Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Racisim Rears its Ugly Head in South Jersey

The mayor of South Harrison Township (Gloucester County) has been recieving threatening calls:

SOUTH HARRISON TWP. Despite racist threats lobbed at the township's first black mayor, this rural community does not have a racial intolerance problem, assured Police Chief Warren Mabey.
The threats, which began before Charles Tyson took the oath as mayor on Jan. 1, have been described as politically motivated both by Tyson and the township police.
...
The threats began on Dec. 14 when Tyson received the first threatening call. The threats continued on both his home and cellular phone, carrying over to the new year when he began his first term as mayor.
Tyson, who received one such threat calling him "a dead n..." four days into his one year term, stated that the threats have only made him stronger.
"It isn't going to affect anything," said Tyson. "I am going to move forward and be there for the people of South Harrison. Life goes on, we have a job to do."
Thank you, Mayor Tyson, for staying focused. I hope they catch the trash that would threaten a man based on his skin color.

3 comments:

Janet said...

I'm not sure where South Harrison is but I find it a bit odd that this case happened in South Jersey of all places. It's the extreme south and north of NJ that are the most diversely populated. Makes you wonder what some people were thinking when they moved there.

By the way, this in no way means I condone racism. Just putting it out there in case my comment seemed random.:)

Sharon GR said...

It's a little west of Glassboro; parts of the extreme south of Our Fair State (Think Millville and Bridgeton, not Cherry Hill) are rather rural still and probably not too diversely populated.

Not that it would matter if the mayor was the only African-American in town. It's still sad that someone would act so reprehensibly.

Anonymous said...

Racism is alive and well. Ever since Obama was elected President, folks are either real happy or real pissed.

Racism is real visible these days!

Donna