In the early 90’s, I got to meet the original Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips) several times, and met the current Dear Abby (daughter Jeanne) once.
Pauline was a sweet, kind, well-intentioned woman who always dressed like she was on her way to eat cucumber sandwiches at the local Four Seasons hotel. She was quite the tiny, quiet person in real life, happy to talk with anyone who approached her, but always off in the corner and never trying to be the center of attention. I met her at many AIDS benefits for local organizations and she really did put her money where her mouth was (a major financial donor to several AIDS organizations). She was very supportive of causes that may have been unpopular with many of her readers.
Her daughter seemed to relish the limelight a bit more than her mother, but having met her only once, I can’t say as I got to know much about her other than she seemed quite eager to take over the reigns some day - as she later did when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and she had been co-writing the column for a few years.
The point of this walk down memory lane is that Pauline (and Jeanne to some extent) was very much the proverbial “white bread” liberal, walking a fine line between trying to open their rather conservative, older readers up to seeing the other side of social issues, while keeping their advice appropriate for that demographic. She would get quite a bit of flack from many readers, but stuck to her guns.
This ridiculously fake letter from the so-called gangbanger is a ploy to show that many kids in prison might be there because of reasons other than they are just pure evil - and trying to put a spin on the fact that they might now be repentant for past deeds. As a cautionary tale, it is pretty lame - but for the typical demographic (elderly, conservative) reading it, it might give some insight as to how this all came about, and at least have them re-consider their prejudices against those scary kids out there and support counseling groups and organizations who help at-risk youth. It might also give some grandma hope that she can convince her grandson to seek help.
The letter is bogus, but the message plants a seed that there might be hope for other kids out there, with support from family and professional counselors. Another over-simplified, somewhat trite, but well-meaning good deed from Dear Abby.
And didn’t Dan Savage buy Ann Landers’ desk, after she passed on? I believe he initially scoffed at her old-lady advice and ended up truly admiring her for, yes, bringing up uncomfortable social issues (AIDS, homosexual marriage, cohabitation) for consideration by her readers.
She didn’t write it. Some other ancient old white lady took a break from tea time to write the letter, and Abby fell for it because she has no idea what gang members, or 16 year olds apparently, sound like.
I’m a Dear Ann/Dear Abby reader from way back and it always seemed obvious to me that the letters were, at the least, heavily edited. They all seemed to have the same voice.
Okay, maybe it’s just me who hasn’t said or heard people saying “homeboy” since like 1994. I’m going to have to gather my Rochestarian teenaged cousins together when I see them all on the 4th and ask them what’s going on.
There’s a Hispanic kid who works at the grocery store nearby and one day I playfully greeted him with “S’up, homes?” and he cracked the fuck up…said I was a lot hipper than your average white 62-year-old suburbanite.
Really? Got some bad advice from Hax in mind? I’ve only read her a few times, but she seemed cogent. Actually I’ve looked at the accompanying illustrations by (her ex-squeeze) Nick Galifianakis much more often, and my impression is that they often summarize the column pretty well.
Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link expecting to see a Dear Abby fake prison letter, and seeing “Gift Ideas for Lingerie Shower are Naughty as Well as Nice”. I think a hardcore lifer really did write those.
But the “Please God, I’m Only Sixteen” prison letter? Totally fake. There’s quotation marks around the word “homeboy”, for god’s sake!
This right here has definitely upped my respect for her. Because that’s a woman after my own heart, and what I tried to do forever before I got burned out and cranky.
