Leonard Pitts is a fierce but fair critic of society
How ironic that you should have printed Eli Oklesh’s request to “filter” Leonard Pitts’ columns on the same day that you printed one of Pitts’ typically insightful essays (“Can ‘we, the people’ still pull together?” April 24).
Oklesh praises Pitts for finally getting past “trivial issues” such as racism, and instead attacking a really important target, the corporate branding of professional sports stadiums.
While I agree with Oklesh and Pitts that such naming of stadiums is to be decried, on a grand scale of triviality that issue has to be near the bottom. I don’t care nearly as much about for whom a stadium is named as I do about the values and behavior of those who sit in it, play in it or pay for its construction and maintenance. They can name it for the family dog, if they wish (which might produce more interesting names).
Pitts is one of the bright lights of editorial journalism. Any careful perusal of a representative run of his columns will show that he is a fierce but fair critic of our society, government and values, regardless of whom this criticism offends. I will gladly continue to read anything he writes.
Eddie Bass
Julian
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