On Tuesday, Aug. 18, Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin appeared on the WIDU Morning Show, a program I regularly host. I was in the studio that morning, sitting approximately 15 feet from the Mayor and listening to the conversation firsthand.
The previous day, Councilmember Lynn Greene and former Councilmember Tisha Waddell had appeared in that same studio and were sharply critical of Mayor Colvin. When the Mayor joined us the following morning, it was clear that he was frustrated by some of what had been said. At the beginning of our conversation, I expressed my own disagreement with the tone and nature of the previous day’s discussion.
Mayor Colvin continued by saying he believed the personal attacks were unfair and, in describing what he witnessed, used the term “cooning.” That word quickly became the centerpiece of a much larger controversy. Some of the Mayor’s critics subsequently characterized his remarks as an insult directed at Black people generally, with some going so far as to suggest that he had called all Black people “coons.”
I was there. I heard the conversation firsthand. That is not what I heard him say, nor is that how I understood his remarks.
For the record, I am a Black person. I have been one for 71 years, and I certainly did not interpret the Mayor’s remarks as an attack on Black people. Had he been “throwing shade” at Black people generally, I would have been standing squarely within the group being insulted.
That does not mean people cannot object to the word he chose. They certainly can. Some may consider the term offensive, inappropriate, or unacceptable for an elected official to use. That is a legitimate debate. But there is an important difference between criticizing someone’s choice of words and changing the meaning of what that person said.
Within a day or so, a portion of Mayor Colvin’s remarks was isolated from the longer video and circulated on social media. Predictably, the edited clip took on a life of its own. Anyone who watched the full exchange would have had the benefit of hearing the remarks in full context and could have reached their own conclusion about what was said and intended.
But that is increasingly the nature of modern political discourse: isolate a few words, cut and paste them into a more damaging narrative, circulate the clip widely, and allow the controversy to outrun the context.
Anyone interested in determining what happened should watch the entire exchange—not simply a selected excerpt. Context does not require anyone to agree with the Mayor, excuse his language, or defend his choice of words. It simply allows people to hear the complete conversation and reach their own conclusions.
People are certainly entitled to criticize the Mayor’s choice of words. They are entitled to find the terminology offensive, inappropriate, or beneath the dignity of his office. But criticism should begin with an accurate representation of what was said and the context in which it was said. There is a meaningful difference between criticizing conduct and directing a racial insult toward an entire group of people. Based on what I personally witnessed, those two things should not be confused.