Letters to the editor: The magic of Motown; Taylor Greene embarrasses Republican Party

Ventura County Star
·2 min read

Motown event was a reminder

Thanks to the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Center for sponsoring “The Magical Music of Motown” event. This rendition of classic Motown hits was well done. For me, coming of age in the 1960s, it was reliving the past.

This event demonstrates the joy, artistry, and creativity of the Black musicians of that era. How easy it would have been for Black people — with a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, to use grievance as their path towards social advancement. Music lifted the spirit of the Black community, producing exceptional talent, facilitating their migration towards the center of our society.

In the post-WWII era, we saw Jackie Robinson break the color barrier in baseball, and Black athletes being fully integrated into the collegiate and professional ranks. Today the Black athlete dominates professional football and basketball. Given the demographics, this is an amazing story, that such a small portion of the U.S. population has produced the vast majority of collegiate and professional athletes.

When any door of opportunity has been opened to Black people — their talent and hard work consistently raised the bar of performance. In recent decades we have enjoyed Black leadership pressing forward in many other areas such as business, politics, science, and education. We are now enjoying the results of these contributions as well.

That musical event reminded me that the Black community has more than demonstrated that they belong — and have done so by breaking those spoken and unspoken negative stereotypes. This is the way to move forward, rather than through grievance and complaining, which only creates divisiveness and fails to recognize all that this country has to offer, whether it was decades ago or today.

George L. Ochs, Thousand Oaks

Agree, MTG is an embarrassment

Re: Rex Huppke’s May 12 column, “Greene finally on the outs in GOP”:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for that column. As a voter who trends Republican, I couldn’t agree more. MTG is an embarrassment to the Republican Party.

Doris McAleer, Camarillo

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Letters: The magic of Motown; MTG embarrasses Republican Party