COSBY MEETING LEAVES

SOUR TASTE

Many in the Black community were legitimately upset at being excluded from the recent meeting held with Bill Cosby at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Their imaginations had been teased by the peculiar stream of information that came by way of provocative articles in The Republican. The articles were provocative because they always referred to an unnamed list of important community people with whom Cosby would meet. The articles gave many of us every reason to believe that we should have been among the invitees and many of us felt rejected when we were not.

To make matters worse, we didn’t even know who was doing the inviting. Up to the time of Bill Cosby’s visit and to this very day, the name of the person who compiled the invitation list remains a mystery. Had we known the person ahead of time at least we could have lobbied for invitations. Instead we were all left with fading convictions that we might be invited, even though, by the manner in which the process was unfolding, we began to suspect that we would not be. We were left twisting in the wind by some unknown host until The Republican informed us that the meeting proceeded and succeeded without us.

And, it was no small matter in the minds of many in the Black community that none of the Black elected officials were invited, not State Representative Benjamin Swan, not City Councilor Bud Williams and, most notably, not School Committee person Marjorie Hurst, whose specific elected charter relates to the young targets of the meeting and their parents. It was a bewildering omission that left us wondering who made the decision to omit them and by what logic? After all, if we ourselves were not important enough to be invited, why couldn’t our dignity be somewhat salvaged by invitations to the people we elected to represent us?

It was as though someone or some group was deliberately sending the Black community of Springfield a message, a message that our opinions don’t count, a message that they will decide who is and who is not important, a message that they will choose our leaders, a message that they are in charge, a disturbing message that decisions about the fate of our own community are no longer in our own hands.

To this day, it remains unclear who attended the meeting, although we know, again through The Republican, that a chairman was appointed for whatever organization emerged from it. We do not know how or why the particular person was selected to be chairman and by whom and what his charter is. Rather, we are left to wonder if there is some connection between this selection process and the omission from the meeting of our democratically elected officials.

Didn’t anyone involved foresee the reaction that would result from so many people and organizations being left out of the loop? Did anyone think to take steps to cushion the impact? Did anyone care? Apparently, no, no and no! Which brings to mind the most unfortunate consequence of this unfortunate series of events. A visit that was intended to be only positive has had an unintended negative impact and left a sour taste in many of our mouths. n