Change can be good. Sometimes change is good even if some of us don’t like to change. It can be for our own good.

That is what I have to say to the people out there who are making all this noise about Mayor Zach Patterson’s voicing his concerns about fairness in judging the floats in the Christmas parade. Some people feel that this is a trivial matter and have a lot to say about the mayor being trivial. It’s just a parade they say. They want the mayor to focus on the issues and problems of the city.

Well, I will say that he has been doing that (working on the city problems) since he was elected to office. He has tried to address a lot of issues and problems of the city, including some of the ones that previous McComb mayors had failed to address. And, now he is addressing another problem. That is his job. He is the leader of the city of McComb. THE CHIEF LEADER.

He is not the problem. It is all those other people that want to lead or hang on to the lead role. They don’t want that part to change. Those ‘leaders’ want everything in city government to stay under their control, including the people. Including the parade. Including the judges and the way they judge. F

rom what I can tell, all Mayor Patterson was saying is that he wanted the judging process to be fair. He said that he, along with many others watched the entire parade. And for him, and it turns out, for a lot of other people too, there appeared to be other parade float participants that deserved to be recognized. I

t isn’t the parade that is the issue. It is the principle. In a majority Black city, it is only natural that the judging in the parade should reflect more of the view of the majority (Black people) than in the past.

Forever it seems the judging has reflected the viewpoint of the previous majority---white people. More of a slant towards white people’s preference. And that is only natural. They like what they like. They prefer what they prefer. We like what we like and we prefer what we prefer. Sometimes what they like is the same as what we like. But, sometimes what we like, what we think is best is different.

So, in those cases, who gets to decide? It’s always been the majority rules. Well, the old majority is not the majority anymore. Black people are the majority now.

Differences in our culture, preferences and viewpoints can cause the majority of us to judge differently than you, or even have a different judging criteria. No one should get upset about it. It is only natural. We are in the majority and it is our time to rule. Our time to govern. Our time to judge. We must be fair, too.

It’s only fair. Some of you say that McComb has been running a wonderful Christmas parade for many many years. Well that maybe true, but the judging many not have been as wonderful to most people.

Some say that the Mayor can attend the parade but he can’t ever attend a city work session. Well, he attended everyone of those sessions until a group of selectmen took illegal actions that stripped him of his powers and they appointed a city administrator and city attorney that he refuses to honor (appointments that were also illegal). So, he has refused to honor those work sessions.

He continues, as always to point out the need for fair treatment of all members of the community, especially the Black community and is pushing for a change. There are those who want to stop him from making it fair for everyone. Even in the Christmas Parade.

Now, that’s not fair.