Opinion: The Focus Should Be on Summey; What Happened?

Thoughts after watching the Charleston County Council Meeting on 11/1/16

One day while at a local McDonalds in Charleston, SC there was a female manager working alongside her employees. The restaurant was semi-crowded, and I had stopped for a quick bite before heading back to work. McDonalds typically isn’t my first choice, but hell there weren’t too many options as I headed out of West Ashley into downtown. While we were waiting patiently for our highly processed, saturated fat, fast food, the Manager began to get loud with one of her young employees. The young man looked to be in his late teens or early twenties, and as she popped off he simply looked away in a nonchalant manner as she quickly ended her moment of frustration.

Though the moment ended quickly, I looked around at the others in the restaurant just to see if they were as confused as I was. All I could think was “what was the point of that”, did that make her feel good, could she not have taken him in the back and checked him instead of putting on a show for the people standing in a line? How easy would it have been to pull him to the side to say what she needed to say – was she trying to flex her manager muscles or was she just having a bad day?

For whatever reason, watching the Charleston County Council meeting on yesterday made me think of this incident. In all honesty, Summey deserves to be reprimanded. His comments regarding black people, his fellow council members, and just his pure arrogance was simply annoying and he most definitely needs to be checked. However, something happened at last night’s meeting that left me more confused than I was standing in the McDonald’s line. Why are the young black “freedom fighters” going so hard, to the point of insulting the older black members of the NAACP, NAAM, etc?

There is a level of frustration among all people of color living in Charleston as we see our city change, thrive, and manifest into something we are not use to. We watch this manifestation occur, as we also watch blacks in this city appear to stay at the same levels of poverty, all the while – lacking job opportunities and resources. But, where are we headed if we continuously thrive on creating division? Last night’s meeting was a show of solidarity in the fact that Summey needed to remove himself from his post – or so I thought. But, it turned into an ‘us against them’ beating of the chest, stomping of foot showcase. The focus was taken off of what Summey had said and turned into a public display of disunity among the blacks here in Charleston.

I felt like the members of NAAM, NAACP, and the younger people of Charleston, SC can easily come to the table and voice their frustrations, away from cameras, outside of social media, and simply have a heart to heart. The enemy loves division and the display on last night showed that we are more divided than ever.

There is a lot more to be said and shared, but I would rather share in a closed session in a room of like-minded people since I don’t believe that strategy should ever be exposed on social media. However, here are some eye-openers from last night’s County Council meeting:

• You cannot simultaneously fight the enemy and fight each other.
• Focus on the Goal, don’t become so distracted by the ability to flex your muscles, that you forget the purpose and take your eye off of the goal
• Sometimes your voice is all you got!
• You cannot stay silent regarding issues of race – ever!
• If you have taken on the task of working for, and representing the people – the people could care less about your personal relationships.
• Working as a representative for your community is a choice; no one is forcing anyone to take on these positions. If you accept the pat-on-the-backs, you must accept the kick-in-the-butts.
• Publically trying to bring someone else down, does not build you up.
• Let’s go back to a time when we pulled our brothers and sisters to the side for a real, man-to-man, face-to-face, woman-to-woman conversation. Whatever you can say while cameras are rolling can be said behind closed doors.
• Your social media posts/history tells a lot about who you are – so be careful #sideeye
• Don’t let the enemy see all of your cards. The enemy knows they can strike when they see that your team is weak and not united.
• Being genuine is more important than being seen.