Note to readers regarding Sylvester Brown Jr.
This note to readers from Arnie Robbins, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Pam Maples, managing editor, appeared in this morning’s Post-Dispatch:
To our readers:
Sylvester Brown Jr. is no longer writing a column for the Post-Dispatch.
Brown accepted the offer of a free trip to Washington from supporters of a group that he had written about in a column the day before. The column, “Metro East leaders head to D.C. to tout E-Macrosystem,” ran on March 26. Brown also had not notified his editors of his trip or the offer. Our integrity and our credibility with readers is of utmost importance to us. Our ethics policy clearly states the parameters regarding conflict of interest, and what our journalists can and cannot do.
Brown declined an opportunity to write a farewell column.Arnie Robbins • editor
Pam Maples • managing editor
Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
Good riddance: He was a one-trick pony on race who was married to a caucasian.
Ah, but Mr. Brown was an illuminating lightning rod for the maddened/addled white conservatives, such as those who fixate on the race of his wife…
Mr. Brown was no wild-eyed racialist or radical, and only i the eyes of those threatened or offended by a black man with the temerity to discuss
racial issues took offense.
Even though Mr.Brown’s viewpoints was agressive at time,he did step up to the plate and laid it on the line.Some people rather play it safe by not doing that.But if it true that Mr.Brown was terminated because he cross the line of journalism standards then that is also understood.Mr.Brown will be a good fit for the Riverfront Times.
The Post is on the road to extinction anyway. They have done Mr. Brown a favor. Sylvester, if you are reading this, best wishes for a new job opportunity with a future. This lame and dying horse of a newspaper is on its way out. Good luck to you and your family and I look forward to reading your column wherever you go.
White Reader from St. Louis County
Don’t let the door hit you, Sylvester X. Now you’ll have plenty of time to start up the local chapter of the Panthers.
I for one am glad to see Mr. Brown’s column gone. I never gained any insights, considered changing my point of view or had to dig very deeply into my soul after reading his musings. Mr. Brown probably has many skills, writing for the masses doesn’t appear to be one of them.
I saw him on his press conference last night and was upset after hearing him. He didn’t use that opportunity to explain his actions. He was angry and defiant. He didn’t deny that what he did was wrong, he simply said the Post over reacted and never liked him any way. Frankly I was surprised that he didn’t say the Post fired him because he was black.
If the Post has to have a columnist that represents a “black point of view” (rather than an author that happens to be black) I hope the next one is less polarizing than Mr. Brown. In the past I have noted that several of your readers have called him a racist. I don’t know if I would agree but I do know that he saw most issues thru a prism that seemed to reflect black one way and the rest of humanity another.
I don’t care what color, race, sex or religion Mr. Browns replacement is. I hope that you pick him/her on their ability to see past color as being the dominant factor in todays society. I don’t believe it is, nor do I believe the majority of your readers do.
Will the Post be adding a new writer that hates “Whitey”?
Although I did not read his column every week, what he gave the Post and St. Louis was the black perspective, which is sorely needed in this one-horse town. Until this city realizes that we need to galvanize both sides of the fence (black and white), we will never become a real major city and sometimes I get the feeling this city wants to continue to be a 2nd rate city. The firing of Sylvester Brown should serve notice to this city that racism indeed does and still exist and the excuse they used was just a method to “justify” his termination. Regardless of what some may think, you need both sides of a story to get a complete view. Now that Sylvester is gone and Gregory Freeman (Brown’s predecessor) has gone on to glory, what will the Post do now to get the other side - probably nothing. Brown will land on his feet because good writing skills are still needed even in this Internet age - the Riverfront Times would be good but if he leaves town, I would not be mad at him at all. Lastly, his personal life (married to a white woman) is indeed his choice, like it or not.
Sylvester Brown’s columns were reflective of his worldview - that of a 1960’s liberal, with the belief that government is the answer to many of our nation’s problems, particularly with regards to race.
As a result, I rarely agreed with him.
Yet, I read him - and that’s all a columnist can ask for…
I for one am glad to see him gone. Hopefully your replacement will be someone who can actually look at all sides of a story instead of making judgements based on race.