U.S. should admit problem with racism
With the unfolding of events last week, it seems that racial tragedy is regularly a topic in our news. We had shootings involving police, and this is escalating. In Dallas, there were five police officers killed by a sniper, and black men killed by police in other instances, in other cities. It may be painful to admit, but we have a problem with racism, that didn’t improve, but got worse, with our first African-American president.
As a 63-year-old man, I don’t feel fear when I’m pulled over by the police. They treat me with respect and I do as I’m told. I’m white, and I was born and raised in the deep South, and I know what white privilege looks like and what it feels like. Let’s not forget President Reagan, who referred to blacks as welfare queens and strapping young bucks buying steaks with food stamps.
DAVE FEDACK, DOUGLASVILLE
Obama sowing more racial division
If supporters of Black Lives Matter literally followed their own chant of “hands up, don’t shoot,” then there would be no police shootings of African-Americans.
It is certainly "politically correct" for President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to automatically condemn police shootings as racially motivated, without knowing all of the facts, and launch civil rights investigations which merely add to the growing racial divide in this country under their leadership.
However, if President Obama and Lynch would simply consider that these police shootings are more than likely caused by an intense struggle or misunderstanding over a gun, without race being a factor, then perhaps these senseless acts of retaliation against police, as well as the violent protests, could have been avoided.
MAYNARD S. PELOKE, ESQ., SAVANNAH
