We’re sorry. WE MESSED UP. BIG TIME.
Here’s the deal: Our most recent cover has generated a lot of anger and concern. We wanted to share an explanation of why we published the cover and also our respect for and acknowledgement of the anger it has caused.
As what is usually considered “Savannah’s liberal paper,” we assure you no racism or sexism was intended. The cover is based on the often-parodied, iconic painting by Norman Rockwell called “Freedom From Want” (see image). The image depicts an all-American family. The woman holding the turkey i
Our intent was to depict all the candidates in the runoff as one big happy family who squabble with each other but in the end work together. In the planning process we believed the homage to the Rockwell paint ing to be a solid visual representation of bringing all candidates together in a comical fashion for the holiday.
However we clearly miscalculated that Mayor Jackson might be interpreted as a servant or in an inferior position. The effect was far from what we hoped to achieve.
We misjudged the humor aspects, badly. We apologize without reservations for the anger and pain we’ve caused and the harm we have done to a community trying hard to come together.
This cover concept clearly was not adequately thought through. It’s something we now recognize and take responsibility for.
We promise to do better, much better, in the future and regard this as a teachable moment for our staff and the paper.
Connect Savannah exists to unite and inform Savannahians of all walks of life. Obviously in this case, we failed in that mission.
Let us be clear: Mayor Jackson is a talented public administrator of the City of Savannah, who’s dedicated her life and career to doing the best for our city and to the cause of Civil Rights. While there will always be people who disagree with any public official, none of that diminishes the fact that Mayor Jackson is a smart, dedicated woman who has, through her own hard work, risen to a notable and respectable position in our city. WE SINCERELY APOLOGIZE TO MAYOR EDNA JACKSON FOR ANY SLIGHT WE HAVE CAST ON HER PROFESSIONALISM AND HER CAREER, AND ON HER PERSONALLY.
This article appears in Nov 25 – Dec 1, 2015.
The Mayor does not need your validation for being “smart” or “talented”. Your “clarity” is just making things worse. At this point you should just do your best to humble yourselves in apology and not patronize her.
This is the problem with us white liberals we assume whatever we think and do is going to be okay. I assume no black staff (I can not think of one right off the bat) was there to help choose the cover and if there is it a secure enough environment to express themselves? As whites we assume our images of the world are right because we are good people who mean well. This is the presumption of privilege. How many other times do we insult or do some other latent racist thing and are not aware? Connect Savannah join your did not mean anything by it Savannah Arts Academy student comrades.
Jim, thank you for your comments in regards to this week’s cover of Connect Savannah. It explains, if not excuses, the choice and the decision making process that concluded with that choice. I only wish that everyone who did or will see the cover will have the opportunity to read and consider the comments you have made and hear the reports the media have been sharing. As we all know, a picture speaks so many more thousands of words than anything we write. So many more will notice the picture as they walk by the many stands and, maybe, even pick up a copy of Connect Savannah somewhere in the community this week and will not read or hear your comments. I can think of nothing more that can be done other than hope that this blunder can be the catalyst for healing discussion.
Sincerely, Ted Eldridge
If everyone had been shaded green would we have this same outrage and the same slimy comment about validation? I doubt it. I rather imagine that those old enough would have recognized the homage to Rockwell and a “happy family life”. Those too young would have simply smiled (or gotten angry because the “mayor” was serving the meal or because a “woman” was serving the meal — so many reasons to be angry, so little time).
Racial Sensitivity is still a thing and it must remain a thing until the victims decide they are ready to move on. But there are much larger issues! “Broken Windows” didn’t work in New York and it certainly doesn’t work when people critique a magazine cover!
Actual police brutality and disrespect of young black men on the streets, local government wasting millions on developing lands for folks who didn’t put up a dime of their own money, hundreds of thousands on a crook because no one bothered to look at his contract to see if he would be owed pension money AFTER he went to jail. What about the clerk of court? Still trying to pretend she wasn’t a county employee? Will the bond pay out or must the taxpayers pick up the tab for someone who should have been checked regularly? Is she too entitled to her pension money? Millions to a young woman injured after a tree fell, because there was no money to continue to check the trees? And all the while, city government spending sales tax money that hits the poorest the hardest.
What happens when the tourists find out that Savannah isn’t safe and they stop coming? Who will fund the out of control ridiculous spending then?
I surely do wish protesters about a magazine cover would save time, energy and outrage for the REAL issues and not get bogged down in the visuals. Stay focused on lost lives whether killed or just failed out of school, rising and frightening crime, no jobs in the neighborhoods, no programs for after school and pre-school, and spending millions on trash contracts instead of children. The long list of incompetence throughout the city and county government and school board is getting longer by the day.
Civil rights are urgently important, but so is prison reform, horrible drug laws, economic injustice — and THOSE are the issues that will make a difference for the children — not a magazine cover that was simply “too culturally literate” for the crowd,
I don’t buy your self-deprecating explanation or the sincerity of your apology. Whoever did this, knew what they were doing. From the moment I viewed the picture, I knew it was race-baiting. The creators’ tasteless take-off on the familiar and well-loved Norman Rockwell painting is not funny in the least. In troubling times like these, all of us need to pull together and focus on the important issues if we are to solve them. Your thoughtless actions only served to create a distraction from those issues and needlessly inflame racial tensions.
As an third neutral party I will attest that the director of graphic/digital arts happens to be a black man. The theme this week is Thanksgiving and the objective was to photoshop over the existing characters the heads/faces of our local candidates. The highest position in this run-off election is for mayor. The two existing main characters at the head of this Thanksgiving day table happen to be male and female. Our candidates are male and female. The heads when where the heads belonged. No ulterior message was intended. Racism is not what the cover or the articles within were meant to portray.
I like CONNECT and I just see this as an opportunity to diversify the staff. REAL diversity. A recent topic has been would you hire Watermelondrea, well, she would have told you this cover was not appropriate.
You did MESS UP big time. Check your facts. The female likeness serving the turkey in the Rockwell art was the Rockwell family cook and babysitter. Her name was Mrs. Thaddeus Wheaton. The male likeness was Mr. Wheaton, who was the Rockwell handyman. These were positions of service, not matriarch and patriarch. Therefore your premise of using this art is wrong to both Ms. Jackson and Mr. DeLoach.
Only a racist can see the Savannah Connect cover as racist. A world of Blacks and Enemy Whites. Whites in a cabal to subjugate Blacks.
As if Europeans did not kill each other in WW I or II, or the Northerners did not die by the 1000’s to end slavery laws.
Oh…laws supported by Democrats.