Aid and Abet

Dear Grassroots Media,

I am very small potatoes “media” voice in Huntsville, Al, a predominantly conservative North Alabama town that is considered much more “liberal,” actually than most of South Alabama, such as Selma, Sylacauga, and even Birmingham. However, as a writer for an independent “rag,” called the Valley Planet, I am often a “voice crying in the wilderness.” The local news media, especially the local newspaper, is under the control, of course, of an individual, who happens to be very conservative. During the Bush years, he turned the Huntsville Times into a “fluff” paper, in my opinion, especially during the heart of the Iraq War. On Sunday, the front page was all pretty pictures, and Iraq was covered on the 20th page. I’m speaking very unfactually there. It was, however, buried inside. When a story broke this past year, about the mayor, Loretta Spencer, having sold land where our local Rescue Mission was located in order to give her friends the ability to build new houses in that area, SOMEONE put a “hush order” on the paper, and the story just “stopped” being covered. Also, a friend of mine received a call and was told to stop talking about what she knew, and that call came from Mayor Spencer. (Fortunately, Mayor Spencer was defeated in the last mayoral election.) I was the only one, at first, willing to stick my neck out to cover the story in the Valley Planet, but not after I called the Times and told one of the writers that I was going to discuss the story fully in the Valley Planet because I had investigated the story on my own. The very next day, the story received coverage. I am not that powerful a person; I am basically just a poet. But, I do fight for human rights and for causes I think are just or where injustice is occurring. There are, as you know, just too many to count; if we started counting now, we would not finish in this lifetime. I so want to be a part of any grassroots media movement. I have only this one article that I do write called “What Then Must We Do?”

I also write the occasional Huntsville Times op-ed, which is occasionally printed. I lost a book contract because of what I stated in one I wrote near the beginning of the Iraq War in which I stated my opinion that I believed George Bush was acting as “a terrorist in Iraq,” and I still believe that, certainly, to the people there and to the small children whose lives, and sometimes bodies, were destroyed that he and America were seen that way, and that he greatly increased terrorism throughout the world. My publisher wrote me and said, “You cannot call the President of the United States ‘a terrorist.’ Our deal is off.” He had the book within a few weeks of being ready to send to press. I could have sued for the book contract, but I chose not to. I chose to move forward and to look for publishers elsewhere. It was still a great blow to me, not only for the loss of the book, but also because I had thought of this gentleman as both a friend and a publisher. No one carried any story of what had happened to me, but, by word of mouth, the story, “got around.” I did not ask my friends to boycott his bookstore (amazing that he could sell books and say such a thing), but they did, and several years later, he went under. I’m not sure if my friends’ boycott did that, but it didn’t help his store, for sure. The paper would not cover such a story because everyone here knows this man. He attends church, and is considered to be a great Christian. I had supported his store, as well, for many, many years, never knowing who he was. He has copies of thinkers, much more radical than I, on his shelves for sale. He simply must never have read them!

I have been able, at last, to have a forum in the Valley Planet, to cover stories of injustice, big and small, and I cannot tell you how I have needed this outlet. My stories, of course, are based on my own bias. I try to say that what I am saying is my opinion, and I think it is very clear that my pieces are opinion-based, but that my facts have been investigated. I don’t print anything that I do not fact-check first. That is not to say that I have not made errors. I did make an error in a scientific calculation, but I was very quickly corrected by several readers!

The local media, in terms of television, tends to gloss over most everything here. Our homeless are treated terribly. We do have a good rescue mission now, though it has been moved to a much more inaccesible area of town, away from the downtown where the homeless tend to want to gather. To me, Huntsville pretends to be a city of great heart. In reality, it is a city of mostly engineers, scientists, wealthy doctors, and lawyers, who simply want their city to look good. Having once taught in the school system, I have seen first-hand, the poor educational system, despite the few excellent teachers, and the few good schools. Our disabled students are treated like mannequins, for the most part, babysat mannequins. Laws governing the disabled are broken all the time, despite court orders. Parents become discouraged, exhausted, and finally give up. Teachers with speech degrees sometimes become the head of the English Department. This happened at my former school. Yet, Huntsville touts itself as a top center for education in order to bring new business here.

I am not reporting these as stories. But, they are examples of the things that are never addressed by the mainstream media. I try to address some of these in my articles. I most likely only reach “the choir.” Although we have a readership of 60,000 via internet, and we leave printed copies at 450 locations in Huntsville (I need to check with my editor, Jill Wood, for more accurate information on numbers), I do not know the breakdown on who is reading the Planet.

In nearby Athens, Al, a young man who was schizophrenic, and off his medication for a long period of time, shot and killed two police officers, whom he had called to help him. He was truly delusional at the time, had a history of being delusional when off his medication to the extent of believing the White House was sending people to “get him.” In his own mind at the moment, he thought those officers were there to harm him. He had to be treated at a state institution before being allowed to stand trial. Before that, however, he was left in solitude in an Athens cell, with no television, no paper, no crayon with which to write or draw, no books to read. He was given only a copy of the Bible. No one has any idea how he might have been treated, taunted by the Athens police who made no attempt to hide their hatred of this ill young man. He was allowed one visit a month by his psychiatrist and one visit a month by his mother. No other prisoner was treated in this manner. The lawyers that were hired were incompetent. His mother did not allow the ACLU to intervene because she was intimidated by the Athens police. When he did get his day in court, it was ruled that he would spend life in prison in another institution. Mystery surrounds his death. It seems that he died from massive internal bleeding during his first night at the new prison. Some suspected the very worst: That perhaps he had been sodomized on the trip down with billy clubs. The press was hushed and has been hushed. Anyone who knew anything was hushed or afraid to speak. It is “common knowledge” that the Sheriff of Limestone County is corrupt. He has his own airport and planes. There are many who “know,” but are afraid to tell. No one will EVER tell. Most likely the story of this tragic young man, who was so paranoid, and had his most paranoid fears realized, will never be revealed.

Athens, AL, is one of the strongholds of ignorance in the South, along with so many other small towns in Alabama. If you reads the Athens Courrier, you will see what I mean. The writing itself is so bad, one wonders how such a “newspaper” can call itself such. But, like the Huntsville Times, which is a well-written paper, for the most, it is the ONLY paper in town. There is nothing to compete in the newspaper markets of most small southern towns.

I hope the grassroots movement will produce independent papers that will at least provide an alternative to the regular/mainstream news.

Thank you for reading my comments. I don’t think my story here is any different than anywhere else in the South. In some places, it is probably much, much worse. The further south you go in Alabama, the greater the ignorance and the more disenfranchised people without power feel.

Please do keep me informed about what I might do as a part of this grassroots movement. At the moment, I am limited to my one column. I am a starving poet. I will be teaching as a guest poet at the University of Alabama in Huntsville this spring, for one class in poetry-writing. I have three works published: To HIde in the Light; Dances in Straw with a Two-Headed Calf, Elk River Review (full-length volumes); and a chapbook by Pudding House Press on view in New York Poet’s House, Bonnie Roberts: Greatest Hits (not a CD, though it sounds like it). I am still looking for a home for my third book, God’s Opposable Thumb. I am a former Fulbright Scholar, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow to study in Paris with Brown University, a former Fellow in Verse with Poetry Ireland to study with contemporary Irish Poets. My first book, To Hide in the Light, won the 1998 Alabama Book of the Year. I have also won a Fellowship in Literature from the Al State Council on the Arts and Humanities. I have taught in high school, college, and as a master poet at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA.

Sincerely, and with thanks for what you are doing,

Bonnie Roberts
1307 Wells Avenue
Huntsville, AL 35801
256-604-0313
256-534-7172
Valley Planet online: http://www.valleyplanet.com