Letters to the Editor

Dream analysis

Why was Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated — for his dream or for his declaration? (“One thing we did right,” Metro Times, Sept. 3-9) Jack Lessenberry seems to be smoking the pipe of gradualism.

“On we go, and amen.” True, that’s what I heard at Hart Plaza as Detroit commemorated the real Martin Luther King’s initial run of the “I Have a Dream” speech and civil rights march on Woodward Avenue 40 years ago. I was hoping for some inkling of the grassroots movement that it will take to overcome the powers that took the real King’s life.

But this time we won’t be pilling into buses with chicken sandwiches stuffed into knapsacks. This time we’ll be driving Caravans or flying, and staying in the best hotels.

Good for Martin the pretender. And what will you be demanding? Payment on a check marked insufficient funds? Payment to whom, the north-of-Eight Mile blacks who Maureen Taylor and Charles Simmons summarize as saying “we don’t go down there”?

This is “one thing we did right”? Wrong! If you place a convenient distorted palliative version of the Dream over the organic truth of Martin Luther King Jr.’s declaration of why he lived and died, then there’s something more wicked then even gradualism burning in your bowl. —Matthew Evans, Southfield

I have a dream that Jack Lessenberry would shut the fuck up and let Keith A. Owens have his editorial page in the Metro Times.

I think Jack Lessenberry is the most redundant, self-centered, narrow-minded writer ever to be in Metro Times, I read his Politics & Prejudices article this week and all I got to say is grow some balls, Jack, and say what you got to say without dissecting quotes from good people like Martin Luther King Jr. who are intellectually and spiritually superior to your cracker jack mold. If you got something bad to say about blacks then say it and quit hiding behind other people’s opinions and words, because doing so is not editorialism but a sheer act of cowardice. You are not speaking for anybody but yourself when you beat around the bush.

I think there are several better columnists that could grace Metro Times besides Jack Lessenberry. If I were your boss, Jack, I would fire your ass.—Jim Hogan, Windsor

I agree with Robert A. Sedler’s conclusions regarding same-sex marriage, albeit for vastly different reasons (“Line of growth,” Metro Times, Aug. 27-Sept. 2).

A marriage license invokes a third-party interest (the state) into an arrangement that would otherwise be free from government intrusion. Politically speaking, it is a waste of time and energy for a perceived minority to continually ask legislators to recognize an individual’s rights, whatever they may be. Sedler cites a case I like to use that exemplifies my point; Brown vs. Board of Education (1954). For years blacks fought for the rights of minorities to have access to the same educational facilities as the majority, but only when a lawsuit was filed did any action or progress take place. The same can be said of voting rights for women and now gay rights. In all of these situations it was the courts and not the legislatures that affirmed rights that were claimed by the complaining party.

When a person believes they have rights that are protected by the Constitution, they should read all three sections of the Constitution and find that they are most likely correct in their assumption. —Charles R. Hill, Commerce Township