Letters: KC readers discuss Nazi parallels, pregnant COVID patients, Evergy shutoffs
No comparison
Some folks think mask requirements are unfair to those who dislike such rules. However, it is obscene to compare face-covering rules to Holocaust atrocities. (Aug. 13, 8A, “Holocaust comparisons mean you forfeit right to be heard”)
Let’s break this down: Today’s mask mandates, which apply to all persons past infancy, single out no one. The Nazis commanded Jews to wear yellow Stars of David to mark Jews for beatings, to starve them in ghettos and to deport them to death camps.
It is insulting to equate the cloth masks of 2021 with the yellow stars of 1939.
Everyone on Earth has to follow rules with which they disagree. That is not discrimination; it is part of being human. If our worst trauma is being denied service when we don’t wear a shirt, or a mask, we are privileged indeed.
- Janice Jean Stallings, Kansas City
Youngest patients
One of my friends is a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit. She’s working constant overtime. You want to know why? Because pregnant women in their third trimesters are catching COVID-19, becoming so sick that they’re requiring intubation.
The baby must be delivered to save both lives, and that poor infant then lies suffering in the newborn ICU for weeks or months while the mother recovers from COVID in a medically induced coma. Some of these mothers and babies will die — all because someone two hops away in their social circle didn’t get vaccinated.
Do it for the babies in the womb. They deserve a full nine months of safety in a healthy mother. Your vaccination helps protect them from premature birth.
Find a vaccine near you today at vaccines.gov/search and save in innocent life.
- Tom Lang, Overland Park
Overdue respect
Reading the Aug. 13 story, “At age 94, Black woman finally gets to try on her dream wedding gown” (11A) made me happy and sad. In 1952, I was very young. I knew about the Black and white segregation, but it affected me only when my family kept moving south away from the Black people moving into our neighborhoods.
It makes me sad to think how badly we treated Black people and not understanding or knowing what was going on. This story made me happy that this sweet lady, Martha Tucker, at long last got to try on her dream wedding gown and that she was treated with the respect she deserved.
- Mary Jane Phillips, Greenwood
Quit the politics
It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to read and hear print and broadcast media that define most national events in political terms. It was bad enough hearing Donald Trump’s rants during his presidency. But now media outlets continue the ascription of left and right to COVID-19, vaccinations, mask wearing and even Afghanistan.
Please don’t devolve into Fox News. You’re better than that.
- Katie Linder, Prairie Village
Utility pain
Kansas City, Kansas, ratepayers have been showing up and explaining to the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities’ directors that customers have been struggling to access pandemic-related assistance.
Although the Low Income Energy Assistance Program and the Kansas Emergency Rental Assistance program still have money available, they put up too many barriers, including a lack of administrative resources and unnecessary requirements that leave thousands of Kansans without help, or stuck for months waiting for approval.
BPU eventually recognized its customers were suffering, unable to access programs and at high risk of eviction or catching COVID-19 if utilities were cut off for nonpayment. That’s why BPU reinstated its disconnection moratorium through at least Oct. 6.
Evergy has disconnected more than 18,000 of its struggling customers in Kansas and Missouri since May. The utility’s slick public relations hide that the monopoly electric utility is causing unnecessary pain for people in need, as its stock price has gone up 25.67% over the last year.
Evergy should follow the lead of BPU and reinstate a moratorium on disconnects for nonpayment to protect customers struggling during the resurgent pandemic. It’s the right thing to do.
- Ty Gorman, Kansas City, Kansas