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Letters to the editor: Jesse Owens, Donald Trump, Dennis Prager and more

I had the pleasure of attending a dinner where Jesse Owens spoke about his experience in the 1936 Olympics in Germany (“This Week in Jewish History, July 29).
[additional-authors]
August 3, 2016

Jesse Owens’ Winning Ways

I had the pleasure of attending a dinner where Jesse Owens spoke about his experience in the 1936 Olympics in Germany (“This Week in Jewish History, July 29). He said, “Hitler died on a Jewish holiday.” Throughout the predominately Jewish audience, you could hear, “Huh?” “What holiday?” “It wasn’t a Jewish holiday.”

Mr. Owens heard this, and waited. Then, with impeccable timing, he explained, “Any day that Hitler died is a Jewish holiday.” Laughter resounded in the room. He had us in his pocket with his wit and gentle charm and grace.

Susan Cohen via email

Taking Rape Seriously

I recognized that Danielle Berrin was poking fun at Donald Trump’s bigotry in her most recent article when she remarked about how she and her sister saw no rapists when they traveled to Mexico (“Where Are the Mexican Rapists?” July 29). However, I was disappointed that, in her attempt at humor, Ms. Berrin perpetuated some common misconceptions about rape. She reported, “[M]y sister and I were so utterly ignored by the country’s infamous rapists that my sister remarked early in our journey, ‘Nobody’s even hitting on us!’ ” Ms. Berrin then facetiously admitted to “the possibility that we have an inflated sense of our own attractiveness,” but that she expected more attention from the Mexican men with whom she came in contact. This pairing of a woman’s attractiveness and the likelihood that she will be raped is a fallacy. Rape is a crime committed not out of sexual desire, but out of a lust for power. Furthermore, rape is not on an extreme end of a continuum that begins with flirtation. This fact makes Trump’s accusation all the more repugnant.

Guy Handelman, Sherman Oaks

Berrin responds: Thank you, Mr. Handelman, for making this important point. I intended to suggest that, far below rape, even harassment, which is common, wasn’t something that my sister or I experienced.

Trump Supporter Speaks Out

I read Rob Eshman’s screed and I am a Jew (“All Together Now,” July 29). You will be surprised the morning after the election when the Chicago Tribune repeats its monumental bold headline blunder, the one that read “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Remember to email me.

What bias makes your head so thick? Did you get paid to write that? If yes, who paid you?

Martin Kessler via email

Hold the Movie ‘Kreplach’

As much as I admire David Kipen and his wonderful Libros Schmibros bookstore, I take major exception to his calling “Tiempo de Murir” a “kreplach Western” simply because its director and studio heads were Jewish (“ ‘Kreplach Western’ Screening a New Frontier for Boyle Heights Lending Library,” July 29). By this skewed, ethnocentric logic, American Westerns by the likes of William Wyler and Anthony Mann or any other Jewish director working for a Jewish-headed studio would have to be so designated, as well. In keeping with the “spaghetti Western” geo-culinary template, I suggest “arroz con pollo” Western instead.

Vincent Brook, Los Angeles

Prager and the Police

The propaganda penned by Dennis Prager is the type of rhetoric that divides the country. The idea that only the people on the left side of the political stratum are responsible for police brutality and the deaths of police officers is absurd, to say the least (“The Left Has Cops’ Blood on Its Hands,” July 22). 

Prager’s attack on Michael Eric Dyson, an esteemed professor of sociology, is typical stereotyping, suggesting that if a Black man projects an opinion that is contrary to his own beliefs, then he must be a Black radical. Prager quoted a paragraph of Dyson’s article and used it out of context. One should read the entire article to fully understand the positive message of Mr. Dyson. 

Prager’s position on having the police vigorously patrol Black areas to reduce the murder rate is unreasonable and lacks meaningful solutions. To that, I quote Michael Eric Dyson: “Black people protest, to one another, to a world that largely refuses to listen, that what goes on in black communities across this nation is horrid, as it would be in any neighborhood depleted of dollars and hope — emptied of good schools, and deprived of social and economic buffers against brutality. People usually murder where they nest; they aim their rage at easy targets.” I fear that the only person who is filled with “anti-isms” is Prager himself.

Bervick J. Deculus, Tarzana

Prager responds: Any response to Mr. Deculus would simply involve restating the facts and studies I cited in my original column. Therefore, I will respond only with a heartfelt suggestion — that Mr. Deculus read Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Jason Riley, Larry Elder, Jesse Peterson and other Black writers and scholars who, unlike Michael Eric Dyson, do not blame whites for most problems afflicting Black life, and who feel immensely blessed to be American.

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