LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Why do myths get so much ink?

Posted

To the editor:

(re: “Stop disrespecting our nation’s flag,” Oct. 5)

I have run out of patience with The Riverdale Press’ printing the willfully ignorant, racist and embarrassing (to your newspaper and its readers) nonsense you apparently feel it is your duty to publish.

Although virtually every sentence, every phrase in Mr. Gordon’s ravings is false, contradictory or just plain muddled, The Riverdale Press seems to have no problem with it.

I am certainly not suggesting that you should restrict your letters or Point of View columns to any particular opinion. A democracy requires informed access to all opinions. But it also depends on accuracy and facts. These are completely absent from the foolishness you print from the likes of Mr. Gordon.

Colin Kaepernick has expressly stated from the very day of his initial public kneeling that he was in no way meaning to disrespect the flag or the military or the United States itself. He made it clear then, and has continued to do so repeatedly ever since, that his action was intended as a protection against racism and the injustice that African-Americans were subject to — police brutality being one example.

Mr. Gordon’s piece is so incoherent — partial-birth abortions, Puerto Rican and Dominican flags (why not Greek, Irish, Israeli and Polish flags, Mr. Gordon?), and self-contradictory statements that it shames the publication that would print it.

We have come a very long way from the day when The Riverdale Press won a Pulitzer Prize. I would like to ask that you keep printing all varieties of opinion, but at least at the same time, utilize self-control and do some fact-checking on these submissions.

Steve Siegelbaum

Steve Siegelbaum

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