Leonard Pitts

I first became aware of Leonard Pitts in the days immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Leonard Pitts is a syndicated columnist whose columns regularly appear in my local newspaper, though the byline indicates he works for the Miami Herald. I have never checked his biography, and I have no idea how long he has been writing columns, or how long his columns have appeared in my local newspaper, or how many of his columns I had read prior to Nine Eleven.

In those days, there were lots of people writing columns about Nine Eleven, but it seemed to me that Leonard Pitts’ columns were especially insightful, and among the best of anything I read regarding Nine Eleven. I became a regular reader of his columns.

Some day, perhaps I will run across one of those 2001 columns, or check the archives of my local newspaper to see whether at that time they were including a photo of Leonard Pitts with his column. In those early days, I had no particular awareness of his race or ethnicity, though from the name Leonard I assumed he was male. Over time, I found that he often wrote columns concerning race, and that he himself is Black. I would not be surprised to find that his columns had always featured his photo, but I did not notice or care about his race. He was insightful, and wrote eloquently.

As I continued to read his columns, it seemed to me that most of his columns on racial issues were basically variations on the idea of “White people do not understand the Black experience, and will never understand the Black experience.” Fair enough. As a “white” person, I am in no position to argue. I am not saying Leonard Pitts is RIGHT about this, but I cannot figure out any way to know whether he is right or wrong. Perhaps I am not even understanding his point. Still, he seems to work on making this point over and over and over and over. I “get” the fact that I cannot ever “get it”, at least to the extent that I am capable of “getting” that point. Eventually I decided that I was not so fond of Leonard Pitts’ columns dealing with racial issues.

Still, I basically respected his opinions, and even when I disagreed with Leonard Pitts I found him to be intelligent and insightful. Gradually, this began to change. If I had unlimited time, and access to an army of experts, it would be interesting to go back and attempt to study how much of the change was in me, and how much of the change was in Leonard Pitts. People and their opinions evolve, so I am sure that we BOTH changed, though at this point I sincerely believe the change came more in his writing.

When it came to matters of politics, I began to view Leonard Pitts as automatically blaming George W. Bush and/or Republicans for most of our problems, and expressing a good deal of hatred for both. This may be related to my earlier dislike of his racial columns, in that now that we have a black President, I believe anyone who opposes him is almost automatically accused of being racist -- and Leonard Pitts is not above accusing those who disagree with President Obama of being racially motivated.

In my opinion, the truth is complicated. There is enough blame to go around for everyone. Each of us is partly to blame for our problems, and both George W. Bush and Barack Obama have had good and bad ideas and done good and bad things, and neither the Republican nor Democrat party is always right or wrong. This is not to say that some individuals or parties are MORE right or wrong or MORE to blame than other individuals or parties, especially with regard to certain issues, but the truth is complicated. Leonard Pitts seems to have lost sight of that idea.

In fact, there was one particular column -- almost two years ago -- where he seemed to be arguing precisely the opposite, and saying that the issues were clear-cut, and that Republicans were one hundred percent wrong and Democrats were one hundred percent right. At that point, he lost me. I decided that he had little to offer me now, and that life was too short to continue reading his columns. It is NOT that I disagree with him. I can learn a lot from those I disagree with, and regularly read columns by those I disagree with, and spend time with those I disagree with. It is that I have lost respect for his entire way of thinking.

Leonard Pitts’ columns still appear in our local newspaper, and sometimes I still start to read them, but I almost always regret it, and consider it a waste of precious time. I find it to be very sad, sort of like losing a trusted friend. Granted, a friend who has never heard of me.