Feedback 5/13

[
      {
        "name": "500x250 Ad",
        "insertPoint": "5",
        "component": "15667920",
        "parentWrapperClass": "",
        "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
      }
    ]

We welcome your comments. Send them to [email protected], or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. Comments of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in print. We don't publish comments sent to other media.

Fanning flames of racism

While I applaud the addition of the Center for Performing and Visual Arts (in the Joseph Avenue neighborhood), I wonder why it was necessary to fan the flames of racism in a recent letter (Feedback, April 29).

I will be interested in seeing who will patronize this new venture. I lived most of my life in Brooklyn and was a frequent visitor to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The garden is smack-dab in the middle of the borough and has an extensive program for children.

But the children I saw there were — for the most part — from neighboring ultra-hip Park Slope or the nearby Hasidic community. I saw hardly any Hispanic children and very few blacks, despite the fact that the garden is across the street from Crown Heights. Money is not a factor as the BBG offers free admission to children under 12. Neither, obviously, is transportation.

Before we play the race card, we should see what other cards are in the deck.

Greenpoint Gal

The kids on the buses

Readers continue to write about the violence at the downtown transit center and RTS's decision to stop busing city school students.

Poverty is such a convenient scapegoat for urban problems. Because of its complexity and ambiguity, no one can be blamed or everyone can be blamed. No one can solve poverty or everyone can solve poverty.

Depending on one's perspective, poverty can be described as the root of urban problems or it can be seen as a manifestation or result of urban problems.

Unfortunately, there will never be an end to poverty because there will never be agreement on what it is, what caused it, or how to end it.

One thing for sure is that poverty will always be a polarizing topic for political debate.

DON SHERMAN