I was taken aback and disturbed by a letter writer’s patent misrepresentation of Mickey Rathbun’s touching “Get Growing” piece (Sept. 20), which featured a tomato plant growing on a pier piling in New York’s East River.

But I was even more troubled that the Gazette would unfairly compound this misrepresentation with its letter headline, “Rathbun’s jab at New Yorkers not funny” (Oct. 7). There is no jab at New Yorkers in this piece, and there is certainly no xenophobia or demonizing of “others” anywhere in this piece.

What’s not funny is that the Gazette would print such a deliberate misrepresentation as someone’s opinion. As we historians like to point out, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own facts.

To accuse a writer of xenophobic demonizing of anyone when she has merely quoted verbatim a New York City tomato’s tweet is insane. Rathbun’s piece was a beautiful love letter to New York City, so sweet that I would like to remind readers what Rathbun’s last paragraph actually said: “I love how the city manages to keep green things growing even when tall building cranes dominate the skyline. The High Line and other major public parks provide a welcome escape from all that concrete and asphalt. Those brave little tomato plants making a go of it in such unpromising conditions provide something more enduring, despite their transience. ‘I, East River Tomato,’ said it perfectly: (In the East River Tomato’s own words via Tweet,) “There is only one of me. I am ripe. I will be gone soon; eaten, perhaps, by an errant seagull, or an enterprising squirrel. I may decay on the vine. It’s okay. I am pleased to inspire the city dwellers who are so fearful and angry now. They need tiny bursts of hope and happiness.”

Are these the words of a xenophobic and demonizing New York City tomato? I don’t think so. Are there fearful and angry New York City dwellers in this time of government-sanctioned anti-immigrant animus? Absolutely. The Gazette owes Mickey Rathbun a correction and an apology.

James E. Young

Amherst

The writer is New York City Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies at UMass Amherst.