Response to Letter to the Editor 10/30/2023
On Oct. 30, 2023, The Corsair received a Letter to the Editor signed by John Sawoski in response to the article “Play’s Cancellation Ripples Through SMC Community” published on the newspaper’s website that same day. Sawoski is the husband of Perviz Sawoski, chair of the Theatre Arts department and the director of the play the article talks about. He called the article “fake news” and said The Corsair is “complicit in the mob hysteria that is going on at Santa Monica College,” demanding the newspaper to remove it from the website “immediately.”
The Corsair would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm its fundamental commitment to fair and balanced journalistic work. As a student-run campus newspaper, it is part of our mission to report on stories that affect Santa Monica College students and the college’s community. The discussion around the “By the River Rivanna” play transcended the Theatre Arts department and became a situation involving several students, staff, and faculty. The article in question was written with the intention of reflecting how different members of the community have reacted to the situation and the cancellation of the play by letting them share their thoughts about it. Their opinions are their own. The Corsair has maintained its journalistic integrity while providing an opportunity for as many perspectives as possible to be included in the conversation.
When reached for comment about her husband’s letter, Perviz Sawoski said that she did not know about it and that “no Black student was harmed or actually offended by the performance.” She stated that the project did not harm the community, but that “activists” have and they “owe everybody an apology.” Sawoski said the comments made by Sherri Bradford and shared in the article in question were “irrelevant to the play” and called Dr. Jermaine Junius a “happy censor and harasser.”
Adrian Thomas was reached to speak on the comments John Sawoski made about him in the letter and has yet to respond. Dr. Kathryn Jeffery was also reached for comment on how she was portrayed in the letter, to which she responded:
“The statement attributed to me is not accurate. My focus, as the Superintendent/President of Santa Monica College, is now to build bridges and create opportunities for dialogue so that we might transcend our differences and focus on healing. I have the audacity to hope that we as a community of learners and leaders can and will find a stable path forward with respect and civility.”
Read the article referred to in the letter here:
https://www.thecorsaironline.com/corsair/2023/10/30/plays-cancelation-ripples-through-smc-community
Read the Letter to the Editor signed by John Sawoski in its entirety below:
“Dear Editors:
This is fake news.
https://www.thecorsaironline.com/corsair/2023/10/30/plays-cancelation-ripples-through-smc-community
I respectfully request that you cease and desist, and remove the article from the website immediately, replacing it with a note that says "Please stand by for updates about the show By the River Rivanna."
By the way, do not blame my wife for the fact that I'm sending this letter. She does not know, and probably would not approve.
You need to follow up with all of the sources that you quoted, to correct and retract the false information and provide context and complete information. If you don't, not only will you lose credibility, but you will damage Santa Monica College beyond repair, and probably face lawsuits from many public interest groups, who are already beginning to get involved.
Did you ask any of the sources you quoted if they saw the play? Did any of them actually watch the play? Who? Why didn't you mention that? Did any of them have anything to do with the play?
Did any of you, or any or your faculty advisors, see the play that this article discusses and criticizes?
Or are you merely interested in spreading prejudicial misinformation?
I hope, for your sake and for the sake of the college, that your article is not already widely read or distributed, as it is mostly untrue, dishonest, slanderous, prejudicial, destructive, and embarrassing.
Unfortunately you don't have many facts about the show, and you rely upon unreliable sources. Basically you know nothing about the show, and all you can do is quote people who know nothing.
For example, Adrian Thomas doesn't currently work at the Theatre Department and has no relevant information about the show. Why did you portray him as a reliable source, and make it sound as if he's working lights or something? Sorry, but he doesn't know anything relevant. He is Black, though.
I saw the play, at the final dress rehearsal. I was going to watch it on opening night, but on opening night I had to go play keyboards in the orchestra pit of the musical "Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations" (in my third city), this time in Costa Mesa at Segerstrom Hall (a show, which, like most professional shows, actually happily employs many professionals of all backgrounds who have the skills and experience required, contrary to your apparently closed minded philosophy that only Black people could possibly be qualified to be involved with any Black story), so I got special permission from my wife the director to watch the show "By The River Rivanna" at the final dress rehearsal.
I sat right in front of Dr. Jeffrey, who of course you did not quote, probably because she does not hold the anti-intellectual, inflammatory, extreme cancel mob views and ignorant hatred that you are spreading.
As it turns out, the play, according to Dr. Jeffrey and everyone else who saw it, is thought provoking and not at all offensive or racist. Nor is it historically inaccurate. But I guess we'll have to keep all of that as our little secret, right? Otherwise how will you save face? How else will you save the reputation of those you support? What if the public found out that many of the people who you lionize in your imaginary battle against evil are not reliable sources of information about the play, but actually merely drunks, losers, or liars, pushing their own political agendas by slandering, shunning, and attacking students, faculty, and staff?
Unfortunately, it turns out that you are complicit in the mob hysteria that is going on at Santa Monica College right now. You have a lot of retractions and apologies to issue.
Please get to work cleaning up the horrible mess that you have encouraged and perpetuated.
If you need any help, please let me know. I will provide you a lot of information if you can't find it yourselves.
Also, I'm willing to annotate your awful, BS-filled article and put corrections directly on it, if that will help you.
Sincerely,
John Sawoski
PS - one more hint: talk with my wife, a Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival award-winning director, and actually pay attention this time. She is not in this for politics or historical revisionism or to attack any minority group, contrary to the way you have portrayed her unfairly.”
As an elementary school student, I frequently sat at the kitchen table and glared at my homework. For hours, I would look at it, hoping it would complete itself. As the afternoon turned into evening, and evening turned into bedtime, my homework would still reflect back at me, uncompleted. I would whine and complain, begging my mother to let me go and play videogames, but her answer was always the same: “you have made your bed, and now you have to lie in it.”