‘The State’ shouldn’t provide a forum for Rusty DePass
The State recently ran a guest column from Rusty DePass (“The last governor from Columbia was elected in 1878. Are we about to end the drought?”) — the man who, in 2009, referred to a a gorilla that escaped from Riverbanks Zoo as “an ancestor” of Michelle Obama. After complaints about this blatantly racist comment, he said it was “said in jest,” but it disappeared from his Facebook page, and then the page itself was taken down.
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Days later he apologized, saying, “My comment was offensive and a flippant remark made without thinking.… It was wrong and foolish, and I deeply regret it and any pain it has produced.”
What makes The State think that anything DePass has to say is not also “wrong and foolish”? Some editor should have asked: Does publishing this man’s opinion make us look racist?
Harvey Starr
Columbia
The State publishes a cross section of the letters we receive from South Carolinians in order to provide a forum for our community and also to allow our community to get a good look at itself, for good or bad. The letters represent the views of the letter writers, not necessarily of The State.