Free James Hinson Press Conference.

The press conference has been talked about in many ways. Lorraine Ahearn is worried that Hinson may get his feelings hurt. That struck me as funny because I can remember when Ahearn was furious with Hinson and told me, "F*** him. I aint helping him anymore." It seems as if they have made up. The Pulpit Forum is asking everyone to stop talking about James Hinson because he is a good God fearing man. The NAACP also wants this to end because it is without a doubt racism. They want this to end. Leave this story about Hinson alone.

I went to the press conference and decided to keep my mouth shut for two reasons. The first is we were in a church and the things I would have said would have brought a flurry of verbal assaults. Jesus would not have liked that. The second is I wanted to see just how silly the panel of Hinson fan's could make themselves look.

The first person to examine is Melvin Alston. Everyone knows Melvin. Most folks call him Skip but I call him Melvin. That is his name. Melvin was talking about holding people accountable and making folks do the right thing. Melvin recently did the right thing by completing the replacement of the dangerous steps at Saint James. But he did not do this on his own. It took prodding to get Melvin to fix the stairs for his low income African American tenants. When all of this first happened, Melvin spoke publicly about how the problem was me and not Saint James. However, if that were the case Melvin would have never had to replace several stairs. According to a letter written to Melvin this month by a City of Greensboro Official, the much needed repairs at Saint James are finally complete. Nice work Melvin.

During the fall of last year Melvin went to the Peacemaker to "Shut me up." He wanted the Peacemaker staff to help him find me and shut me up. However, the Peacemaker did not want to talk about me. They wanted to talk about Melvin's overdue bill. I am not talking chump change either and it was over 1 year past due. Melvin is always saying how important it is to treat African Americans fairly and to fight for justice. However, the black community is not treated very well by Melvin. It is a very low percentage of people that vote in Guilford County. As Tom Phillips once told me, "If Skip Alston was alive during slavery, he would be one of the people selling the blacks to the white man."

Melvin uses intimidation and propaganda as campaign tools. When the steps at Saint James was first brought up in the media, Melvin claimed the person that was injured due to a faulty step was overweight. It was her weight that caused his step to fall according to Melvin. By the way, she was poor and black and very much a victim. Melvin at the press conference talking of justice and racism was funny. If Ms. Poteat lived in a white managed property and fell it would have been racism and Melvin would have gladly led the charge. But because it happened on his turf it was the weight of the tenant that caused the step to break.

One of the most note worthy comments was when someone on the panel said that if a Black person was Chief this issue would have been handled months ago. That made me think of the massage parlor case.

At the time of the trial for Sun's Massage Parlor a black detective was found unprepared and had been extremely sloppy with his duties. Search warrants were returned months after they should have been and evidence was scattered and mixed together. The officer was found not credible and it hurt one of the cases. Shooting fish in a barrel became hard when this detective was questioned and his sloppy work was shown. A automatic guilty charge was torn apart due to a sloppy job.

His supervisor was former Vice Captain Al Stewart. Stewart recommended to his Chief Robert White that the detective be demoted and transferred(Departmental). White agreed to do that. However, behind Stewart's back the recommendation was not followed. The detective was not punished as Stewart recommended. Instead he received a Divisional Reprimand and was transferred. This led to a spirited debate between Stewart and Chief White after Stewart found out about the change through the rumor mill, weeks later. Stewart was transferred from vice narcotics into the motorcycle division after questioning the chief's decision. Stewart is white. Robert White is black. The detective that screwed up was black. Sounds familiar doesn't it? It seems entirely possible that White crippled the Department with his lack of actions and favoritism too.

Ken Free was holding the press conference and he boldly stated that Wray put Hinson in charge of a program for prostitutes. That is not true. Tim Bellamy put Hinson in charge of HELP. The program was also huge failure.

The panel of Hinson fan's also praised Hinson for his work to help the alarming murder rate in 2003. That program was called the Gathering and it accomplished nothing as well.

The purpose of that press conference is still unknown to me. They said it was because they were sick of racism. James Hinson is hardly a good example of a victim of racism.

I thought about why this group of people did not assemble in front of cameras during the Homestead mess. After all, it was an African American leader attacked publicly until he killed himself. As a matter of fact, most black leaders do not want to say one word about Homestead. They want facts and truth abut Hinson but the Pulpit Forum has never said, release the Homestead report. It was just a big mess. They know it. The white DA Doug Henderson told them so. Or maybe the black leader's told him it was messy. It is so confusing. But, I do not think they had a press conference to clear his name and embrace him. It was like he was a fall guy. It was like King acted alone and no leader got anything from him that was questionable.