Day: January 16, 2012

I was thinking, what would be the the best way to celebrate MLK and the civil rights struggle, and I found this old footage from the Oprah Show.  A nice young Jewish boy decides he wants to LIVE the black experience.  He read a book in high school “Black Like Me” and was ultimately inspired to experience what it means to be “black” in America.  This story is from 1995, I wonder, does anyone believe his experiment would have a different outcome in 2012?

I admire his bravery, both emotionally and physcially, to take this personal challenge of racial honesty.  Josh’s plan was to be “black” for 28 days, he lasted 7 days.   He felt like after 7 days, his personal journey was complete.  He now understood what his black friends had been telling him for so many years, it was a white world.  As a white male he had never been treated the way he was treated as a black man.

The real kicker is when two black men “turn” white, it was a different reaction when they asked directions and tried to get into office buildings.  There was a sense of “white” priveledges that seems to be afforded based soley on skin color.

Is our world different today?

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Race-on-The-Oprah-Show-A-25-Year-Look-Back/5

Peter Candland has now demonstrated his willingness to vote against measured development or whatever term he used while running for the seat that John Stirrup vacated.  I can’t tell you for sure how John would have voted, but I imagine, given his land use record in the two terms he served, he probably would have voted against Oaks III in the Occoquan District.

Supervisor Mike May gave a multitude of credible reasons why this rezoning should not move forward. The Mayor of Occoquan, Ernie Porta, also eloquently wrote about why this rezoning was bad government planning, and yet, although it shocked no one, Corey, Wally, Maureen, John J, and Peter Candland voted in favor of the Developer.

I wonder what the reaction will be of the Supervisors, who continually vote for bad development, when the EPA starts breathing down thenecks of the  BOCS about why this County is not compliant with the Chesapeake Bay clean up efforts.

More importantly though, this is a prime example of how citizens once again,  are completely ignored, for the benefit of the developer and campaign coffers.  The Major and the residents, many of whom fear their businesses will be adversely impacted,  ALL expressed valid quality of  life concerns relating to this rezoning, which include flooding and others on serious traffic impacts.  The “locals”  were ALL ignored and their concerns not addressed by the five Supervisors who voted for the Developer instead of the citizens who would be most impacted.  Shame on the BOCS.

I hope citizens are paying attention because at some point we will have to pony up our tax dollars to pay the non compliance fines levied by the EPA.  Maybe Corey figures by then he will have moved into the Governors mansion! As for Peter Candland, now he knows why he is NO Martha Hendley. I imagine he probably had little understanding of what was being discussed anyway.

Kudos to Mike May, Frank Principi, and Marty Nohe for making a stand against poor development practices. In the end though, the poor town of Occoquan will be the ones to directly “pay” for this debacle.

Read More