Dear Editor,
I am compelled to respond to Michael Dingwall's letter to the editor, 'African Americans don't have special rights'.
Obviously, Dingwall has never had the displeasure of living in a primarily black poor urban community in the United States. I went to college and lived in a rough area in Baltimore for four years and personally witnessed the brutality of what I consider one of the more racist police departments in the United States. JIm Crow is alive and well in the US, only in a more subtle form.
African Americans, especially those in the inner cities, have been facing discrimination and police brutality for decades. Fortunately for those who live under police occupation, cellphone cameras now expose the inhuman treatment meted out by police terrorists.
Malcom X suggested that freedom and justice should be pursued by any means necessary. When the downtrodden lose hope and a channel to equal rights and justice they fight back with the tools at their disposal. However, no one can condone the burning and looting of community businesses and stoning of the police.
As for Dingwall's uninformed belief that JIm Crow is no longer a threat to black Americans, I invite him to read Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow. Perhaps he might be released from his mental cocoon.
R Oscar Lofters
Kingston 8
lofters1@aol.com
African-Americans don't have special rights, but...
-->
I am compelled to respond to Michael Dingwall's letter to the editor, 'African Americans don't have special rights'.
Obviously, Dingwall has never had the displeasure of living in a primarily black poor urban community in the United States. I went to college and lived in a rough area in Baltimore for four years and personally witnessed the brutality of what I consider one of the more racist police departments in the United States. JIm Crow is alive and well in the US, only in a more subtle form.
African Americans, especially those in the inner cities, have been facing discrimination and police brutality for decades. Fortunately for those who live under police occupation, cellphone cameras now expose the inhuman treatment meted out by police terrorists.
Malcom X suggested that freedom and justice should be pursued by any means necessary. When the downtrodden lose hope and a channel to equal rights and justice they fight back with the tools at their disposal. However, no one can condone the burning and looting of community businesses and stoning of the police.
As for Dingwall's uninformed belief that JIm Crow is no longer a threat to black Americans, I invite him to read Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow. Perhaps he might be released from his mental cocoon.
R Oscar Lofters
Kingston 8
lofters1@aol.com
African-Americans don't have special rights, but...
-->