Dougherty Arts Center
Charges Are Racist!
RECEIVED Sat., April 11, 2009
Dear Editor,
Rush Limbaugh infuriates me nearly as much as the excrement about the business closures due to the Texas Relays [“Highland Mall Hysteria Over Texas Relays,” News, April 10]. Nelson Linder, Sheryl Cole, Marc Ott, and Michael McDonald (as well as Wells Dunbar for this drivel) need to spend a Texas Relays Saturday on Sixth and Red River. The issue is behavior, not race. If you remember the first year this city tried to have a Mardi Gras parade, then you recall why it never happened again. That too was most certainly about race: Damned white kids do not know how to behave. I was at the intersection of Seventh and Red River for gunshots and stampedes three years in a row (I was not there for the one this year; yes, it happened again). To attribute the desire to close one's business to being a "paler part of Austin … not be[ing] accustomed to African-American youth culture's" blah blah blah is insulting and, well, racist! The idea of some sort of consumer-driven sanction against such businesses is absurd. I conduct business in this area, and I stayed home because of the hassle, potential (not imagined) danger, and poor profitability, not because of skin color. Why were the access roads going to be closed? Ask my friend George who sat at the eastbound intersection of 12th Street and the I-35 access road for 35 minutes while car after car ignored the stoplights on their way into Downtown, blocking the intersection. Hey Sheryl, you know where there is "room for improvement"? Teaching our young people manners.
Rush Limbaugh infuriates me nearly as much as the excrement about the business closures due to the Texas Relays [“Highland Mall Hysteria Over Texas Relays,” News, April 10]. Nelson Linder, Sheryl Cole, Marc Ott, and Michael McDonald (as well as Wells Dunbar for this drivel) need to spend a Texas Relays Saturday on Sixth and Red River. The issue is behavior, not race. If you remember the first year this city tried to have a Mardi Gras parade, then you recall why it never happened again. That too was most certainly about race: Damned white kids do not know how to behave. I was at the intersection of Seventh and Red River for gunshots and stampedes three years in a row (I was not there for the one this year; yes, it happened again). To attribute the desire to close one's business to being a "paler part of Austin … not be[ing] accustomed to African-American youth culture's" blah blah blah is insulting and, well, racist! The idea of some sort of consumer-driven sanction against such businesses is absurd. I conduct business in this area, and I stayed home because of the hassle, potential (not imagined) danger, and poor profitability, not because of skin color. Why were the access roads going to be closed? Ask my friend George who sat at the eastbound intersection of 12th Street and the I-35 access road for 35 minutes while car after car ignored the stoplights on their way into Downtown, blocking the intersection. Hey Sheryl, you know where there is "room for improvement"? Teaching our young people manners.
Tim Pipe
