VP needs to read carefully / Autrey did NOT play the race card

Reader comment on:
Now Comes the Lawsuit
in response to reader comment: Yet unfair, but

Submitted by Ryan, Mar 6, 2008 09:32

I am doing research on Wesley Autry and was so troubled by VP's unjustified criticism that I had to reply. His/her entire 300+ word essay was based on a misreading of the article andf virtually all of it falls apart if s/he had read carefully.

VP wrote:

he said that he was an "uneducated" "black" man being taken advantage of by "educated" "white" people trying to "screw" him. I'm not reading directly from the article but he DOES say "uneducated" or "lesser educated"

WRONG. What you quoted were Ms. Kleiman's words -- when she mockingly impersonated him. Autrey never said those words. Read the first paragraph of page 2 carefully. Note how it ends with "Ms. Kleiman said." An note where the double quotation marks (") and single quotation marks (') begin and end. Here is the excerpt:

"His defense is, 'I'm a poor black guy with very little education, and these educated white people tried to take advantage of me by forcing me to sign a contract that I did not read.' We didn't force him to sign," Ms. Kleiman said.

Again, it was Ms. Kleiman mockingly impersonating Autrey. For obvious reasons, she wanted to present him in the worst light possible.

VP wrote:

The man was smart enough to figure out that he and another man could "fit" in the cracks of the subway

WRONG AGAIN. According to Wikipedia, he said that working in construction, and often in small spaces, gave him an intuitive sense of space. That is not being smart; it's experience. It's no different than grandma knowing how much salt to put in the soup without measuring. Indeed, many reptiles have excellent spatial abilities. Are you calling them smart?

Furthermore, spatial abilities have no correlation to the ability to read contracts, or to manage time. My Ecuadorian carpenter can't read English yet he has an excellent sense of space. My SAT score was over 1400 and I do the NY Times Crossword yet I can't accurately estimate dimensions.

Autrey never played the race card. Ms. Kleiman (AND YOU) was the only person to mention race. Indeed, she brings it up again in the 5th paragraph of the 3rd page:

"I don't want this to sounds racist in any way," she said. "He's a 50-year-old black man who did a very heroic thing. But this was five minutes out of a 50-year-old man's life."

Your entire post essentially falls apart because its premise is false. Autrey never used race as an issue. Please read carefully before typing.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
I notice there are very few comments. It's very saddening. The scandal is that Wesley Autreys' overwhelmingly selfless act of... [MORE]	Dale Smith	Jul 1, 2007 04:44
The lawyer might as well have married the poor guy. She's criticizing him, she's trying to screw him, and she's... [MORE]	Shaw	Jun 14, 2007 06:13
According to the AP, the contract gives the lawyer OWNERSHIP of Autrey's story, EXCLUSIVE rights to his name, and 50%... [MORE]	AG	Mar 30, 2007 17:41
I agree with the other comments about how these people took advantage of this seemingly hard-working man who did a... [MORE]	VP	Aug 16, 2007 03:33
I am doing research on Wesley Autry and was so troubled by VP's unjustified criticism that I had to reply....	Ryan	Mar 6, 2008 09:32