Why I'm going public...and not embarrassed to

As a child I saw black men and women washed into gutters like garbage. Their anger and their pain was evident. I saw no shame in their protests. They too were taking a stand for human rights and decency.

As an adult I saw a woman sobbing on a witness stand as her rapist smirked at the defense table and an attorney berated her for "leading his client" to believe she wanted to be beaten and raped.

As a journalist when a city office or police department engages in such behavior I've seen newsrooms across the country go into a media frenzy over the kinds of behavior this company is engaged in. (Don Immus for instance).

Every day men and women in this country stand up for their rights because they can. We won't be able to for much longer. A day is coming when we'll be shot, imprisoned and tortured for daring to object to the way corporations and government officials act. We will be worse than most dictatorships.

I am not embarrassed to take a stand for what I believe in. Christ overturned tables in the temple and shouted down the Pharisees and those He saw and knew were enemies of His father God's will.

What the Danville Register & Bee is doing and how they are treating their employees (at least some of them) is wrong. It is disgraceful. It is humiliating. It is degrading. It is beneath the dignity of any office and far below the dignity of what a newsroom should be.

What is embarrassing is that more people aren't standing up publicly for decency and human rights.

There are readers in Poland, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Canada and England following this blog. There are corporations across the country who may have been considering Danville as a home for their industries. Do you think they want to come to a county where sexual harassment is not only tolerated, but is a source of amusement for county officials, corporations and the local newspaper? Doubtful.

If anyone should be embarrassed it's those who suffer in silence, who see but do not speak, who hear but do not say "Stop." The majority of the men and women who founded this country became sacrifices for their beliefs. They worried more about future generations than their own comfort and reputation. They saw the evil and did not stand by and let it have its way. Every generation - except this one - has fought against injustice and for human rights.

I cannot and will not let this battle go. I'm fighting not only for the women who were humiliated, but for the African Americans, the Christians and those who simply support common decency. Danville, the last city of the Confederacy, is still racist. Maybe it's underground, but in all the cities and states I've lived in I've never seen such hatred and mistrust between races as I have here. If you're African American and you think that will change without a newspaper that will support true efforts for equality, for human decency, for respect - then you're living in ignorance.