Just to let you know, I enjoyed your somewhat predictable response to my letter (“you’re white, so you can’t possibly understand,” (“The New Racism,” July 13, 2005)). What an insult to so many, many people, both white and black, but that seems to be your credo. Sorry it took so long for me to get back with you, but I’ve been working and paying taxes. You know, that stuff Jim Crow allows me to do.
That privileged 80-hour work week that I earned after 18 years of post-secondary education and training. The thing that impresses me is the consistency of your tone and content, even when responding to the grandson of white sharecroppers and foundry workers, one who never owned his own home or car. Someone who started the first grade in the first fully integrated class in his hometown in Texas, and who never really saw the difference. Maybe you need to get out of Mississippi more, or maybe your readers do, so they can see the other side and realize how you maintain your journalistic “integrity” by promoting the status quo. If we really, truly saw the way to racial harmony, you might actually be forced to write about something other than race, and you’d probably fall flat on your face for lack of imagination.
Well, gotta go pull the wagon, right after I take my fingers out of my ears, check my denial, and go pay for that ticket I got in Flowood.
Respectfully, or maybe not,
Phillip Ley, MD, Flowood
Vacation Fun
Woohoo! Woohoo! George has done it! He set the record for the most vacation days of a President serving two terms. As of Aug 19., it was 336 days. And it only took him 4 and 1/2 years. Not only that, he has set a record for deficits and gotten about 2000 of our soldiers killed and 3000 of our citizens killed on his watch. Woohoo! George—you da man! As a reward, this weekend his mom is going to let him go bike riding with Lance.
— Brian Essex, Jackson
Bootstrap Praise
I just simply wanted to drop you a line and tell you that an article struck me (Ali Greggs, “Bootstrap Fury” Aug. 10, 2005), so much so that I used it as a reader-response assignment in my American Literature (10th grade) classroom at Hillcrest Chrisian Academy. We are working on a topic-based unit entitled “The Business of America is Business.” The article was a terrific follow up to “The Great Gatsby” (which they already read) and excerpts from “Walden.”
To be honest, I have always seen your paper as spending too much time trying to raise the collective eyebrow and goose-bump the proverbial spirit with its liberal mindset. Nevertheless, I occasionally catch a good article such as Ms. Greggs, and it keeps me reading. I just wanted to compliment Ali Greggs and let you know that the paper that you put out does make some difference. So much so that I, a wary JFP reader, felt the need to present part of its content to his students. Doesn’t it feel good to make a difference, if only a small one?
— Cody Wynne Cox, Byram
Previous Comments
WOW, Mr. Ley has pulled out all the stops. Are you just going to sit there and let him nail your *ss to the wall like that, Kamikaze?
#70633 | Author: Jocelyn | Date: Sep 2 2005
How about a link to the Kamikaze article that Dr. Ley references?
#70634 | Author: grinder | Date: Sep 2 2005
You just posted on it; why don’t you post it here for us? Do you honest to God think that people in this city are sitting around with nothing to do right now? I just came back from a two-hour emergency Council meeting trying to get diaster information to share, and have an e-mail box full to disaster/business alerts to post. Sorry, Prof, but people with your priorities are the last people I’m hankering to deal with this week. Tread lightly, dude.
#70635 | Author: DonnaLadd | Date: Sep 2 2005
What priorities of mine are you referring to? At any rate, The Kamikaze article that Dr. Ley references above is here: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=6630_0_7_30_C
#70636 | Author: grinder | Date: Sep 3 2005
