To the Editor:
The first words that came to mind after reading Nancy Jordan Blackmore’s Opinion piece were “judgmental,” “arrogant” and “condescending.” Who are you to presume to lecture “120,000 white people” about our feelings and thoughts without knowing a single thing about our experiences and without having ever met us?
Your presumption of our raging racism says more about your superiority complex than it does about us. Your self-assigned moral superiority displays all of the above words. By telling us to “pick up a book”, you betray the condescending attitude of your intellectual and moral superiority.
I’m sorry you feel your parents were racists simply because they moved to the suburbs. I suspect they did it to give YOU a better life. Certainly a reason to pity their inherent racism. My parents couldn’t afford to move to the suburbs, and I and my siblings grew up quite well in the city. Had we been able to afford a move to a newly-built modern house with grass and space around it in a fresh and new neighborhood, I would have neither then nor now pitied or criticized them for it.
You acknowledge the fact that his organization disavowed the white power shouter, but that doesn’t deter you from your predetermined view of such rampant racism in our community. I am pleased that you have done such noble things as taking in open air students and foreign exchange students.
One can’t help but feel that you shared those activities as a way to demonstrate your moral superiority, without knowing whether any of the targets of your letter have done similar things. I will not play “tit for tat” with you as it is none of your business what similar actions my wife and I have conducted in our lives. Yes, you have led a varied and well-traveled life, but I can’t help feeling from your letter that it was intended to convey your superior cosmopolitanism to us poor hicks who obviously aren’t your equal.
Once again, your arrogance at presuming our inferiority is staggering given your lack of knowledge of our backgrounds.
It is so typical of the liberal lecturing mind that Mr. McGinty’s message is “cunning” and “heroic,” while anyone who chooses to disagree with him practices “hate speech.” This is the essential liberal attitude that self-awards moral superiority and presumes that gives the right to condescendingly lecture, demean, and shame us poor immoral conservatives into thinking “your” way. As you are issuing judgement on “120,000 white people,” perhaps you might take a minute to look in the mirror and question your own biases.
Carl Back
Village of Sunset Pointe
