An open letter to ‘Slow-vannah’
Dear Slow-vannah,
I have read people in the past say “Slow-vannah, I love you, but you need to get your shit together.”
I’ve been a longtime reader of Connect Savannah for many unfortunate years that I’ve had the displeasure of living in this city.
After picking up the issue of Connect and seeing the apology letter from the chief editor attached to two letters from readers about that issue going into the Thanksgiving holiday, I say “Slow-vannah, pull your head out of your ass and grow up!”
Once I saw the cover I found hilarity in the depictions of the clowns leading this circus. The editor felt the need to educate those who might have thought of the cover as a jab at the ex-mayor.
Any dimwit Confederate idiot with an electronic device has the potential to Google “Freedom from Want,” Norman Rockwell, or famous Thanksgiving images.
But this is the dawn of the Man-Child, the age of Adult-Children demanding Safe-Spaces, so I am not surprised.
If you missed the editor’s explanation, let me hold your hand and attempt to educate you. I feel the need to apologize: You will need to do some reading.
OK, here we go! Norman Rockwell was a famous painter in the ’40s. He is most famous for his series the “Freedom Paintings,” one of which, “Freedom from Want” has gained nationwide fame as one of the most iconic Thanksgiving pictures/paintings of all time.
In the painting Rockwell presents a rather large family gathered around the table ready to tear into a Thanksgiving meal provided by the Patriarch and the Matriarch of the family.
If you are ignorant of what those two terms mean, Patriarch refers to the male figure head of the family and the Matriarch, if you haven’t already guessed it, is the female figure head of the family.
So there is nothing wrong or malicious about the parody cover. There is nothing to get fake-mad about.
Now I would like to comment on the readers that sent in their letters leading up to Thanksgiving and after the holiday.
Before the holiday one reader felt that the issue white folks have with the ex-mayor is that she is a black woman.
Ex-mayor Jackson had her four years. If you Google “Mayor Edna Jackson’s achievements Savannah GA” at the top of the results is a City of Savannah website that lists Jackson’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, positions/chairs that she held/holds, an impressive list of awards, and that she is a world traveler having presented a paper on tourism, preservation, and economic development in Shanghai, China.
That is all. WOW indeed!
Another reader stated that they do not usually read Connect but “could not keep from crying out, shame on you, Connect!”
If you are someone who does not usually pick up this free newspaper, it is probably a good idea to continue not doing so.
The last reader stated the Connect cover parody ruined her holiday.
I would like to say to them that going into the holiday with the protesters in Paris being shut down over the climate change convention, the protesters in Chicago on Black Friday over the release of the police shooting of Laquan Mcdonald, and the Colorado bushwhacker of the first Planned Parenthood shooting, I am truly sorry that parody cover is what ruined your holiday.
Now on to Connect: Why the apology?
I stated that I am a longtime reader. Over the years you have taken on many controversial issues/big news topics, never being afraid of pointing a finger at a mountain of BS saying “THAT STINKS!”
Everything from the Kinder Morgan Pipeline, America Finishing Company polluting the Ogeechee not once but twice and continuing to do so, the Savannah Harbor Deeping, the police corruption scandal starting with the ex-police chief Willie Lovett and his cronies in the narco-unit, the never-ending merger of the police force, the 70 vacant positions on the police force, the debacle that was ex-city manger Rochelle Small-Toney, this clown Yusuf Shabazz, this past summer’s one-a-day shooting, the Charles Smith police shooting, the Matthew Ajibade murder…
I could fill this issue with stories that you have run in the past about issues that have plagued and continue to ruin this city, many of which have all gone on under the reign of the ex-mayor.
The first reader’s letter claimed crime was higher under ex-mayor John Rousakis, and no one had anything to say until a white man and his dog were gunned down.
As then, when voters turned out in droves to oust ex-mayor Rousakis, the voters did the same thing to ex-mayor Jackson.
Whatever Edna stood for in the past, she did a poor job of standing for as mayor.
If the mayor’s position of Slow-vannah is a weak mayor position, it truly showed in ex-mayor Edna Jackson’s term.
It would do those in this city well to pay attention to things such as that, rather than parody images on covers of free newspaper/magazines.
Laughing it up in Slow-vannah,
Castor Troy
Editor’s Response: And we write about almost all the local issues you enumerate – even including “The Cover” – in our Year In Review News wrap-up.
This article appears in Dec 30, 2015 – Jan 5, 2016.
Another fine/rant article by Murray and the gang.
Chevrolet made a car that sold very well in the US, the Chevy Nova. Everyone here knew the Nova to be a sturdy, reliable family car. The car was a marketing failure in Mexico, because the word “Nova” translates in Spanish as “no go”. Who would buy a vehicle marketed under the name “No Go”? Americans, because “Nova” has no such negative connotations in English.
The Connect cover is also a marketing tool that experienced just such a cultural translation gaffe. Only instead of simply misrepresenting the product being offered, the cover inadvertently insulted an entire segment of this community by presenting an image that translated into an image of oppression within the context of a heated political race already tinged with hints of racism. While the slight was unintended, the deep cut into the still raw wound of oppression, was nonetheless very real, making an apology critical to the repair of relations between two unequally yoked cultures within our Savannah community, much less repairing Connect’s relations within the community.
Connect does have a history of holding the community accountable to a higher standard. Why would the Connect organization not hold themselves up to that same standard? The apology was appropriate, necessary, and an example of character in the willingness to admit that a wrong had been committed. The willingness for growth and learning on the part of Connect from this gaffe is simply evidence as to why the paper should remain a valued source of information and opinion within Savannah.
In my prior post, I did not realize my name would not appear.
I am Lisa Blatcher.
I just wish the excuse for an editor who wrote that pathetic apology explained what and why he was apologizing for. It was all pablum, all meaningless nonsense. Nowhere did it say, “I meant X, level-headed people interpreted it as Y, here is my explanation.” Seems as long as certain people are offended, no matter how poorly or utterly incapable they are of specifying what and why they were offended (assuming an actual adult-level reason exists), a laughable percentage of guilt-ridden liberals will start mindlessly groveling in a desperate attempt to retain their diversity industry bona fides. What a shit year 2015 was for free speech.