Great Writing
The June 19 LEO Weekly cover story about Deric Lostutter and the Steubenville rape case shows Joe Sonka is a good investigative reporter and also a writer — a damn good one. I couldn’t stop reading as he chased this interesting story with words and wondered if he could capture it. He did! In spades.
Bob Moore, East End
Fostering Assets
Thanks for the great feature on Doug Schutte and The Bard’s Town in the June 26 LEO. Doug and The Bard’s Town are huge assets to the local arts community.
The article mentioned his “fellowship at Shakespeare’s Globe” in 2006. The fellowship was a scholarship awarded by the Kentucky branch of the English Speaking Union. Annually the ESU/KY sends college students and high school teachers to Great Britain to study at Oxford University, Cambridge University, the University of Edinburgh, and Shakespeare’s Globe. This is a nationwide program supported by the national office of the ESU in New York City. The Kentucky branch has sent more scholars to Great Britain than any other branch in the nation. Doug’s experience at Shakespeare’s Globe is an excellent example of the ESU/KY’s longtime support of the arts and Shakespeare education in the area.
Andy Perry, board member of English Speaking Union, Kentucky branch
Forgetting Pharaoh
Professor Ricky L. Jones’ June 19 LEO column set me on a prolonged path of reminiscence and reflection.
The professor wrote that he and five of his fellow African-American scholars consider themselves privileged and fortunate to be a six-member association of witnesses, chroniclers and analysts of Obama’s election, re-election and presidency. Along a similar vein, I, too, am privileged and fortunate to have witnessed, chronicled and analyzed the National Black Catholic Clergy and Religious Conference held in Louisville in the mid-1990s. In the conference’s closing Mass at St. Louis Bertrand Church, a wise and holy African-American Catholic bishop gave the sermon, exhorting the congregation’s priests, deacons, nuns and brothers of color to forget “Pharaoh.”
And just as Jones and his association of like-minded scholars feel disappointment and “great sadness” over Obama’s recent Morehouse College commencement speech and presidency, I, too, am feeling great sadness … over Jones’ column.
Instead of offering positive solutions to motivate, inspire and encourage struggling African-American males who think the U.S. society is holding them back, Jones merely recycles the cliché-riddled broadsheet of “Longtime Lamentations.” Apt descriptions for this column include — but are not limited to — repulsive, unproductive, self-defeating, energy draining, demoralizing.
He aided and abetted the naysayers, the gatekeepers and the bigots. This column is an affront to the multiplicity of African-American men who lead decent, exemplary lives at home, church, neighborhood and workplace. Time is past due for Jones and his Academically Elitist Gang of Six to contemplate the clarity and charity of the bishop’s advice from two decades ago. Let go of Pharaoh! And quit blaming Jim Crow as the sinister figure who continues to obstruct the black American male trying to navigate his way to the intersection of Fulfillment Avenue and Opportunity Boulevard.
Even with all its imperfections and injustices, the United States is the land of opportunity. May all African-American males experiencing hardship be graced with perseverance. Ultimately may they be blessed with success and personal satisfaction.
Roy Horner, La Grange, Ky.
Ready, Aim, Fired
In the quote featured in City Strobe in the June 19 LEO Weekly, John Yarmuth says it’s “shameful” that Congress hasn’t enacted a “single gun-safety measure” and that “nine in 10 Americans demand action to strengthen our gun laws.” Where do you get your figures, John? No new laws have been passed because no new laws are needed. We gun owners have let our reps know that we won’t tolerate being robbed of our rights because a few wackos have abused theirs. And our reps have the same self-interest in mind that you do, John — to be re-elected!
Wayne Edwards, Sellersburg, Ind.
