Dear Editor,
UG’s decision to confer an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Letters, on Guyanese-British Actress, Letitia Wright is taking it too far. Compared to movie legends she’s a neophyte and does not have an acclaimed body of work that is deserving of such an accolade. If UG wants to give a Guyanese born star such an honour CCH Pounder does have that body of work. She has received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in The X-Files, ER, The Shield, and The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, as well as numerous other nominations, including nine NAACP Image Awards and has won two Satellite and one Black Reel Awards. She also received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Grow Old Along with Me, the Best Is Yet to Be and won an Audie Award for Women in the Material World.
Other accolades for Pounder include the Visionary Leadership Award in Performing Arts from the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD) in San Francisco, the 2015 Carney Awards, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Chase Brexton Health Care in Baltimore, 2015 honouree at the Grand Performances Gala in Los Angeles, the 2016 SweetArts Per-forming Arts honouree from the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, the National Urban League’s 2017 Women of Power Award, and the 2018 Bob Marley Award from the American Foundation for the University of West Indies.
An advocate of the arts, she is active in the Creative Coalition. Pounder was a founding member of Artists for a New South Africa and has energized awareness of post-apartheid and HIV/AIDS issues. She also serves on the board of the African Millennium Foundation. A honorary doctorate to Letitia Wright not only waters down this honour but is an insult to others who have been so honoured.
Sincerely,
Annan Boodram
