Think about this: In a Southern city, Skip Alston, a former high ranking NAACP official and county commissioner of a majority African-American district tries to steal a grocery store co-op from his own community with the help of City Council and out of town investors. This is the kind of story that could and should go NATIONAL and doing so would break Greensboro's elites' control over the poor, run around local media's control of the message.
Even if we get the grocery store this still needs to get out so we can break their control. Negative nationwide media attention scares them more than anything we can do. Seriously, back in '05 when I stood before City Council and criticized them for not getting back in touch with me as I was being filmed by Discovery Channel Canada the next day they sent their PR department rushing out the door to beg me not to run the city down. Their hands literally trembled. They are very lucky it was Discovery Channel Canada and not US.
So how do we get the story to go national? Not by bitching about it on Facebook. Tell everyone you know, nationwide, contact big city media outlets and point them all here: http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-media-and-city-arent-telling-you.html Do it for Greensboro, do it for the east side, do it for your own wallet.
If we don't do it we will face the same struggle every time we try to do the right thing no matter what the cause.
And for those of you in other cities across America: If we can break the grip of corruption and turn around Greensboro, North Carolina for the better, your cities will be forced to do the same in order to compete economically. It's called bottom-up reform and we don't have to depend on politicians to make it happen. As a matter of fact: the fewer politicians of any stripe the better.
Please and thank you -Billy
PS. And for those of you reading from the City of Greensboro: This message has been circulating via e-mail forwards, Facebook private messages and e-mail newsletter for the entire 3 day Memorial Day weekend. There's no telling how many inboxes it reached before autopost made it live today.
I told you the shit was going to hit the fan today and I'm not done slinging. Not by a long shot.
