Step forward again
After reading Beth Santana
Laidlaw’s letter (“Reducing the Violence,” July 17), I felt compelled
to echo her observations and offer a hopeful step to keep kids from engaging in
the kind of violent behavior that shocks and saddens us all.
                 It is true: Keeping kids busy goes a long way
toward reducing violent behavior. Laidlaw wonders, “Do we have the will to
implement efforts (like those exhibited by 2000 volunteers who stepped forward
eight years ago) as ongoing programs?” There is an ongoing program that
has worked to help kids make good choices for 25 years. Big Brothers Big
Sisters of Greater Rochester provides quality one-to-one mentoring, which
research shows to be the most effective, by pairing young people with screened,
trained, and counselor-supported adults.
                 Soon we will release our 4th Annual Community
Report card, which will show that kids with mentors do much better in school,
resist delinquent behavior, and avoid substance abuse and early parenting at
amazingly higher levels than kids without.
                 Yet at any given time, we have 80 to 90 children
waiting to be matched. Half — a disproportionately large number — are young
African-American males living in our city. I’d offer this challenge to many of
the same men who stepped forward eight years ago: It’s time to commit again.
                 There are 40 to 50 single moms who’d desperately
like a strong African-American male role model for their sons. A few hours a
week, doing the kinds of things you loved to do as a child, are all it takes to
make a significant impact on the life of a child.
                 It’s a phone call away: 442-2250.
                 Pete
Dobrovitz, executive director, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Rochester (www.bbbsr.org)
Guilty as charged!
In Chris Busby’s article
“The Price of Influence” (July 17), it was particularly interesting
to note that some detractors have “accused” me of being a friend and
political supporter of Mayor Bill Johnson. If that is a crime, please mark me
down as guilty as charged. Bill Johnson is as good as it gets when it comes to
being a politician. Hell, Bill Johnson is as good as it gets when it comes to
being a person! I proudly call him my friend and I am a political supporter.
                 And as to my support (and fond friendship, I might
add) of José Cruz (another crime I seem to be charged with): again I say I am guilty. I do support the first Hispanic in the County Legislature
since 1963. I do support the first Hispanic leader in the Legislature ever — and perhaps the only one in
Upstate New York.
                 And finally, if I am also being accused of being a
supporter of the fastest growing minority in the United States (the Hispanic
population): again I say guilty as
charged.
                 I am proud to stand up with all of them and to be
counted as a friend.
                 So, what’s the bad part?
                 Kenneth L.
Warner, Rochester
Westside slam?
Imagine my pleasure when I
opened the July 17 issue to see something west of the Genesee River being
favorably profiled (“Cotton, Kick-boxing, and Cornbread,” Gut Instincts).
That’s not something that happens much in the Rochester-area media, where the
editorial assumption is that readers and viewers are concentrated exclusively
east of the impenetrable, invisible wall dividing the privileged from the
ignored.
                 Thanks to Adam Wilcox’s review, the Genesee Family
Restaurant is now on my list of “must try” restaurants. The feature
was informative, balanced, and flattering to restaurateur Al Anderson without
being patronizing.
                 Imagine, then, my disappointment when I came to
Wilcox’s closing paragraph: “Some people tell me they’re afraid of Genesee
Street… Try taking a few steps off the beaten path sometime.” In just two
sentences, Wilcox and City Newspaper made it abundantly clear that they — just like the other local media they
chide for deprecating the city in spite of its positive aspects — believe
that none of their readers live, work, shop, or play on the west side of town;
that the west side is an unexplored hinterland; and that, although ostensibly
debunking the myth of danger on Genesee Street by stating “I go there all
the time and never have problems,” there is reason to fear for one’s safety
when one crosses from the pristine and problem-free east side to the dark and
scary west side.
                 Purportedly promoting the entire city of Rochester
while subtly slamming a particular section of town does not enhance City Newspaper’s stature in the
community, nor does it show respect for members of our community — many of
whom are City readers — who choose
to make the west side their home. I had hoped for better from City.
                 Christine
Corrado, Pioneer Street, Rochester
A friendly critic?
As one who has written about
films for City in years past, this is
a comment relative to reader reaction about movie reviewers.
                 To begin with, the world does not need so many
movie critics-reviewers-columnists. We have an overabundance of films that are
mediocre at best, and people who write about them tend to watch too many
altogether, which is not healthy.
                 Most of the time, movies deserve to be ignored
entirely, or tossed aside after 10 or 20 minutes. However, the person writing
about films ought to love them, and should enjoy communicating this delight to
others.
                 At the same time, we want a writer who does not
take advantage of the attention we give to this person’s column. We don’t wish
to have our future pleasure spoiled. More importantly, we don’t invite the
writer to display ego and prejudice; to be uncivil, insulting, crude, boorish,
or to show disrespect for people.
                 I keep hoping that City will not offer me the writing of anyone I would not also
welcome to my home for coffee or tea, and who would not be a pleasant, friendly
guest that I would be glad to know — even if we often disagreed.
                 Martin Fass,
Linden Street, Rochester
Targeting Muslims
What next? Concentration
camps for Arab Americans?
                 I was disgusted (yet not surprised) to learn that
the FBI has paired up with the INS to raid Muslim-American jewelry stores and
kiosks in shopping malls across the US, the latest in the “War on
Terrorism.” Apparently terrorism has been hiding out right under our noses
at our local shopping malls, somewhere in between Spencer’s Gifts and Things
Remembered, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Gap. (And to think I bought a
Coke from the food court last week).
                 Muslim Americans have been targeted since 9-11, and
that ugly cycle of racism has once again arisen. It’s the same mentality that
saw 100,000 US citizens of Japanese descent thrown into US concentration camps
during WWII. Unfortunately, the current trend is to stand by your president
(who stole the election) and denounce terrorism.
                 Bush claims that the raids are to cut off a network
of “terrorist funding to Bin Laden,” but Bush himself has been a
financial supporter of the Bin Laden family over the years. In 1979 Bush
received $50,000 from James Bath, the sole representative of the Bin Laden
family in the US, to buy into Arbusto Energy. In 1999, a not-so-indirect
business partner of Bush named Khalid bin Mahfouz attempted to transfer
$3,000,000 from Houston to Bin Laden family fronts in Saudi Arabia.
                 This recent hypocrisy parallels that of World War
II, when at the time the US was at war with Germany and Italy, only the
Japanese Americans were singled out. Let’s not forget the all-American Henry
Ford and many other powerful businessmen and politicians who supported the Nazi
party during World War II freely and without reprisal from the government.
                 Some US businessmen even profited from the Nazis,
like Prescott Bush, who sold German bonds at his US bank and was later
investigated. Prescott’s son and grandson? I’ll give you two guesses.
                 The recent raids on Muslim stores are a sad effort
of the administration to offset domestic opposition to American terrorist
activity in the Middle East. With Congress allowing more freedom and funding
for “Anti-Terrorist Projects,” we shall slowly watch the freedoms of
US citizens be disregarded and trampled upon.
                 I realize there are some full-on, flag-waving
patriots who believe that the unconstitutional steps being taken are for the
benefit of Americans, but what happens when some agent mistakes your red neck
for a brown one? Remember: Americans come in all shapes colors and cultures!
                 Keven Adams,
Alexander Street, Rochester
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2002.
