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"

"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.

VP wrote:

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

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."

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