READERS BITE BACK

Letters

Jesse Jackson

Though I found Gail Sheehy's article on Jesse Jackson [January] very informative, I have a searching criticism of her conclusion that Jackson's candidacy is not so much a quest for the presidency as it is an attempt to establish personal legitimacy. I feel that this conclusion serves to perpetuate the cynical if widely held assumption that Jackson, as a black man, is indeed not a legitimate candidate because unelectable. I suggest that Sheehy's article serves to institutionalize this bias, and I urge her, and all Americans, to join me in the hope that it isn't so.

HENRY BOWMAN PIPER Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Sheehy draws negative conclusions about Jackson from a staff meeting, a week before Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, "to talk through his ideas for the Poor People's Campaign. None of the staff were really enthusiastic about the campaign, but they were 'amening Doc.' Jackson openly challenged him.'' Obviously Jackson displayed more character than the others.

Discussing rumors of Jackson's "affairs,'' Sheehy concludes, "My guess is the issue won't hurt him with his natural constituency." If she had examined his foreign policy, or his program to bring justice to farmers, women, underpaid and underutilized workers, communities left desolate by runaway corporations, lesbians and gays, the homeless, and millions denied minimal health care, she would have shown that Jackson's "natural constituency" is not limited to blacks, as she implies.

DAVID DELLINGER Peacham, Vermont

Contrary to Gail Sheehy's lead sentence, Davenport, Iowa, is not the "kind of town" where ignorant bigotry is prime dinner conversation. We've never "jumped for fright" over blacks. Davenport has been accustomed to blacks since Dred Scott walked its streets in the 1830s. Distinguished black families have participated in community life for generations. We have black professionals and business executives, and the president of the board of trustees of the Davenport Museum of Art is intelligent, sophisticated, and black.

JULIE JENSEN MCDONALD Davenport, Iowa

Your cover story on Jesse Jackson was much needed. We're ready for a black president! The Negro race has suffered too long in the building of this country to be denied such a basic right.

DAVID BLUDSO Compton, California

Corazon Aquino

As the author of the unauthorized 1987 biography Corazon Aquino: Journey to Power, I was very pleased to read T. D. Allman's profile [February]. Apart from Gail Sheehy, who profiled the Philippines' president in Parade, Allman is the only writer I know of who has taken the trouble to look behind the "former housewife" myth. During the seven and a half years of Benigno's imprisonment, Cory became politically active. She memorized messages from him and served as his underground courier to the opposition. Then she began holding press conferences in order to keep his name in the public eye. She was by no means a politically inexperienced housewife when she decided to campaign against Marcos. As Allman points out, the housewife image helped her win, because Marcos and his allies underestimated her. One question remains: to what degree did Cory know she was exploiting people's misconceptions about her in order to promote her image of utter ingenuousness?

LAURIE NADEL Brooklyn, New York

Letters to the editor should he sent with the writer's name, address, and phone number to: The Editor, Vanity Fair,350 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017. The letters chosen for publication may be edited for length and clarity.