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He helps us understand each other
Letter from the Editor Columnist Eric Foster wrote a column this week to tell our readers he has moved to Atlanta.
He said he had fallen in love with Cleveland and felt like he belonged here, but his 10-year-old daughter wanted him to be present in her life. He knew he had no choice but to move.
Now, some of you are asking me why I asked him to keep writing a column for us, from Atlanta.
My answer: I’ve rarely read as unique a perspective as Eric offers every Wednesday, and I know as surely as I know the sun will rise tomorrow that we need voices like Eric’s if we are ever going to understand each other.
I had no idea how good Eric’s columns would be when we asked him to consider writing them. A few years earlier, we chose him from among many dozens of people who applied to be community members of our Editorial Board. He wrote a few columns in the next couple of years that we liked a good bit, but they were about personal issues for which he had a passion.
We didn’t know how he would do with the cadence of writing a column every week. Coming up with a weekly topic is not as easy as it looks. I speak from experience.
From the start, however, Eric provided perspectives you can find nowhere else. The percentage of his columns that I think are absolute winners is as high as it gets.
Consider one he wrote about selling his house in May, and how -- to get the best price -- he had to remove any sign that Black people live there. It’s heart-wrenching to read about him removing anything revealing of his or his wife’s identity. Read it and try to convince yourself that racism does not exist in Northeast Ohio.
Or consider a piece he wrote about his personal journey with therapy, and how he had to work through a high level of discomfort in acknowledging he needed it. As many others struggled through the anxiety of the pandemic, here was a successful lawyer talking about why he realized he needed it. Read it and try to tell yourself Eric did not help some people cross the Rubicon and seek help.
Consider that Eric is a Black lawyer, with lots of experience with people going through the courts, who has helped guide a lot of readers through a range of feelings in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.
I’m a voracious reader. I’m in a business where I get perspectives by the boatload. But I can’t count how many times I’ve read an Eric Foster column and encountered ideas I’ve not seen articulated elsewhere. That is the highest praise I can make for a columnist. Eric’s pieces are unique.
He also has a gift for writing. Not everyone does.
Although Eric was based in Cleveland, his columns transcended local issues. They are national, even global. He could have written them from anywhere in America and been as relevant.
So, when he wrote that he was selling his house back in May, I called him to ask where he was moving. I figured he we looking for a new neighborhood. He told me about Atlanta. He told me about his daughter.
I was crushed. I understood why he had to go, of course. But I asked him if he’d be willing to keep writing. I am thankful that he is.
I never know where Eric is going to take us each week, but I know I always want to be there for the ride. And that is why I asked him to keep writing.
Speaking of columns, I continue to receive notes of interest in writing our Metro columns. I explained a few weeks ago that we want to bring in a multitude of voices to write our Metro columns, rather than have one person on our staff do it. I was hoping to hear from a diverse group who could analyze issues of importance to Greater Cleveland through their own prisms of experience.
I received many, and I continue to sort through them. This process is taking time. People keep writing to ask what the progress is. I appreciate the interest, and I’m moving as quickly as I can, but this is going to take a few more weeks.
Thanks
Chris Quinn Editor and Vice President of Content
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