Tishaura O. Jones – the St. Louis treasurer who narrowly lost the March 7 mayoral primary after months of negative and condescending reporting and editorializing by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – has another message for the Post’s editorial board, which was obtained by The American.
Her previous rebuke of Tod Robberson, Editorial Page editor at the Post, where she explained her reasons for not meeting with the Post editorial board, accused the paper of “thinly veiled racism and preference for the status quo past.”
It went viral after it was posted on stlamerican.com. More than a quarter-million people read Jones’ letter, and it became the subject of at least four national news stories.
Here is her latest letter to Robberson, dated Tuesday, March 14, 2017.
Tishaura O. Jones writes:
Your recent editorial “Some Ingredients behind Tishaura Jones’ Surprise Election Showing” contains a passage that I cannot resist highlighting:
“She gained traction for standing up to the establishment by circulating a letter accusing this editorial board of racism. For those who read the newspaper regularly, the accusation was nonsense. But Jones was aiming for an audience less immersed in the issues and more in concepts of hope, inspiration and challenging the status quo.”
You suggested “a dose of humility” for me.
The comments that editorial drew both locally and nationally should have sobered you. Those comments and the energy they inspired made it clear that a lot of people agreed with what I said. I am grateful for their support, which almost turned an election on its head.
So be warned: I plan to keep the coalition that supported me engaged in the issues I raised during the campaign. It’s a platform to make people’s lives better. We’ll move on together. The work won’t stop.
Another recent editorial in your newspaper suggested that the election of a new mayor “will present a golden opportunity to take a fresh look at the city’s governance structure.” You proposed a new website to allow people to suggest ways to save money and cut bureaucracy.
That shows you still don’t get it. People’s frustration with government isn’t that it delivers services inefficiently, but that it delivers them unfairly, favoring rich neighborhoods over poor ones, donors over residents, and projects over people. The problem isn’t the number of desks at City Hall, although it would be convenient if poverty and systemic racism could be eliminated by changing a flow chart.
Change is inconvenient. That’s what I confidently predict over the next four years. I invite you to join me.
