'Boondocks': Racist or revelatory?
K. A. Rupert's letter " 'Boondocks' strip found offensive and racist" (May 30) raised important issues about the comic strip. But, as an African-American/black American/person of color (or whatever the politically correct designation is this week), I find that the strip's message resonates.
It is satirical, but art imitates life. I identify with the characters, Huey and Riley, and how they are portrayed. Unless you are a "person of color," perhaps you cannot relate to the characters and their interaction with people in their neighborhood (particularly, the strip when a person walked into the street to avoid contact with Riley).
I agree with Ms. Rupert that we don't want our children reading comics that worsen the problems between the races. But isolating children, and shielding them from the reality of these issues, does them a grave disservice.
If the "Boondocks" or another comic strip can raise awareness of these problems, then so be it.
Rod Johnson, Havre de Grace
The comic strip "The Boondocks" is racist, sexist and violent.
It is not funny, educational or uplifting. It is not appropriate for a comic page read by children.
I hope you will remove it from The Sun immediately.
Bruce Barnett, Baltimore
I find "The Boondocks" to be highly degrading and insulting to an entire segment of the population. It appears to me that its mission is to destroy any progress that has been made in eliminating stereotypical and defamatory connotations about African-Americans.
This strip is far from amusing or entertaining. Why would The Sun promote and support the archaic prejudicial position implied by this distasteful strip?
Have The Sun's computers already succumbed to the Y2K syndrome and reverted to 1900?
Michael Birnbaum, Baltimore
I am an Afrocentric black woman who eagerly anticipates "The Boondocks." I wondered how long it would it be before someone expressed hatred of this provocative work. The Sun published such a rebuke from K. A. Rupert on May 30. (" 'Boondocks' strip found offensive and racist.")
Ms. Rupert's criticism of the strip seems to come from the dominant, white-man- centered cultural context.
It is thus out-of-context because Aaron McGruder's comedic genius comes from the context of the black experience.
I welcome Mr. McGruder's bringing both intraracial and interracial tensions out in the open. He provides comic relief for sad, festering problems.
For example, his episodes about our identity crises, like moving to the suburbs, changing the name of our race, and debating about our hair, are real dilemmas.
Far be it from me to deny Ms. Rupert's right to self-expression. However, I want to thank The Sun for the diversity offered by "The Boondocks."
Orisha Kammefa, Baltimore
I feel compelled to write to state an opinion of "The Boondocks." My wife and I find this work inflammatory, abusive and of little redeeming value.
We suggest The Sun tell Aaron McGruder either to start cleaning up his act or the newspaper will drop the strip.
R. W. Kellogg, Lutherville
I am offended and appalled by The Sun's printing that horrible cartoon " The Boondocks."
It hasn't had a single humorous moment.
The character "Riley" is a hateful, mean-spirited, African American male portrayed as a poor inner-city kid suddenly thrust into the life of suburbia. He revels in causing mayhem and chaos for his neighbors, especially girls his own age.
In a recent strip, he was featured beating a girl with a toy light saber and complaining because the girl is still alive. Is this supposed to be funny?
In this day, when there is so much hatred between the races and violence among our youth, do we need more of the same in the comics?
Does the African-American community want to see the stereotype of a black, juvenile delinquent inner-city kid perpetuated? If the author of this strip weren't black, I bet the NAACP would clamor for its removal and an apology from The Sun.
There are enjoyable African-American strips -- "Curtis" and "Herb and Jamaal" come to mind -- that are full of ethnic flavor.
Come on people: Tell The Sun to drop this nasty, small-minded strip.
Cynthia Matthews, Columbia
Schmoke deserves a break
The Sun's editorial "Fiscal gloom ahead for Baltimore City" (May 29) implies that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has done nothing during the past 12 years to deal with the city's economic situation and limited revenue base. Nothing could be further from the truth.
During that period, under the mayor's stewardship, the city has operated within its available resources, provided tax relief to encourage businesses and individuals to locate in the city, downsized its government, strengthened its financial condition and maintained its bond ratings.
During the same period, some other East Coast cities' bond ratings were lowered or their financial activities were placed under external financial control boards.
General fund full-time employee positions, excluding public safety positions, have been reduced 26 percent since 1988.
General fund expenditures in the fiscal year 1999 are expected to be about the same as in the fiscal year 1991.
The city reduced property taxes by 18 cents from $6 per $100 of assessed value to $5.82, reduced the cap on property tax assessments and kept that at 4 percent and eliminated the container tax.
These and other property tax incentives have generated approximately $28 million in tax reductions annually, benefiting both business and individual taxpayers and creating incentives for economic development.
In addition, the city established a General Fund Budget Stabilization Fund to maintain stability in the event of economic downturns affecting local revenues. This fund will contain about $10 million at the end of this fiscal year.
It is unfair to suggest, as The Sun's editorial did, that the mayor ignored the 1992 report of the Organizational Review team.
As part of the democratic process, we distributed that report's recommendations to business leaders, community associations, city residents, unions and employees for comment. We received more than 11,000 responses.
Based on this input, some recommendations were implemented; others were not.
One of the most significant of these reforms we implemented was consolidating the Departments of Transportation and Public Works.
We also centralized printing and graphics services. With the development of the city's Strategic Information Technology Plan, information systems management is being consolidated under the chief information officer.
We expect that Mayor Schmoke will leave the city in much better financial shape and with a more optimistic economic outlook than when he inherited it in 1988. The fiscal year 2000 budget that the new mayor inherits will be balanced.
After that, the next mayor will have the challenge of dealing with future financial issues.
William R. Brown Jr.
Baltimore
The writer is director of finance for the city of Baltimore.
The grandmother of street festivals
I do not hold the record for attending Flower Marts. I've participated in only about 50 of these sparkling events that the Women's Civic League has sponsored annually for 82 years.
The attendance record probably belongs to a gracious league leader too modest to make the claim.
But I may be the most ardent advocate for perpetuating the Flower Mart for future generations. It is the grandmother of all Baltimore street festivals. Future generations deserve to enjoy it.
We should look at the Flower Mart as a colorful piece of the fabric of city culture that has been woven over the years by the Women's Civic League, churches, ethnic societies, neighborhood organizations and arts organizations.
Collectively, the traditional festivals of Baltimore form a work of urban art that should be preserved for future generations.
The city's leadership is obligated to preserve traditions that add value to city life.
They are as much a part of the public trust as historic buildings and natural treasures.
Every Flower Mart makes the case for saving this tradition. This year was no exception. The news media documented the gracious ladies of many generations who still attend, organize and staff the Flower Mart and the fond memories of Flower Mart past.
I'm for all of that. But in the bright sunshine in Mount Vernon on May 12, I saw much more.
My most vivid recollections were of a laughing schoolchild dancing with his teacher beneath the Washington Monument, the band and chorus from local high schools, the awards given to deserving city workers, the Charm City orchestra playing oldies, and most of all, the people.
It was a sight to see all the people walking, talking and singing together.
Of all the wonderful color photographs in The Sun the next day, my favorite was of two beautiful Asian-American children, eyeing each other intently as they savored their lemon sticks.
To me, this picture captured the magic of the city traditions epitomized by the Flower Mart.
Our best traditions work their magic on the young.
I try to understand the reluctance of the league to continue sponsoring the Flower Mart. It is heavy lifting.
It may be time to share this burden. Let the league rise to a well-deserved role of senior patron of the tradition it nourished for generations.
The city leadership should solicit new civic sponsors and perhaps a corporate sponsor to run future Flower Marts.
There is no reason to think of a new site for the festival. Mount Vernon has a cultural character that lends itself to this event and should continue to be its home. And the Flower Mart helps demonstrate that festivals in the heart of the city can capture the attention of the entire area.
The city's leadership must recognize that the preservation of our best traditions is not about looking back to the city's great past but building a strong, bright future for a truly diverse Baltimore.
I want to attend many more Flower Marts and watch another generation of children growing up there.
Maybe I should go for the attendance record.
William Donald Schaefer, Baltimore
The writer is Maryland Comptroller and a former mayor of Baltimore.
Sticking it to suburbia from the shell of the city
I get sick and tired of hearing urban intellectuals talk about the great wasteland of suburbia. What a load of horse manure.
It is pathetic enough to read this kind of nonsense from the Michael Oleskers of the world. But Neil Peirce's Opinion Commentary piece, "The end of the suburban dream," (June 7) is another prime example.
Mr. Peirce quotes James Howard Kunstler's book "Home from Nowhere," as stating that suburbia has "endless strip malls, big box stores, franchise fry pits, look-alike subdivisions, autos everywhere, and pedestrians nowhere."
Let's compare this with the "Big City," shall we?
Strip malls? Ride down any street in Baltimore whose businesses haven't been closed down because of junkies and stickup artists and all you see are broken-down, ramshackle mom-and-pop stores, bars and liquor stores and pawn shops.
Yeah, that's better than strip malls. Give me White Marsh Mall any day.
Fry pits? No McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chickens or filthy carryouts in the city, huh?
Look-alike subdivisions? Gee, don't all those endless row homes on all those endless city streets look exactly the same? And more and more get boarded up every day. That's attractive.
Autos everywhere? I think the city has a few of those also. Not to mention buses and big trucks that run all night. Good luck sleeping.
Pedestrians? Plenty of them in the city. Especially in those open-air drug markets overrunning so many city neighborhoods.
Mr. Kunstler goes on about the spread-out, impersonal world suburbia has brought about. Evidently he hasn't spent much time in rural areas. Things tend to be a bit spread out in farm country and they seem to do all right.
Let's list a few hazards of city life: air pollution, violent crime (300-plus homicides in Baltimore every year), property crimes, fear of letting your children out to play (on pavement, no grass), and, last but by no means least, the legions of crack heads and junkies who roam the streets at night looking to steal something so that they can get another blast.
Maybe they are trying to escape that urban paradise that Mr. Peirce is so fond of.
If Mr. Peirce really thinks that city dwelling is so much better and safer than the dreaded suburban wasteland, perhaps he would like to explain why the city population keeps shrinking while the county's population continually rises.
And if he and his pseudo-intellectual ilk actually think that the suburbs are more dangerous because of a few, isolated, tragic shootings, then maybe they ought to venture out of their Roland Park and Guilford enclaves once in a while and take a stroll down to Fulton and Monroe streets about midnight some fair evening. Even the cops stay out of there.
The cities need infinitely more fixing than the suburbs. Why not come up with some ideas to fix them and stem urban flight? County residents would certainly appreciate that.
Ideas, Mr. Peirce? Mr. Olesker? Mr. Schmoke? Anybody?
Until you come up with some of those, please take the tax handouts from us poor uncultured suburbanites and leave the 'burbs alone.
David Rupkey, Chase
Some simple solutions needed to solve city's woes
The city's fiscal situation, as reported by Gerard Shields in his article "Council warned of impending shortfall" (May 27), should be a cause of great concern for all Marylanders.
Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and his administration have been most ineffective in dealing with the city's fiscal situation.
Yet the solutions are fairly simple -- but bold and creative.
The city's property tax rate of $5.82 per $100 of assessed valuation is a major deterrent to those wishing to live in Baltimore.
It must be reduced to around $3.85, which is still somewhat higher than surrounding counties, but would be perceived as reasonable. This would cost the city about $160 million in lost revenues over a four-year phase-in period.
The $160 million cost could be absorbed by reorganizing city government into a much more streamlined and cost-effective service force.
Several surveys have documented that the city employs some 400 municipal workers per 10,000 of population, which is more than twice the national average.
A 20-percent reduction in the city's work force, phased in over four years and making maximum use of retirements and attrition, could save Baltimore upward of $160 million -- the amount needed to fund the property tax reduction.
Then there is the $3.2 billion of real estate the city owns. This real estate is not contributing to the property tax base.
The city needs to divest itself of unneeded property and employ the sale/lease-back of other property as appropriate. This would raise hundreds of millions of dollars for city reserves.
The city should move toward cost-effective privatization of such services as road maintenance, trash pickup and water and wastewater treatment facilities. This is being done in other cities; in fact, few still use public employees to pick up trash.
Maybe they know something we don't.
Finally, the city needs an an experienced city manager who would bring professional and cost-effective management to Baltimore. I am pleased to see that Carl Stokes has endorsed this idea in his campaign for mayor.
As Baltimore's Budget Director Ed Gallagher says, "City coffers are about to run dry." It's time for bold and creative leadership that will be accountable for the fiscal well-being of the city.
Richard E. Hug, Baltimore
The writer is chairman and chief executive officer of Hug Enterprises Inc.
Pub Date: 6/12/99