Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Blast: On Trinity Church from Native Chicagoan

..I received this from my cousin Eric Williams in Chicago after calling for contributors to the project blog-with thoughts, ideas, or happenings that may want to be shared. He writes on our family blog at http://www.descendantsofmandi.com/blog.html

I think this is relevant.. mainly because we need to tell our stories ok? Tell your story! If you don't, if you don't open your lungs, and sing, and shout or dance or whatever you want to do, somebody else might come along to tell your story, and they ain't never gonna tell it the way you want it to be told. SO it goes with this and communities and people of color.
So it goes, ok? Young people? Tell your story? People of color? Tell your story. Anybody tell your story ok? Tell your dream. Tell your history. Tell your present. Dare to tell your future, even when everyone thinks you're crazy cause they can't see what you see.. yet.
Stories make the world go, you know? I really think they do. They are the makings behind our thoughts of reality.
but let me go on head and get off the writing stand..
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Sad, distorted images of Chicago, Trinity and Barack Obama in TIME Magazine


You know things have gotten bad when the mighty TIME Magazine decides to join Fox's negative pile-on, slamming Chicago's Black Community and attempting to denigrate Senator Barrack Obama because of statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his (and Trinity's) former pastor. I've taken special interest in the growing media frenzy...mostly because Obama is my Senator and I have visited his church on many occasions. To call TIME's coverage shallow is an understatement. The article was written by Lori Reese, a reporter who seems to have very limited knowledge of Chicago.

Checkout the original post at this link.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1724976,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-nation

I emailed the following letter to the editors at TIME...since they probably won't run it, I decided to reproduce it here.

Leave it to TIME to describe my South Side Chicago neighborhood in such dismal terms that it is absolutely unrecognizable. Simply stated, your article made my blood boil, but believe it or not, it is one of the few I've read lately that made even a feeble attempt at balance. Is it really fair to characterize the South Side with a housing project that has been torn down for more than five years? Or heat wave deaths that are more than 12 years old and killed people all over the city and metropolitan area? Is it balanced to profile a former self-professed "thug" without mentioning the row upon row of college educated congregants who also share Trinity's pews? I'm a graduate of Univerity of Illinois, with a Masters Degree from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. When I visit Trinity, I am surrounded by many people whose educational achievements equal or outstrip my own. The cracked sidewalks we walk upon have more to do with our harsh winters than our "underclass" status. Thanks for following Fox's lead and piling on. Now that your contempt is on the record, maybe someone can follow up with a little balance ...real balance would be nice. I suggest that you send someone who knows a little bit about Chicago next time.

Sorry for the digression, but some things need to be said.

1 comment:

  1. I see that I am not the only one that was offended by the article about Trinity and Chicago. I too emailed the editor to advise Time that in the future when someone is assigned to write an article, research should be done on the subject. It was insulting that the things written were so far off
    base and negetive that no one even questioned the accuracy of the statements. How sad that a "respected" magazine and the reporters working for them can stoop so low.

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