I was mildly surprised by the response of some close friends and acquaintances who expressed surprise that Point of View placed a full-page ad submitted by candidate and State Representative Bud Williams in his 2024 winning election against Johnny McKnight on a prominent page in our October issue just weeks before the early November election.
The response puzzled me because we almost always place full page ads on the most prominent pages in Point of View which include, among others, the inside front page and the back page whether political ad or otherwise. It’s a marketing benefit for advertisers willing to pay for it. Yet some seem to have read something political into the positioning. They openly wondered why we would afford such a prominent position to a candidate whom we didn’t particularly care for.
They seemed to connect the positioning of the Williams’ ad to the fact that we did not endorse challenger Johnny McKnight, although we didn’t endorse Bud Williams either. Nothing could be further from the facts. We do not endorse a candidate simply because we do not like the opponent. We endorse a candidate because, among other things, the candidate demonstrates the courage to confront the issues that we think represent our view of what is important and in the public interest without fear of speaking truth to power.
I speak truth to power anytime I believe it to be important to do so around issues important to our readers. And I do so unapologetically, even as I am aware that doing so sometimes angers folks and also sometimes impacts negatively on our marketing. It’s a foundational working principle that sometimes conflicts with the financial demands of the newspaper. (I don’t mind mentioning the full page $1,600 ad from a past White mayoral candidate that we rejected because it was obviously insulting to the Black community. Money doesn’t define us.)
All that to say to candidates in the upcoming and future elections, “you ‘gotta’ stand for something.” And pretty words strung together in poetic fashion intended to emotionally entice voters won’t get it. Pretty words are the foundational tool of all good and bad aspiring and incumbent politicians alike and are only meaningful insomuch as aspiring candidates demonstrate courage and a willingness to work hard and to fight fearlessly for an audience broader than themselves, of which speaking truth to power is a critical part.
We haven’t seen much of that since the late Raymond Jordan made the decision to challenge the White status quo and alter the fundamental political relationships between Springfield’s Black and White political communities.
Ray was my friend and my nemesis all at the same time, which is partly why I knew him better than most. And it’s why I tend to be so hard on the squeamish Black (mostly male) politicians who strive to assume the Ray Jordan political mantel with no understanding of what made him great and, eventually, truly powerful.
I’ve always been puzzled by the seemingly insurmountable idea that dissent in the political arena means we must either love or hate each other and never the twain shall meet. I like Bud Williams but I deplore his petty politics just as I liked Ray Jordan even though, as he grew more powerful, I disagreed with his emerging politics.
But if I had to choose between the two, I would choose Ray Jordan because his foundational political objectives were so bold and visionary, which is why my next article will be a summary about how Ray’s political career is so eminently distinguishable from that of today’s Ray Jordan “wannabes” and, in the process, help our readers and politicians better understand the “rules of the political game” as we at Point of View see them. ■