Racist remarks in Wolfsboro, N. H.

Couple of years ago we vacationed in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire to catch the fall colors; it was a grand time. We remembered seeing Mitt Romney’s family compound on one of the islands in the lake.

Recently Wolfeboro was in the news due to an 82 year-old police commissioners who when asked why he did not watch television stated quite loudly that all the TV ever shows is that N----; meaning President Barack Obama.

A white woman who overheard the comment made a big deal about it and obviously it finally made national headlines.

Robert Copeland, the 82 year-old police commissioner did not hide from what he said and said that in this country we have freedom of speech and he was just exercising that freedom and no he was not going to resign his elected position as many people urged him to do.

Copeland was rude and very disrespectful but he did not break the law but what he did as a single individual, was to paint an entire town dependent on tourist dollars, as racist and although I did not see any black people in the town, the town would carry the racist moniker from now on…unless the town did something about the situation.

Mr. Copeland recently resigned his position as police commissioner after many of the townspeople including Mitt Romney and the 13 member police force demanded his resignation for the good of the town.

I have been decrying the fact that in this country we are becoming less and less tolerant of speech we deem improper to the point of actually banning certain speech as well as certain opinions and attitudes.

The case with Mr. Copeland is different in the fact that he was an elected official and as an elected official, his words carry weight in society. Put a different way, his words affect other people and in this case, a whole town.

He of course is free to say what he wants to but as a public official he is responsible to the public that has made him an official and if that public sees that his words or actions are in any way harming the public, he can be forced to step down from his public position and be relegated to his front porch where he can spout all the racist vitriol he wants to.

Some have tried to downplay Mr. Copeland’s remarks because of his age; a different generation that lived in “different” times. I say, if you are a public official your age does not matter; you are responsible for your words and actions…hope he does not have a family because I would hate to be related to him at this point.