Letters to the Editor: Eastern Kentuckians react to Joel Pett’s cartoon on flooding

Editor’s Note: A number of readers contacted the Herald-Leader and submitted letters about Joel Pett’s political cartoon on flooding in Eastern Kentucky. The Herald-Leader is running a sampling of those letters. “The intention of the drawing was to lament that when heartbreaking disasters like this strike, it is often the people who can least afford it who are hit the hardest,” Pett explained. Read his full response, “Lament, not disrespect, was subject of flooding cartoon,” here. https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article264081636.html In a column on Wednesday’s Opinions page, Herald-Leader Editor Peter Baniak also addressed concerns about the cartoon: “As Kentuckians, we are heartbroken by the devastation and loss, and awestruck by the stories of resilience and compassion in Eastern Kentucky. We will continue to cover this important story, and we’re sorry for any offense that was caused by this political cartoon at an incredibly difficult time for so many.”

Disgusting

I think the recent cartoon drawn by Joel Pett is disgusting, insensitive, and immensely cruel. The flooding we are experiencing here is NOT a joke. People have lost their lives INCLUDING SMALL CHILDREN. Hundreds if not thousands of people have lost their homes and vehicles to this flood. Not because we are “poor” people as the cartoon suggests, instead it is because we have experienced a NATURAL DISASTER that could happen ANYWHERE. TAKE THIS DOWN AND APOLOGIZE PLEASE!

Tylan Collins, Hazard

A disgrace

Joel Pett is a disgrace! The fact that you would allow his content into your media outlet speaks volumes about your organization. I hope you never see another subscription east of your worthless press!

Mitch Smith, Hazard

Gut-wrenching

Joel Pett’s drawing is gut wrenching, disrespectful and pathetic. How disgraceful can one person be?! NOT to mention you allowed it to be printed. If you or Joel could look into the eyes of a women with children whose husband was swept away by flood waters YOU’D think twice about making fun of your own state. I do believe this is low as it gets! You need to make a trip to Hazard and see if you can keep up with all the Eastern Kentucky natives out distributing essential items to victims. My guess is neither of you would make it 30 mins because it take HEART! Something you two don’t have.

Starla Fannin, Hazard

Poking fun

The cartoon created by Joel Pett and shared by the Herald Leader is a disgrace. When I lived in Lexington, I had multiple people poke fun at my accent or ask me insensitive questions based on stereotypes of my Appalachian home. Mr. Pett seems to be following in their footsteps. While he may feel better than, he surely is not. Your zip code does not make you better than the people here in Appalachia who have fought to overcome stereotypes and being the butt of the joke year after year. Making a caricature of my home is disgusting.

I understand political cartoons but this is in horrible taste. Do better. Almost 40 people have died, some of them children. Children have been found alone in homes because their parents were taken by the flood. Have respect for these people.

Cassidy Melvin-Vice, Paintsville

Despicable

My name is Sarah and my family heritage is of Eastern Kentucky, specifically Belfry. Even though I was born in Lexington at Good Samaritan hospital in 1987, and I do have some family in Lexington, my ancestors and family roots are in Appalachia. The fact that you would allow a political cartoon on your paper that is making fun of the current situation of my home town where people have literally lost their lives in one of the worst natural disasters of our modern time is despicable. It is calloused and down right rude and it should be removed immediately. I live in Georgia now and cannot physically be there to help my community and neighbors, even though I wish I could. You all are in the state and CAN make a difference in that community instead of making horrible cartoons about the situation that offer no assistance to anyone. Please, for the love of humanity, take it down, offer an apology to the people whose lives and livelihoods have been affected by this tragedy and get your work boots on and go help! At least make a story that highlights the helpers and their heroic efforts.

Sarah Day, Auburn, Ga.

Appalled

As an Eastern Kentucky resident who lives in the middle of all the recent flooded areas, I am appalled that you would let the “When it rains it pours” cartoon be published. Not all of us are poor. In fact, I know more than one local millionaire. Economic status aside, we rally together and help each other. While we still have missing loved ones and have neighbors living in tents and hotels, we are out there helping to clean mud, recover bodies, and support each other in true Appalachian fashion. We poor, proud hillbillies have been deeply offended by what you chose to publish. Please do better. And tell Mr. Pett, that we have shovels and buckets and gloves waiting on him if would like to stop making light of a tragedy and actually do something to help.

Shauna Brown, Langley

Callous

To think your news cartoon was appropriate while disasters are happening all around are just beyond our Kentucky spirit and imagination. Never would I or others have expected you and your cartoonist to such show such callous cruelty. You both should find another line of work where compassion for people is not required.

Vicky Root, Louisville

Degrading

The editorial picture was the wrong picture to use concerning the flood in Eastern KY. It is people like you that degrades and stereotypes the fine people in this area. This storm tragedy affected people of ALL walks of life.But that has nothing to do with the fine people whom live in this part of the state. Your insensitivity just added more hurt to all those that have been affected!

Gary Nelson, Louisa

Sickening and outrageous

I am from Eastern Kentucky, and I think that your cartoon image is sickening and outrageous toward all the towns of eastern Kentucky. There’s been lots of casualties and people are still unaccounted for. Families still without shelter and food and water. If you want to print something in the Herald-Leader, then ask for donations of food, water and clothing for all the misplaced victims. But you chose to poke fun of all us Eastern Kentucky population. Not funny at all. May God bless and be with us ALL. Amen

Jim Tyra, Campton

Not since Christian Laettner

Congratulations to Joel Pett. With his recent editorial cartoon on the flooding in Eastern Kentucky, he has made himself the most disliked person in the Commonwealth since Christian Laettner.

H.B. Elkins, Beattyville

Hurtful

Eastern Kentuckians are not poor people ... we are some of the richest in the country. We have morals and values. Your cartoon was very hurtful to a lot of us. It’s a shame that your paper would allow such to be printed. But we’ll overcome this too…

Anita Maggard, Hyden

Heartless

In recent days, one of my dear friends has asked for prayers for her family and friends in east Kentucky. She has shared horrific pictures of homes destroyed, churches swept away, schools in ruins, people on the roofs of their homes awaiting rescue. Even worse have been the stories of rescues that did not arrive in time. Members of her family are missing, some are dead.

And then she shared Joel Pett’s thoughtless, heartless, callous cartoon, “When it rains it pours….on poor people,” complete with a ‘cartoon’ drawing of exactly what is traumatizing the good people of eastern Kentucky. Unfortunately, Mr. Pett’s explanation, “The intention of the drawing was to lament that when heartbreaking disasters like this strike, it is often the people who can least afford it who are hit the hardest,” does not, in any way, match the cartoon that you printed. What was he thinking? What were YOU thinking when you decided to publish it? Shame on all of you. The lame excuse that Mr. Pett offered is meaningless. God help the people harmed by your poor decisions. I hope you have learned something about compassion, a value that was clearly lacking when you published this abomination.

Kathy Mett, Dover

Truth telling

My first reaction to Pett’s cartoon on the devastating flood in Eastern Kentucky was ‘Pett captured truth’. The message reinforced my belief that many with little lost the most. As the facts of this disaster continue to unfold, Pett’s message about the impact of what may be record flooding becomes painfully more accurate. Truth telling, be it spoken, printed words or through art, has and will always be controversial. Stay the course for truth does prevail and helps to clear a path toward a better future for all. Truth telling is your core business.

Ron McBride, Nicholasville

Strength and dignity

If you want to learn how to love your neighbor, how to have faith, how to persevere, how to give of yourself when you have lost everything then Eastern Ky folks will show you how. These hills and hollars are filled with more strength, dignity, and faith than most of us will ever know. These communities are like family and they are the foundation of a long Kentucky history. This devastation has caused a lifetime of damage for many, but even in these troubled times you see communities coming together, so much love, compassion, and just good-hearted people doing all they can. I am grateful for my upbringing and if someone calls me a hillbilly or mocks my accent I don’t mind, I’m so proud of where I came from. No matter where I live I will always follow the road that leads me home. These hills ground me, reminds me of who I am, how far I have come, and has taught me to appreciate everything about these mighty mountains and the people in them.

Rachel Njenga, Versailles

Let’s build it back

Eastern Kentuckians,

Although our hearts may be hurting and feel as if they have been ripped to shreds, we will overcome.

Eastern Kentucky is the heart of the state. It is our coal that powered the nation. We dug that emery black rock out of the ground with our own two hands.

Our timbers built the homes that would dot the landscape of a country. It was a hard life that not many people could bear.

Yet our people endured and called it a days work while raising generations of families. Hardship is in our blood.

The path ahead will not be easy. It will be heartbreaking. It will be very hard. Yet, we will overcome. We will endure. One hour, one day at a time.

Our ancestors call to us and even today instill their pioneer spirit upon us. It is they who looked upon this unspoiled land and decided it would make a home that will empower us. It is in our soul. It is in our blood.

It took a person with fire in their belly to dare to settle this region. That fire rages in us today. No amount of water can truly extinguish that passion we have for our home.

“Heaven must be a Kentucky kind of place.”

- Daniel Boone

Well, this is Earth. This ain’t heaven. On Earth, there are moments of hell. As once famously said:

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” -Winston Churchill

So let’s keep going. We will get to the real heaven sooner or later, in due time. But for now we’ll take the next best thing. We’ll take Eastern Kentucky. Let’s build it back.

Eric Jude, Jackson

-Eric Jude (Colonel D. R. Acula)

Climate Change

I agree with the Sunday letter from Dr. Richard French that the American people need to vote out senators like Joe Manchin who obstruct any hope of legislation to combat climate change. What is beyond comprehension is that 52 Republican Senators are just as responsible as Manchin for our inability to save our planet. Legislators on both sides of the aisle seem to not look at what a bill can do for our people or our country but rather “what is in it for me?” What’s in it for my party. What about “is it the right thing to do?” I cannot believe that all 52 Republican Senators could care less about how global warming will affect the future fate of their children and grandchildren. What I can see is that the atmosphere in Washington is such that if you say the wrong thing or step from the crowd, your career will be destroyed. That it has come to this is terrifying.

Rita Egan, Lexington

Warning systems

When floods strike at night it can be the worst possible time, but why can’t we set up some type of phone notification system, landlines as well as cell phones, for those living in flood prone areas, or mudslide areas, which would alert them, any time of the day or night to lurking dangers?

Such a system might be an advance fee, or free (run by state or county groups) or supported by foundations. Maybe someone could set up a pilot project. It could be based out of a sheriff’s office, or EMS system, or even a local hospital… some group which will know about the issues and is available 24/7.

My suggestion is a broad one, but surely we can come up with some plan that will let people know, especially at night, when disasters threaten.

Ken Kurtz, Lexington

Mitigation?

‘Mitigate’ the Flooding? Linda Blackford’s editorial in Sunday’s paper (July 31) made me chuckle a little up my rain-soaked sleeve. She sorta blamed coal mining industrialists for the lack of “mitigation” of flooding in Eastern Kentucky. More than half a century ago, a proposed dam on the Red River in Powell County which would have dramatically “mitigated” flooding in that area was stopped in its tracks not by industrialists, but by environmentalists, who, among other things, claimed the dam would seriously damage the Red River Gorge where much of the water would have pooled. And more than that, it would have threatened extinction of the “snail darter” which lived in the streams in the gorge. I believe the people who live in the heavily flooded counties of eastern Kentucky could not care less if you’ve hugged your snail darter today if they could get some flood protection -- dams or otherwise.

Ralph Derickson, Lexington

Thanks, Gov. Beshear

Our young, brilliant, kind governor has dealt with Covid, unprecedented tornadoes, and now record breaking floods. He was faced with hate groups that were encouraged by some of our own republican legislators (Savannah Maddox for one) who hanged him in effigy and climbed on the governor’s mansion armed with assault rifles. Though it all, he has been steady, kind, supportive, classy, and spiritual. Thank you Andy.

Diana Martin, Lexington