To the Editor of the Valley News:

As a former president of the Board of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society who remains a loyal and enthusiastic member of the Co-op, I do not blame Jim Kenyon for his outrageous and mean-spirited column about the local customer-owned grocery and auto repair chain (“Discrimination in Store?,” 5/22/22).  Rather, I blame the editors of this newspaper for allowing Kenyon to press onward with his irrational, multi-year vendetta against the Co-op – this time on page 1, above the fold.

You could have, but did not, assigned a beat reporter rather than an unabashedly biased columnist to cover what is a straight-up news story:  The Co-op recently named a new general manager and, as between picking the first woman to lead the organization and the first person of color, the board chose the former. The person of color then filed a discrimination complaint and the Co-op said publicly that it supports his right to pursue such a claim.

Reported neutrally, that’s a story calculated to make the Co-op's thousands of members proud of their organization.  Instead, you allowed Kenyon to tart up his diatribe with tales of racist remarks allegedly made by shoppers riled up by masking requirements – and a vague claim that some rank-and-file Co-op employees have muttered about “tokenism” since the black employee in question is a store manager.

News flash:  Some people in New Hampshire and Vermont are racist.  But that doesn’t make the Co-op a racist organization, simply for having made a difficult personnel choice that smashed the organization’s glass ceiling after 76 years.

And in a separate letter to Daybreak, Kreis adds:

One cannot blame Doren Hall for feeling aggrieved enough to take his concerns to the Human Rights Commission.  It shouldn't surprise anyone that as a black man tasked with the day-to-day success of the Co-op's biggest store, he's experienced his share of racist words and deeds, from shoppers and fellow employees alike, especially given the state of our pandemic-addled society. I believe every word of the sentiments attributed to him by Mr. Kenyon.

Appointing Amanda Charland as general manager was, I concede, a somewhat audacious choice. Now, the community (by which I mean everyone, since so many people in the Upper Valley are Co-op member-owners) owes Amanda every chance to succeed . . . and certainly not the kind of sabotage the local daily newspaper has so brazenly attempted.