EDITOR:
I have come to the conclusion, a little late in the game, that
Bill C. Jones is off his rocker.
EDITOR:
I have come to the conclusion, a little late in the game, that Bill C. Jones is off his rocker.
When responding to anything he disagrees with, he can’t even keep his own verbiage straight. On Nov. 7, he wrote that “People were nowhere NEAR as concerned when so many of them were starving just a few short years ago.” In his letter two weeks later he can’t recall his own words. Instead, he writes “I don’t recall saying anything about people starving. I certainly didn’t suggest that there should be some sort of ‘misery competition’ between OTHER groups that she ALSO doesn’t care about. It’s obvious that she didn’t even read my letter.”
I think the trouble is that you didn’t read your letter. I never denied that there were Native Americans living in poverty, I questioned his statistics on the “starving” population. Are you aware that a disproportionate number of people who are living in poverty are obese? But I digress. My point was then and still is that there is no data to show that “so many” Native Americans were starving a few years ago. If you are to make such a bold claim, have at least some evidence to back it up.
In his latest letter, he takes me to task for citing statistical information on the Native American population. This information is readily available Bill. Look at California census information, which is where I got my facts. This is not rocket science, and I believe that if you are going to jump up and down about an issue, you should have at least a passing familiarity with the data.
In his latest rant he asserts that I “erroneously thinks that if people aren’t OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED as Indian that they can’t possibly be.” Please enlighten us about the vast numbers of indigenous Californians who are living in limbo until they can prove their provenance. I contend that those numbers, if they exist, are very small.
Mr Jones ends on the lowest note of all, claiming that I don’t care about Native people because they are such a small percentage of the population. Nice try, but it won’t fly. Most readers of the Dispatch actually read the full text of the articles and letters. I am a theist, I believe that we are all of one God. While it may bother you that I don’t hold ANY one group of people above another, I make no apologies for my prinicples.
What is your excuse?
Denise Baer Apuzzo, Gilroy
Submitted Friday, Nov. 21, to ed****@****ic.com
