By Melanie Adams
Special to the FOCUS Blog

Friday’s Post Dispatch had a story about the best places to kiss in St. Louis.  While this is not hard hitting journalism, I thought I would take a look.  Instead of seeing comments about the actual story, I started reading racist comments about the picture of the couple dating.  I went back to the start of the article and saw an African American man kissing a white woman.  All I thought was, “oh yeah, I am in St. Louis.”

Instead of embracing the fact that the story was celebrating public displays of affection, people left comments that are best left not repeated.  The general idea of the over 100 comments was that this was St. Louis and we don’t condone interracial dating.  To matter worse, almost 99% of the comments were done with aliases, so not only are we a community of hate, we are a community of hateful cowards.

After ranting and raving to my friends via Facebook, they reminded me that the posts were probably made by a handful of small minded people with numerous aliases who had a lot of time on their hands.  Even if this was the case, I thought there should have been more comments in support of the couple’s right to date and far fewer calling the image “disgusting.”

Many people think that racial issues in St. Louis are a thing of the past.  Unfortunately, they continue to be a part of our future.

Melanie Adams is Director of Community Education and Events at the Missouri History Museum and a member of the FOCUS St. Louis Board of Directors.