Readers' views in Duluth News Tribune on Sept 28

I was happy to see this letter in today's (Sept 28th) Duluth News Tribune. I could not agree more with what Trevor had to say. Except perhaps with his statement that "His (Forsman's) statement would be expected from a hormone-crazed, 14-year-old boy". If I was a 14 year old boy, I'd object, but then again, I've never been one...
Thank you Trevor!

County Board members attempt to play the victim

St. Louis County Commissioner Mike Forsman’s response to the campaign of the We are Watching group would be comical if it wasn’t so indicative of a serious incapacity to recognize the importance of ethical behavior from elected officials (“County will craft code,” Sept. 5). Residents of St. Louis County should be concerned that an individual with such a deficit wields the power that Forsman does.

If Forsman is serious that he is incapable of discerning the difference between looking at a woman and ogling her, he lacks a level of self-awareness and self-control that would be expected in a responsible adult. His statement would be expected from a hormone-crazed, 14-year-old boy, not an elected official. Perhaps Forsman’s constituents should consider whether this level of maturity is adequate to earn their votes when he’s up for re-election.

Forsman’s accusation of white-male hatred is completely without merit. Certainly he noticed that other white male commissioners were not the subjects of the protest group’s action, but only those who made inappropriate advances on female employees of St. Louis County. This issue is not about white men, it is about men in elected office who have sexually harassed women working for the county.

Finally, Forsman’s suggestion that the We are Watching group and its supporters are analogous to the racist mob who lynched three innocent black men in Duluth in 1920 is completely off base and demonstrates a broad-ranging ignorance of the issues at hand. Holding elected officials accountable for their behavior is not the same as murdering three men because they are African American. Forsman clearly feels like a victim, but he isn’t one, and neither are Commissioners Dennis Fink (“Fink faces accusations of improper comments and stares,” Aug. 16) or Steve Raukar (“County inquiry focuses on hotel phone calls,” Aug. 4). Only the privilege white men hold in this society would allow the consequences of unethical behavior to be mistaken for victimization.

Trevor Swoverland

Two Harobrs