Bar Association
Grand exit: Regarding C.J. Janovy’s “Requiem for a Room” (June 3): I tended bar for 29 years on Main Street and Broadway. I tried for 30, but my body said no.
I was lucky enough to work at Milton’s and the Grand Emporium. To work at two world-famous bars didn’t seem like much at the time because it seemed so natural. Now, to look back and reflect, it makes me feel proud. When Roger Naber took over the Emporium, Milton was afraid it would take business away from him. It did!
John Albertson
Kansas City, Missouri
Girl, Interrupted
Chalk one up: I’m really shocked by “The Girl in the Bathroom,” (cover story, June 3). Kendrick Blackwood delivered the story with a lack of bias and respect to all parties — thank you for that.
It’s not only that Brianna was abused and raped by those boys but also that she was raped by the school officials whom her mother once trusted. So much more could have been done to discipline the boys and prevent the second attack. It just doesn’t seem right.
It’s important for other people to know about this. I just pray for Brianna and her family.
Keith Gaboury
Olathe
Hall impasse: Mr. Blackwood, this story really sickens me to no end! Being female first and the mother of two daughters second, I could not imagine the pain that this “child” has gone through.
I had a situation with Raytown. Fortunately, my daughter was not raped but was involved in a fight, and the way the school handled it was horrible. We send our children to school in hopes that they are cared for and educated, not attacked by other students and those who are put in place to protect. They should be the ones to pay for her care.
Please keep us up on what happens with this case.
Name Withheld Upon Request
Bathroom brake: This letter is to inform the public about what really happened in the boys’ bathroom at Ruskin High School.
It was about 10 a.m. on a day where all of the homecoming court members were told to meet in the art room to take pictures in the yearbook. I went down to the art room and was there for about 15 minutes before the 18-year-old came in the art room and told me that there was a girl in the boys’ bathroom sucking dick. I asked if she was still in there, and he told me yes. So I went down there and saw that she was in there. I approached in a way that a shy person would. She was sucking on a sucker. I made a gesture in a way pointing to my penis and I said these exact words: “So what’s up?” She simply got on her knees and grabbed my penis and started to suck. She wasn’t forced to do anything she didn’t want to do.
I wish these stupid people would wake up and see that this girl was too ashamed to admit why she was really in the bathroom. She wanted to be in there. As far as anyone threatening her life not to tell anyone, let’s get serious — no one is going to threaten anyone’s life over some head. No one has to force a girl to go in the bathroom when they can find a girl who is willing to be in there.
This girl is making a fool out of all of you who believe her. To me, it’s not that she wants the 18-year-old and me to get in trouble, it’s that she doesn’t want to be in trouble, either. It’s too late for her to tell the truth now. She’s in too deep. She’s going to lie herself right into her own grave. As far as the second attack goes, what boy in their right mind would come anywhere close to this girl unless she was a willing participant? This girl has taken it way too far.
Name Withheld Upon Request
Editor’s note: The Pitch has confirmed that this letter was sent by the 16-year-old identified in the first incident.
Forward pass: In regards to Kendrick Blackwood’s story of the girl who was assaulted/raped at Ruskin, I think that everyone involved in the administration should be punished.
If any faculty member finds a girl in the boys’ locker room or bathroom, the parents should be notified immediately, regardless of the circumstances. If the girl was there by her own doing, the parent should know this. If the girl was there not by choice, the parent needs to know that as well. The vice principal, the officer and all others who interrogated the girl without her parents should be fired.
While I am always fearful that boys can be accused of assault falsely, you should always err on the side of what is best for the victim. There are no second chances.
It is also interesting that the suspects are “star athletes.” Would there have been the same actions, or lack of actions, had these been “troublemakers”? Notice that the “geeky nerds” are mentioned. If schools worried more about education and less about winning games, perhaps Kansas City schools would not have the reputation that they do. And this young girl might be a little better off.
Anthony Mark Morningstar
Overland Park
Social distortion: “The Girl in the Bathroom” was fantastic. What a great piece of investigative journalism. It inspired me to see what I can do at the state level with the National Association of Social Workers.
By the way, where was the school social worker that day? We need a SWAT team of social workers who know about trauma victims. Who cares if she was right, wrong or otherwise? She was traumatized. My kids got traumatized (but in other ways) at school practically every day. This young woman was victimized by the system for sure, and Blackwood’s article made that perfectly clear.
Social workers are the ones who look at the person involved, the victim or whomever, and say “How can I help?” — “How can I help you,” not “How can I look good and make money?” We are here for people who need someone to get who they are, what is going on and how can we help.
Sherada Collins
Olathe
About a girl: I am disgusted by Ruskin High School’s criminal mishandling of the rape of one of its female students. The discriminatory tactics used against this girl to force an admission of guilt in her own assault call for an immediate review of each official involved.
Why was she in the hall? Who the hell cares? How many times do we have to repeat this? The victim of sexual violence is never, never, never responsible, regardless of what she was wearing, where she was walking, what she was drinking, who she was kissing, whatever. Bad judgment and carelessness (if they indeed exist) are not punishable by rape. There is no acceptable reason or excuse for it. Ever. The fact that the question was even posed only illuminates the role that these school officials played in endorsing the crime.
As to the insulting argument that a woman cannot be forced to give a blow job without her personal desire, it’s yet another arrogant attempt to blame the victim. Nonconsensual sexual activity, even without explicit violence, intensified by a power imbalance, is rape. If a man is serious enough to pull a woman into a bathroom, push her to the floor and make sexual demands, then he is serious enough to beat the shit out of her. Don’t agree? It’s estimated that five women die every day in this country by the hands of men who beat and torture them. Living in fear is so normalized for American women that a forced blow job would seem like a winning lottery ticket if faced with the very real alternative: death. So don’t give me this weak-ass shit about how she must have wanted it. You, too, would suck (or fuck) if your life depended on it.
Amy Rew
Overland Park
Blown job: I have always ignored or been mockingly amused by the rampant use of bad puns in your headlines and elsewhere. I have even been able to cleave the smut-filled back pages of your paper from the sometimes insightful and well-written articles in the first two-thirds.
I am unable, however, to accept, in an article about accusations of forced oral sex, the sentence “Then life really started sucking.” That is so fucking appalling that I cannot even imagine how it made it to print. I have asked several others, and the reaction is the same. You should truly be ashamed of yourselves, embarrassed and try to learn from this disgusting mistake.
Scott Beskow
Westwood
Hard Boiled
Their goose is cooked: Regarding Charles Ferruzza’s “ The Bolognese and the Beautiful” (June 3): I had been to Altizio’s before the chef quit, and it was awesome! I have not been back since he left. I have heard the food was not nearly as good, and since I live in midtown, it was not worth the drive.
I was very disgusted after reading Ferruzza’s column on Altizio’s. Whether true or false, he has probably just ruined these people’s business. Did he talk to them or show them his review before the Pitch printed it? His job is to review, not destroy businesses. He went above and beyond simply critiquing the restaurant.
As a restaurant owner myself, I cringed at every sentence. All I could think was, “My god, this article is going to destroy these people.” Ferruzza is only one person, and I understand that it is just his opinion, but readers watch his column closely.
I am not a “tree hugger” or a sensitive person; I am usually very direct and to the point. So for me to be shocked by his audacity and blatant disregard for these people really took me by surprise.
Not that Ferruzza cares, but he really needs to be a little more sensitive with his responsibility and how it affects others’ lives.
Greg Clootz
Kansas City, Missouri
Bad Pitch
Pitch out: In the last month or so, the Pitch has written two stories mainly about … well … the Pitch. First with the minor brouhaha between TV couple Taunia Hottman and her husband, Jeremy Hubbard, which was so diligently reported by Tony Ortega in his article “ Good Riddance” (KC Strip, April 8). And more recently, Nathan Dinsdale’s May 27 Prairie Dogg, which is a rather flaccid and cynical attack on Galactic Celt (and, by extension, the rather inarticulate frontmen of Kansas City).
Quite frankly, I don’t really care what agenda the Pitch attempts to set. But I find it a bit distasteful that the Pitch would fall into the same myopic attack mode that besets many newspapers across the globe that happen to be run by political parties — and usually fervently corrupt ones at that — by marshalling your pens against those who dare question the quality of the ink on your tabloid (which, I might add, is mostly reserved for advertisers). After all, do you really think Kansas Citians are concerned or deserve to hear about the bruised egos of a couple of overly sensitive writers at the Pitch? Or is there some sort of quota at the Pitch about how many times the Pitch must be mentioned per issue so that the paper doesn’t become irrelevant? I sincerely doubt it.
So buck up, little campers. I think it’s time to pull away from the solipsistic navel-gazing and get over yourselves.
Ben Embry
Kansas City, Missouri
