“DISTRICT 1 RESIDENT, I AM CERTAIN MANY OF YOU HAVE READ HATE FILLED COMMENTS AIMED AT ME. I WANT YOU TO KNOW WHERE THEY LIVE. SOME IN ANOTHER COUNTY AND STATE. DOWNLOAD THE ‘WHITE PAGES’ FREE APP. GET OLE HATER’S NAME AND SEARCH IT ON WHITE PAGES TO FIND OUT WHERE THEY LIVE. MOSTLY NOT IN DISTRICT 1.
“HATERS ARE LOOKING FOR UNCLE TOM TO REPRESENT DISTRICT 1, ONE WHO SCRATCHES WHILE NOT ITCHING, AND GRIN WHEN NOTHING IS FUNNY. TOM WILL GO ALONG TO GET ALONG; RIGHT OR WRONG. TOM DOES WHEN TOLD TO DO. HIS ACTION MUST BE PREDICTABLE. HE MUST NOT ACT UNLESS TOLD. BUT FIRST, THEY MUST CONVINCE CITIZENS OF DISTRICT 1 TO FOLLOW THE NEGATIVE FRED RICHARDSON PICTURES THEY PAINT. THEY DONT HAVE THE ONLY PAINT BRUSH.”
– Mobile City Councilman Fred Richardson, Facebook post on July 1, 2016.
Photo | Lagniappe
Dear Councilman Richardson,
The only person painting negative pictures of Fred Richardson is Fred Richardson. You are holding that paintbrush and your usual palette of choice is your Facebook page. Your own actions and rhetoric since the tragic death of Michael Moore, much like the post above, have been irresponsible, divisive and have done nothing but help drive a wedge in our community.
Multiple agencies are investigating Moore’s death and, as a leader of ALL of the residents of your district and city, you should be calling for peace and patience while they are trying to determine what actually happened on Wagner Street on the evening of June 13.
No matter our race or ZIP code, we are all human beings and since this tragedy, we have all tried to put ourselves in both the shoes of the officer as well as the mother who just buried her son, and it’s hard to think about being in either of those positions. But the vast majority of us just want the truth to come out and go from there. But not turn on each other in the meantime.
Instead you are posting misinformation on Facebook, fanning the flames of hate and arguing with people who call you out on your inappropriate behavior, creepily stalking them on your “whitepages app” and apparently other city databases (as you stated to one person) to see where they live. And calling for others to do the same. Again, that is super-creepy and dangerous. You are inciting people to argue with you or each other on your page and then offering up a tool to find the home addresses of these same people.
You even posted a mugshot of one such critic. Good grief!
It doesn’t matter what the content of the argument is, is this kind of childish behavior befitting on an elected official? An official who will be representing us once again on the global stage next week at the Farnborough Air Show. (Of course he is. Fred has never missed an opportunity to have his passport stamped on the taxpayer’s dime. I have to wonder just how many of those ditches in Trinity Gardens he has been complaining about for years could have been filled on his travel budget alone?)
Anyway, when you aren’t arguing with strangers on Facebook, you are calling up the mayor’s office and reporting that the police chief dared to draw his weapon on a man who admittedly was stealing his third load of Frigidaires from Roger Williams housing complex. Come on, Fred. We all know this was just a political stunt that backfired on you. And since it did blow up in your face, you tried to make it seem like the mayor’s office blew this out of proportion by calling the media and making a statement on it. But there is absolutely no doubt, if the mayor’s office hadn’t addressed this ridiculous “constituent complaint” from you, you would have been calling the same media to say the mayor’s office was trying to sweep this under the rug. Probably would have been a good play if hadn’t been so obvious what you were up to.
But really, I find this whole “Uncle Tom” rhetoric the most offensive of all. I live in your district (Please creepily cyber-stalk me to confirm that, so I am allowed to have an opinion on this matter.), and all I want is a councilperson who represents me as vigorously as he represents my black, Asian, Hispanic and LGBT neighbors. And actually one who doesn’t even worry about such distinctions because he (or she) is more focused on representing us ALL as Mobilians. Unfortunately, Councilman Richardson, I think you have lost sight of that as you have tried to manipulate this horrible event for your own political gain.
I want a councilperson I can be proud of, not embarrassed by. One who, in difficult times like these, offers a voice of reason and understanding. One who tries to bring our city together, not tear it apart.
And that councilperson is just not Fred Richardson.
