Jerry W. Ward,
Jr.
1928 Gentilly
Blvd.
New Orleans, LA
70119-2002
August 24, 2015
Mr. Dean Baquet
Executive Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10018-1618
Dear Mr. Baquet:
Although the onus for what might be offensive in The New York Times does not rest only on
your shoulders, I direct my
disappointment with Vinson Cunningham's "Can Black Art Ever Escape the
Politics of Race?" (NYT Magazine online, August 20, 2015) to you. This title is a red herring. If Cunningham were familiar with the work of
Frank Yerby, he would know some instances of black art long ago escaped the
politics of race. His apparent lack of
knowledge and carelessness is reflected in his opening sentence; his assertion
that Richard Wright was "late of Harlem and Biloxi, Miss." is a
blatant bit of misinformation. When Wright moved his family to Paris in August
1947, he was late of Greenwich Village.
As far as Wright scholars know, he never set foot in Biloxi,
Mississippi. Cunningham's lack of care
regarding his prose is signaled by such wording as "recusal from
turmoil" and "Zen on loan." That kind of wording might be found
in contemporary poetry; it is ill-chosen in serious journalism.
It is quite annoying to me and a few other African
American writers that The New York Times
published Cunningham's article without noticing the phrase "tribal
pride" is offensive or attending to Cunningham's inability to construct a
coherent argument. His attempt to say
something about "art for life's sake" versus "art for art's
sake" is pathetic.
A number of the articles and reviews your newspaper has
printed in 2015 have accorded noteworthy disrespect to African American
literature and writers, particularly in left-handed "compliments"
about the legacies of Richard Wright and James Baldwin. I hereby request that The New York Times in the future will use an internal consent
decree and publish commentaries on black art, literature, and culture that
observe high standards of critical thought.
Otherwise, we shall have grounds for believing the newspaper is involved
in covert warfare on the integrity of African American cultural expressions.
Sincerely,
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
