I recently submitted a letter to Freeport town councilors and the town manager after reading an article about the planned Freeport anti-hate rally and their saying: “This is not who we are.”
Respectfully, I beg to differ. This is who we are.
Rallies against racism are nice. A reward of $1,000-plus to find the offending “graffiti artist(s)” is far better. Prosecute them or significantly fine them for defacing public property. It’s a hate crime, folks. The operative word is “crime.” As a wake-up call, consider the Press Herald’s special report from July on the rapid rise of hate, white nationalist and white supremacist groups in Maine.
Back in 2022, when a Black man who had been dining with a white woman was reportedly threatened with a gun by a 61-year-old white man in the Antonia’s Pizzeria parking lot, the town’s response should have been: “We will not tolerate the threatening of anyone with a firearm in the town of Freeport. We will not tolerate anyone threatening anyone else in Freeport for any reason. The perpetrator [name the perpetrator] has been arrested. He will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Instead, we got the town’s Richard Nixon response. The town may benefit from retaining a PR professional for crisis communications.
Post the reward, find the perp(s) and prosecute. Holding a rally is like twiddling your thumbs while racist acts continue to happen in our town. It’s like the easy-peasy offering of “thoughts and prayers” after a shooting, versus taking direct action.
Disappointed once again,
Ed Moser
Freeport
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