Letters to the editor
Mask madness
Dear editor:
I feel I will implode if I don’t write this letter to the editor. How can you naysayers get so angry and feel your rights are being violated when being asked to simply wear a mask for a bit? Are you just being defiant because you don’t want people telling you what to do? We are not telling, but asking you do so to get this deadly virus under control. Watch the news, for heaven’s sake. While other countries’ rates of infection are steadily going down because of their willingness to wear masks, the USA is off the charts with new cases.
I just don’t understand why you can’t help with the very simple noninvasive, nonreligious, nonpolitical, nonracial act of wearing a mask when you are around other people? I have got children, grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews and friends who I love dearly (don’t you?) and I am really scared that one of them will contract this virus. And me and my husband. I implore you to please, Please wear a mask until we can get a handle on this if not for you but in consideration of the health of all of us. Janet Fotioo Hot Springs
Who is the UDC?
Dear editor:
Who are the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Hot Springs? Why don’t we ever see any faces? Why does the group only speak through its attorney?
Let’s think about the history.
The Confederacy lasted a total of five years from 1860-1865. The overwhelming majority of Confederacy monuments and memorials were erected in the late 19th and early 20th century. Long after Reconstruction was terminated in the late 1870s. These memorials were not erected to remember the long-dead Confederacy, but to cement Jim Crow. In the Hot Springs case, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas reports a woman from Alabama moved to Hot Springs in 1907 and led an effort to raise money for a memorial. It took until 1934 to erect the statue. During that effort, in 1913 and 1922, two African American men were lynched in the site where the statue was eventually erected and stands today.
So, extending history to its reasonable maximum, there had to be actual “daughters” of the Confederacy in 1907 and perhaps in 1934. But it has now been 86 years since the statue was dedicated. It is very remote that there are still daughters of the Confederacy? Are there granddaughters of the Confederacy? Great granddaughters? If so, why do they remain anonymous and shy from public attention? Or is there only a trust, a trustee, a board and a lawyer? Steven Rittenmeyer Hot Springs Village
Not promoting diversity
Dear editor:
“We are deeply committed to diversity … ” That was one line from National
Park College’s canned statement they sent to The Sentinel-Record regarding the resignation of instructor Paula Muncrief Ford, after she made a social media post regarding race relations.
First, let’s be honest: Ford was fired; resignation was a nice way of saying that she probably received some sort of severance pay for not fighting it or threatening litigation. The highly educated folks that run NPCC are certainly smarter than me, so I looked up the definition of “diversity.” According to Websters, diversity is “the condition of having been composed of differing elements, variety especially, the inclusion of different types of people.” So by the very definition, NPC is not promoting diversity.
That’s not what specifically troubles me about their handling of the Ford situation, however. Since it was never made public, only a handful of people know what Ford said in her social media post. It may very well be something I find terrible, ignorant, or that I may disagree with. What is disturbing is that punitive actions were taken by a publicly funded institution for something an individual said on their own time, using their own resources, outside of the NPC property. Not a criminal action, simply a U.S. citizen exercising their right to free speech. If a private company receiving no taxpayer or government funding had fired Ford because they found her speech to be a poor reflection, I’d have no problem. But NPC is not a private
company, they are a college that receives federal, state, and local funding from taxpayers.
It should send a chill into the spines of all teaching staff at NPC. The fact that their administrators have determined that your own beliefs, values, morals, etc.; must align with their own or your careers are in peril. Even if you wish to express those beliefs outside of your workplace, on your own time. Ironically, if Mrs. Ford had taught at a lower level, such as a public K-12 school, she might have had a teacher’s union to help her challenge her right to free speech. And NPC administrators, what message are you sending to your young students? Fall in line with your future employers’ beliefs 24 hours a day or be fired?
As for me, I will no longer be supporting any NPC activities or functions, and will definitely be voting against any future millage increases they may seek.
Noah Little Hot Springs