Re: editorial

For what it's worth, here is my letter to Mr. Raspberry. Perhaps I'm overly
self-indulgent, but I just didn't feel the need to be very diplomatic about
it. Raspberry's views stem from resentment, not from rational thought, so my
letter is more an attempt to register my disgust than to change his mind.
I'm not sure rational arguments can overcome  prejudice, but perhaps seeing
things from a different perspective (that of the victim), can:

Dear Mr. Raspberry,

Just finished reading your column on Mr. Tamez and his frivolous complaint.
I couldn't agree with you more! What a great column! It's about time that
someone spoke up. I just wish you'd gone a little farther.

My wife and I recently moved from Oregon to Seattle. Our neighborhood is
nice and clean, and our neighbors are all the kind of people you'd want to
be around. So imagine our shock when we went to enroll our kids in the local
school and discovered that probably 25% of the students are black!

There used to be a time in this country when they had their schools and we
had ours. What happened? Now they come into our schools, and it just ruins
the aesthetics of the place. They can't even speak English properly! The way
they dress, the music they listen to... it's disgusting!

What was wrong with having separate schools for them? They had access to an
education! So it wasn't as good as the education in the white schools. So
what! Why should all of us have to suffer just so they can enjoy the luxury
of a good education? And what really pisses me off is that I have to
subsidize it with MY taxes! Let them stay in their own neighborhoods and go
to their own schools, not ruin the beauty and friendliness of ours.

After reading what you had to say about those whiny handicapped people, I'm
sure you'll agree that we should put those whiny blacks back in their
places, too.

Tell me, Mr. Raspberry, did you really mean to espouse the
disenfranchisement of a entire group of people simply because it's
occasionally inconvenient for you? Do you really believe that equal access
to power (the real issue here) is a luxury?

Shame on you.

Charles F. Munat
coder@acnet.net

Received on Tuesday, 17 November 1998 18:34:18 UTC