Roy Exum: The Facebook Starlet

  • Saturday, December 10, 2016
Roy Exum
Roy Exum
The Pants Store, a toney women’s boutique in Birmingham’s Mountain Book community, held its annual Holiday Open House about a week or so and, as usual, the popular store was full of customers and holiday cheer. It was a festive gathering, fun for all, but as store employees cleaned up for the next day, they happened across an empty designer-shoe box and a brassiere somebody had left behind.
So when co-owner John Gee and his managers reviewed the surveillance cameras he had installed at various locations in the store, they discovered a white woman who looked like she was in her late teens or early 20s, shoplifting a $150 pair of shoes, some $160 designer pants and some other items.
Gee, disgusted and aware shoplifting cases result in “usually nothing other than it might be a bad day” for the sticky-fingered suspect, decided to get even.
In a way “I hope will shame the heck out of out of them,” Gee posted the alleged robber’s picture on his Facebook page this week with this clever message:
* * *
“Hi! Do you know me? Today while Pants Store was rolling out great deals and refreshments at their annual holiday open house, I was wearing out shoes, designer jeans, and a variety of other great clothes that I did not pay for. Did you know Pants Store had 16 cameras watching me and caught it all on video??? I didn't either! So please like and share this post so somebody can collect the $100 cash award so the Pants Store will prosecute me and make sure I pay for things from now on. Call us at 868-1616 or email sales@pantsstore.com if you know who I am. Thanks and Happy Holidays!!”
* * *
The message went viral, as you might suspect, and was the most popular story on the AL.com website Friday, photo and all. At 6 p.m. yesterday the Mountain Brook Police Department had a name and address of a suspect and if it is not the culprit she has a twin! Moral of the story: Don’t take what you don’t buy.
* * *
I HAVE NO DOUBT Rusty Munger meant well when he sent emails to the members of the Hamilton County School Board, but he was far off base when he publicly chastised Rhonda Thurman for choosing not to reply. She doesn’t owe Rusty a thing, quite frankly, and knowing her as I do, sometimes the best answer is silence.
As one who often gets over 100 emails a day, there is no way I can answer all of them. I try to read every one of them but add “spam” and the demands of the day and there is no way I can manage them. If I spent three minutes on each email, I wouldn’t have time to do what I do.
So people who send emails, especially to those in the public eye and in public demand, should realize there is a human being on the other side of the address who is doing the best they can. As a rule I adore the emails that disagree with me – great for the thought process -- and immediately delete those that are vulgar. I have a thick skin after 50 years, but emails I receive that are hurtful and personally unkind are not worth the energy to respond.
And if you think you are so important that you “deserve a reply,” go out in your yard and call another man’s dog.
* * *
Brenda Washington, a passionate black activist who took me to task for writing that 20 percent of all black males in the state’s public schools were suspended in 2014-2015 (“The Cost of No Discipline”) is a dear friend who has called me down on several occasions and she knows I appreciate it. I respect her views and read everything she posts, whether it is about me or not.
My figures on the fact black youths are five times more likely to be suspended than whites were taken from state Department of Education reports. I was not there when these guys were suspended, had nothing to do with the decision to suspend even one of them, nor know any of the details.
Chattanooga’s Orchard Knob Middle School, almost exclusively black, led the state in the overall students who were expelled with 9.1 percent of its 480-plus students. The Howard High School, its halls full of blacks and Hispanics, was fifth with 7.1 being dismissed. We – our society of all types of people – have a problem that begs a solution.
My point was to illustrate the “real” reason schools such as Signal Mountain, Red Bank and East Ridge are at such a state of alarm they want to leave the county’s Department of Education. Until you can identify a reason a problem exists, you will never correct it. Everyone in the HCDE already knows the truth.
I urge Brenda, pastors both black and white, and anyone else concerned to go see for yourselves. This week we had three black-on-black shootings. Accusing me of being “a funny kind of Christian,” or a reviled racist, doesn’t bother me – it is blatantly untrue -- but the fact not one person seems outraged over black-on-black shootings is beyond my comprehension. Three separate shootings in Chattanooga, all of the same day, and I read it on page 4 of the second section in the newspaper.
In Memphis behavior by black students is rampant. Police call inner-city schools the training ground for jail. Consider that 10 percent of the black kids in Tennessee attend Memphis public schools yet 25 percent of the suspensions in the entire state were from the same area. MLK College Preparatory School had 57 percent of its students suspended and it is one of our new state-directed Achievement School District members.
At Brainerd High during the same year there were over 250 arrests by officers of the Chattanooga Police Department. Brenda can easily obtain the same information and records that I can. I insist the proof is in the truth.
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