Fortune Magazine’s 5/3/04 issue features a story titled "Young, Gifted, Black—And Out Of Here." The article quotes a 34-years-wise investment banking partner with Universal Business Services (UBS), a global Swiss banking powerhouse. Mr. Wishart Edwards, a black non-sports professional pulling six figures, says, "Like it or not, race guides everything we do, because at the end of the day you are always going to be a black person trying to get something that no one wants to give you."

If I was white I would be baffled asking myself "why these black folks just refuse to let Broadway remain Broadway?"
I mean, sure the KKK used to be big time here in the 1920s. And sure those decendants of separatist thinking still play a major role in local politics.

But after all, we hear about Dr. King's sacrifices once every 52 weeks. I would not even think about the fact that his stand for justice may have even helped me get hired in a typical white male corporate workforce earning less than a white male.

I wouldn't give it a second thought that America would be a backward nation if not for some of the greatest black minds in architecture, agriculture, and medicine. And I would not care that my goofy email jokes would be impossible to email if not for an ignored black 21st century Ph.D genius named Dr. Mark Dean from Stanford University who is a part of the National Hall of Inventors.

Big deal if Dr. Dean has in excess 30 patents pending, is a vice-president with IBM, and holds three of the original nine patents on the computer on which all personal computers are based. If I cared, I'd delight in discovering that the CEOs of Time Warner and Merrill Lynch are also black men who turned those companies around as Judge Greg Mathis shared with all those colored people who showed up to hear him speak April 22 at Central H.S. auditorium. Never mind that the banners went up two days before the judge’s arrival.

If I were white I would not give it a second thought about the negative portrayals of African Americans on tv and in print. So why should City Council have to go through all the trouble of making one class of people happy, even if it would take the sting and the stink out of the cruelties and oversights of the past? Besides, I love to watch those black boys play basketball.

But just what if I reconsidered talking to Mr. Randall Sims and others as to why we need to honor Dr. King with more than an exit ramp from Memorial (or is it 12th Street) to Tillotson Avenue. I would join a study circle on racism to help reconfigure the attitudinal landscape of Muncie. Maybe I'd appreciate the fact that while some European immigrants saluted Lady Liberty from port or starboard, others of us were suffocating in the bowels of a dismal hull only to emerge to be branded like cattle, never more to embrace families of origin.

But I'm not a white woman. Please forgive me if I cannot feel your pain.

copyright 2004, cynth'ya lewis reed

(Read the reason for this editorial below by Vicki Crabtree of Muncie, IN, published in the Muncie Star Press, www.thestarpress.com 4/25/04 issue. Randall Sims is the President of the Whiteley Neighborhood Council. Whiteley is a mostly black neighborhood bordering the area where hundreds of citizens petitioned to change the name of a main street called "Broadway" to "Dr. Martin Luther King Drive/Blvd/Street/Ave.)

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Original Letter: We had a solution
VICKI CRABTREE - Muncie

I find it ironic that Mr. Sims wants some action on his attempt to rename Broadway.

This issue would have ended last year if they had accepted the decision from the city council. The reason this is dragging out is because they (the people wanting the street renamed) did not like the answer and decided to keep extending this until they get the answer they want. If the vote of the city council was going to be ignored, why did they bother to vote?