small’s “spiraling” points… “…In any other business’s chain of command, would Ms. Bellamy-Small still be working there? Isn’t it time we looked beyond race and focused on performance and the greater good?” [...]