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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

Shanna Flowers

Recent columns

• Glimpsing the dream
• There's merit to teachers' pay plan
• Readers became focus of column

• Column archive

While you were wading through your mailbox full of holiday cards bearing glad tidings and best wishes, I went through my mail. Some missives had the charitable tone of a holiday greeting.

Others decidedly did not.

I would say that what you write is as useless as the teats on a boar hog.-- David McCormick, unimpressed with a response I gave a reader in an earlier mailbag.

More than 3,000 hungry seniors received food because the column helped promote a soup drive for the Roanoke Local Office on Aging. We swayed at least one person who had never donated blood to do so and save lives, and we were among the media alerting the public that the Christmas wishes of 500 disadvantaged children hadn't been filled on Salvation Army's Angel Trees. All of that to say: One man's trash is another's treasure.

You know, I disagree with EVERYTHING you write about, BUT, the piece on Salem Ridge is dead on. -- Kelly Simmons, a former resident of the troubled apartments.

Actually, I didn't know. But there's a long line ahead of you.

Today, a first ... a Shanna Flowers column I agree with. -- Wilson Weaver, responding to a column on the car-tax folly of former Gov. Jim Gilmore.

Keep reading. Lightning may strike twice.

I thank Jim Gilmore every May when I have to pay my personal property tax. I paid $152.00, but he saved me $264.00 on a three-year-old Ford. Overtaxed all my life. -- Roy McCormick

I hate paying taxes, too. But I'd hate it even more if I called the police and they didn't show up.

When I read your story that "Roanoke needs to think like business," I was in a state of shock. You sounded like a Republican. -- Calvin Weddle, on a column urging city leaders to show more vision.

Just goes to show you can't pigeonhole a "liberal" columnist, huh?

It seems to me that nearly 73% of [Shanna's] articles are solely based on race relations dealing with the black community. -- Robert Hutton, unhappy with a column exploring this country's troubled history with race.

Having heard this complaint many times before, I did a quick summary last year. During one quarter, I wrote 49 columns. Of those, 11 -- or just over 22 percent -- either mentioned or dealt exclusively with race.

I write about a wide variety of topics and people. But let me be clear: I have absolutely no problem writing about race and issues important to or that acutely affect black people. I'm curious whether my colleagues get calls or e-mails saying they write too much about whites. I'm betting I know the answer to that one.

I find it odd that a slew of white, southern, Americans are still pissed we lost the war and yet they can't fathom how someone could have any recollection or connection to slavery. -- Scott

Your comment brings to mind the eloquent words of columnist Leonard Pitts during a speech in Roanoke this year: "We are all children of our fathers and mothers, all heirs to history, its triumphs and its failures alike. And you [can't] escape that. As a moral matter, you shouldn't even try."

I always meant to be a blood donor, but somehow found an excuse when I heard about a nearby blood drive. Your recent column, however, made it sound so easy that when I saw the poster for a drive ... I made an appointment. I plan to become a regular donor. -- Janet McDowell

Thank you on behalf of the American Red Cross and area patients.

[Corey] Ramsey did not go into the store to purchase something -- he went in with the intent of robbing the pharmacist, and he got exactly what he deserved. -- Richard Cunningham

The shooting was an unfortunate tragedy for all involved.

If Obama is one-half white, why is he always referred to as being "black," or Afro-American? -- Frank

One reason is self-identification: "A black man with a funny name, I was considered a long shot;" "after my election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review" -- Barack Obama, on his run for the U.S. Senate, and referring to his appointment as law school editor.

I always enjoy reading your column. As an English teacher at Patrick Henry, I appreciate the quality of your writing. -- Katie Senter Stevens

Please tell your students to pay attention in class. They really will use the skills you're teaching them when they graduate.

Shanna Flowers' column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.