Letter to the Editor

To the editor:

This is in response to Michael Broughton’s July 5 letter, “Broughton responds to the idea that culture spurs school shootings.”

Can we hold off on calling everyone racist? President Donald Trump’s entire quote in his defense of neo-Nazis is:

“What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. The press has treated them absolutely unfairly. You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

Trump explains that some people were there to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue.

For me, I would have protested any tax dollars to put a statue up anywhere.

To say they are now going to remove it would cause me to protest it again.

My main point is that we have diluted the term “racist” to the extreme that it is losing its power and distain toward a person.

The word used to bring to mind the people in Little Rock or Alabama barring the kids from going to school while spitting on them.

I recall one face in particular of a lady with those pointed ’50s sunglasses with a nasty scowl on her face.

The fear I had of being labeled a racist or of those people would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Now we have people taking parts of quotes to label Trump a racist because Trump was standing up for an individual’s rights that do not align with their own.

Maybe we can expand our vocabulary and say Trump is not being politically correct or too insensitive.

The media has lowered the bar for the standards of what a racist truly is, and to me, humanizes the true bigots.

Shawn Finney
Sunset Hills