Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/59049
THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON If it is true that you can fi nd any result you want in a poll by spinning the angle to suit your perspective, then just look at how differently folks are addressing a recent poll about what we think of the cities in our diverse state of North Carolina. Wilmington is crowing over its attributes — the ocean, the river and cultural amenities, because it has the highest favorable rating and the lowest unfavorable, 67 and 4 percent, respectively. Charlotte is breathing a sigh of relief because although voters in Eastern North Carolina do not feel warm and fuzzy about the Queen City, they do not resent it as much as many in Charlotte suspected. Charlotte seems pleased with its numbers at 59 and 18 percent. Durham is surely interested in knowing that it commands more respect outside the Triangle than in it, whatever that might mean. All in all, major cities in North Carolina are well enough regarded to garner higher positive ratings than negative ones which is undoubtedly one of the reasons our state is among the fastest growing in the nation. All but one city, that is. Fayetteville. Our negative rating is one point higher than our positive rating, 30 to 29 percent. Simply put, that means that slightly more North Carolinians think poorly of our city than think well of it. Fayetteville boosters are pooh-poohing these unfortunate fi ndings, correctly noting that Fayetteville's favorability was probably worse in the past than it is now and that it seems to be improving every year. They also note, again correctly, that the results are well within the statistical margin of error, so more people might really like us than the poll indicates. In addition, more than 40 percent of the people surveyed are not sure what they think about Fayetteville, and we can work hard to get them into the positive column. All of that being said, and certainly true in many ways, the fact remains that Fayetteville does not have a well-honed and polished image throughout the rest of our state. There are no doubt many contributing factors to Fayetteville's negative image, and I want to talk about one of them that has troubled me for decades. I think we contribute to this ourselves and am at a loss to understand why we cannot stop doing it. In the 1960s and early '70s, Fayetteville was full of young men who were drafted into the Army and who wanted to be anywhere else but here preparing to go to Vietnam. Some of them behaved in ways they would never have behaved in their own communities, and there were plenty of local businesses willing to aid and abet them on that score. Think the Hay Street of that era. I cannot bring myself to type the word we began calling ourselves, but I refer to it in code as the "F word," and, no, defi nitely not the four letter one. Sometime in the 1980s, I was passing through the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, airport and was offended when I overheard another traveler using that term in conversation about our city. Three decades later I still hear people in our own city using that term as if they think they are clever beyond all measure. It is not much different than calling your smart and attractive sister dumb and ugly until she comes to believe it. This seemingly endless case of low self-esteem, inferiority complex, self- loathing or whatever you choose to call it has persisted despite the fact that we are not the same community we were in those dark days of our nation's past. Fayetteville today is proud of her military heritage and of the expanding military presence. We celebrate our military personnel, most of whom are married people with families, more likely to be home watching the children and mowing the grass than out carousing. We dedicate parks to our Hometown Heroes, have baby showers for them and send letters and care packages. We show our pride in grand public gestures and in small personal ways with our military neighbors. Clearly, our hearts are in the right place and we are doing the all the right things on one hand, but we are shooting ourselves in the foot with the other. All the boosterism and slick advertising in the world cannot cure what we continue to infl ict on ourselves. A friend who is a world-class salesperson once sent me over the retail edge of something I wanted to buy by saying, "Margaret, if you don't buy this for yourself, WHO is going to buy it for you?" I got out my credit card. I wish she — who lives near Asheville, the third most favorably rated city — were here to say to the Fayetteville community, "If you are not going to be proud and respect yourselves and your community, WHO is going to do that for you?" Who, indeed? MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist, Up & Coming Weekly. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. Ytrvurvvbvuvurru vvyryrvx 484-6200 www.upandcomingweekly.com THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET R-E-S-P-E-C-T WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM MARCH 21-27, 2012, 2012 UCW 5