I think it must be about time to end editorial columnist Larry Simoneaux’s tenure as class clown. He just doesn’t seem to get it that good-ol-boy humor is a poor disguise for simplistic solutions for complex problems.
In Monday’s column, he blithely dismisses genuine efforts to address serious deficits in our culture that have led to the marginalization of minorities through a process of undereducation by very unequal educational opportunities. If dumbing down testing standards is not in itself a solution, which by the way nobody ever suggested, neither is admonishing our youth that grit and determination are the answer. For one thing, it’s a lie.
We have created several generations of angry young people by convincing them that hard work is all it takes to be a success only for them to discover that they must also keep a keen eye on built in barriers that we try to pretend don’t exist.
If we don’t get honest about our imperfections as a society, we cannot hope to address and correct them. Our true history was not written by Horatio Alger.
It’s time to investigate to possibility that the emperor may be naked.
Harold R. Pettus
Everett
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