Friday’s Letters to the Editor

A poor role model

EDITOR: For most of six decades, Mattel’s Barbie doll presented the kind of image of the female body that was exalted in such media as Playboy and Hustler magazines. Despite her huge chest, Barbie’s body mass index would be considered anorexic. This is the standard that little girls and tweens have been told for years is a paradigm of beauty and glamour.

Now I’m being told that Barbie is woke and I should rush to see the movie. This new Barbie is ready to stick it to all those patriarchal conventions that created her. Not so fast, ladies, we have been complicit in creating this monster every time a little girl received a doll that looked like a caricature of a real female.

Mattel’s CEO (a white male) made almost $12 million last year and owns $26 million in company stock. Eighty-seven percent of his compensation is based on bonuses, so his compensation this year is going to be astronomical due to the movie. When Mattel issues a mea culpa and pays reparations to organizations that promote a healthy self-image for young females of all shapes, sizes and colors, I will consider seeing the movie.

BRIDGET McCOY

Cotati

A life cut short

EDITOR: Thank you for putting the story about Oswald Cardenas on the front page (“Vigil held for victim of unsolved hit and run driver,” Sept. 1). It is common to speak highly of the dead, but I knew Cardenas and he was an exceptional young man. Burdened with some challenges, he had sparkle and light in his eyes and a mischievous smile that was infectious. He was deep too, interested in matters that many teenagers might find boring. He loved history, particularly of his tribal ancestors, and he was a good listener. He also understood goodness when he saw it, but I am not sure he recognized it when he looked in the mirror. It was there. Many of these qualities came from his mother, Christina, who instilled a sense of honor and decency in her son. The woman suspected of doing did this has been caught, but it is of little matter. Oz Cardenas is gone, and the world is poorer for the loss. My heart goes out to his family.

RICHARD A. DURR

Santa Rosa

Another racehorse dies

EDITOR: Regardless of the confusion as to whether the racehorse I’ll Do It For You was at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, the reality is yet another racehorse is dead (“Racehorse injured at county fairgrounds dies,” Sept. 1). I’ll Do It For You amassed $156,382 in earnings as a racehorse. This 5-year-old horse — an individual, not an “it” — surely had no say in this choice of a career. Apparently, the sport seems to be fading from the Bay Area. Good. Rest in peace, I’ll Do It For You. May you now run forever free.

DIANA ROUSSEAU

Forestville

Contrasting justice

EDITOR: June Keefer’s attempt to compare the treatment Alexei Navalny received under the Vladimir Putin regime and Donald Trump’s treatment by the U.S. Justice Department is terribly misguided and reflects a lack of understanding of how the two legal systems work (“Justice as a weapon,” Letters, Aug. 28). Navalny is, indeed, incarcerated solely because he dared to oppose Putin. His trials were held in secret, and the outcomes were preordained.

By contrast, Trump faces charges, not because he is a political opponent of Joe Biden but because he tried repeatedly to steal the 2020 election from Biden and the majority of Americans who voted for him. Trump also treated classified documents as his own property, thus threatening national security. He defied a subpoena and tried to thwart a search warrant.

He has not faced pretrial arrest, as did Navalny. Trump’s trials will be open to the public, and he will be judged by juries his attorneys and he will help select. Indeed, Trump has been treated significantly better than the vast majority of criminal defendants. He has been allowed to self-surrender and has remained out of custody despite blatant attempts at witness tampering.

Trump has been and will be accorded all the due process our Constitution provides. Navalny was accorded none. There is no comparison.

NANCY PEMBERTON

Sebastopol

Don’t censor history

EDITOR: The Greenwood massacre took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. Fourteen hundred homes and businesses belonging to African Americans were destroyed, hundreds were killed, and thousands were left homeless. Between 1877 and 1950, at least 4,000 African Americans were lynched in the United States, and the terrible abuse of enslaved Africans has been well documented. Blatant discrimination continued in many parts of the country well into the 1960s. These are just a few of the historical facts that explain how we got to where we are today. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida would have us believe this is indoctrination. No, it is history, and every aspect of American history is important. Our young people deserve to know the truth. Censoring history just perpetuates ignorance.

PAUL SCHUMACHER

Santa Rosa

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.