Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 203 Editor's Choice: 13
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We Didn't Start Out That Young?
[Read the article: "The first time I was back since the storm ... drugs were everywhere"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We didn't start out that young, we didn't start shooting each other until we were 21??? What type of rank idiocy is that? Twenty years ago, and longer, the projects in New Orleans were repulsively screwed up killing fields. Innocent children and adults died; others children rotted away into screwed-up adults, basically losing their lives.
After the hurricane, subculture celebrator journalists struck out for New Orleans to prove that rampant street violence didn't really impact evacuation or rescue efforts (before they trotted back to their own nice addresses) -- now, many months later, they are being forced by kill numbers to admit that they maybe didn't get the story right. But why did they make such claims in the first place? Acknowledging this massive act of self-indulgent denial may be all they can do to mitigate what harm they have done to the decent people who were and still are trapped in horrifically violent communities. It's frightening that even level-headed people like Douglas Brinkley simultaneously played down the evidence of widespread violence in the wake of the storm as he was seeing and reporting it. What part of volunteer rescuers (risking their own asses in their own boats) having to turn back because they're being shot at didn't sink in?
Why does it take unusual courage to look at the long and short-term conditions of such crime-ridden communities and say: "this is unacceptable; this has to stop; vulnerable children's lives and futures are at stake"? Why do both Democrats and Republicans lack the courage to say this? Why did the frankly horrific conditions of violent neighborhoods in New Orleans become compelling to a certain caste of journalists only after the storm added water to the bloodshed?
Here's what will help the people of New Orleans and others in similar conditions: stop believing that the existence and profound impact of street crime is a chimera or just evidence of manifestations of prejudice. Try siding with the people who parent their children and don't play with guns. Try opposing the people who play with guns, instead of romanticizing them. Try again.
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Rockwell on Point
[Read the article: A tame rallying cry for Hillary Clinton]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Page Rockwell is wise to observe that the problem with the NOW endorsing Clinton lies in the organizational priorities their endorsement expresses. After long involvement with organizations including the NOW, I decided I could no longer support any group that defines its goals specifically based on rigid rules about identity. The NOW does this in many ways that extend down through every aspect of their organization, voting and policy choices. Even at the local level, chapters are expected to adhere to rules dictating certain numbers of women of color, Native Americans, gay women, the disabled, and so on, in deciding leadership and policy. Ironically, simply being biologically female isn't given the same priviledged status. If straight women did to gay men's organizations what some gay (and not gay) men have done in taking over NOW chapters, it would not be tolerated for a moment within the progressive movement, to say the very least.
Leadership like this is why the NOW has, despite a long record of invaluable and courageous accomplishments, become increasingly irrelevant. By the time my white, female, heterosexual students had arrived at college, many were simply turned off by a feminist leadership that seemed to be more interested in castigating them for their alleged "privilege" than actually tackling women's issues such as domestic violence, child care, access to healthcare, rape, job inequality, misogynistic images and the simple fact that women still must possess a plan of escape when they decide to, say, go out for a jog.
It makes me sad when I have to explain to my conservative friends that I support Hillary Clinton because she has shown a life-long commitment to protecting women and children, particularly foster children; that she helped create agencies and policies that simply didn't exist before she and her peers fought long and hard for them, and that I'd rather judge her based on this proven record than the behavior of her husband or the fact that she is good at being a politician in a race for a political job.
It makes me even more sad when I have to explain the very same things to my friends who are liberals.
But it just disgusts me when an organization like the NOW would judge Hillary (even positively) based on the gender of her body rather than the content of her character.