More Fake News

Talking Back(page)

Our readers take up the pen.

RE: Black Goat Gardens, W. Hargrave’s profile of the non-profit organization appeared in our Sunday magazine.

Thank you for your brave profile of these brave women. It takes courage to go it on your own, but it takes even more courage to reach out and work with others in these fractured times for the greater good. I love how they’re not only growing vegetables, they’re also growing a movement. Reading about their work and commitment to one another made me feel things I’d shut out for a long time. It made me proud to be a part of this community and it made me proud to identify as a woman. Please, keep taking a chance on printing good news. I for one, will gladly keep reading.

Name Withheld

A bone to pick and a few choice words for your editorial staff. However well-meaning you might have been in deciding to write about the Black Goat Gardeners’ [sic] organization, I’m here to tell you women don’t need this kind of infantilizing puffery press. I’ve lived in Acton for going on three or four decades now and am a regular patron of the Black Goat Tavern down the road in Prudence. I’ve seen, heard, and listened to the women you write about head to the basement at the Goat for planning and strategy sessions over the course of several years now. One of the great things about the public house is that it is a living, breathing community hub. And yes, you can get a stiff drink upstairs at a fair price.

What I know about the women and their work, and I know a whole heck of a lot, runs altogether counter to what your condescending staff writer crammed into print last Sunday. Time and again he kept banging on about these outdated and outmoded tropes about women bringing life into the world and being preternaturally better suited to nurture it. You stuck to this line of unreasoning in reference to everything under the sun, from compost piles to children. Worse yet, the author concluded that these women need protecting, when all they ask for is support.

Well, it’s time to set the damned record straight. These women are wonderful, beautiful, accomplished and whole without producing and providing anything for your and my consumption. What they choose to spend their precious time and talents on is solely up to them. They are not here to fulfill whatever responsibilities you don’t want to take up, like the rearing of children who men somehow have no part in bringing into existence it would seem according to your tack. I’ll set the record straight merely because they’re too busy living their lives to worry about any of this, and not because they are incapable of mounting their own defense. They choose to go down to that basement for themselves and each other. That’s why. Period. Full blood moon synced up period if that offends your silly head. If you can’t understand that women are also people, please do not write about them and their lives ever again until you do.

Violet, Acton, Mass.

Trans participation in your article about the Black Goat Garden [sic] association was overlooked completely. I for one salute your decision not to separate and divide by highlighting trans involvement in the organization. Who’s a he, she, it, or they is nobody’s business but their own.

Theodore, Leominster, Mass.

RE: Fistfights and Fluoride, Constance Webber reported on anti-fluoride protests at the Nashaway Reservoir treatment plant.

Dental inequities and inequities in dental care are costing us all. Myself and my colleagues who practice dentistry, family and cosmetic, were thrilled to see your editorial team take a powerful stand for continued fluoridization at the Nashaway Reservoir treatment facility. Not only are the supposed ill effects unsubstantiated and unscientific in nature, the misinformation threatens our overall health. Fluoridization cannot be linked to autism. Fluoridization cannot be linked to cancer and other comorbidities. It can be linked to numerous positive health outcomes. Fluoride is a foundational part of preventative dental care and dental care impacts our overall health. We dental healthcare professionals were sorry and aggrieved to learn about the harassment workers at the treatment plant are facing on an almost daily basis and aim to organize counterprotests in their support. Until then, we wish to thank the editors again for bringing this important topic to light.

Dr. Eleanor Zhao, DMD, Shirley, Mass.