Black anger in the United States

Re “It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world,” Opinion, March 19

Instead of a rational explanation of her anger as a black woman, Erin Aubry Kaplan resorts to an angry diatribe peppered with the very same venom that she claims to deplore. She writes, “Nothing makes them [white people] more skittish than realizing that there are angry black people in their midst.” After mentioning two nitwits like Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus, she writes, “white anger is seen as fundamentally reasoned and righteous, and Americans have an almost limitless capacity to forgive it when it isn’t.”

Being a 51-year-old white male, I was taken aback as I realized that Sen. Barack Obama, who Kaplan characterized as an angry black man, makes me “skittish.” I thought that I admired him. I guess I view Limbaugh’s and Imus’ anger as fundamentally reasoned. I thought they were two small-minded idiots. Apparently because I am white, I require a black woman to tell me what I am really thinking and why.

Racism is not limited to skin color. There will never be an intelligent discussion of race in our country when the very people who profess their desire to eliminate racism continue to perpetuate it. Obama attempted to address that very issue. It’s too bad that Kaplan chose not to listen.

William R. Paxton

Los Angeles

--

Kudos to Kaplan for explaining what it means to be black and angry in America. But am I the only white person in this country who is also mad? I am mad (and ashamed) to acknowledge that indeed this country was founded on racism, that we have moved around the world with hubris and imperialism, and that we do not hesitate to invade and occupy sovereign countries over and over and over again.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. didn’t get it all wrong.

Lynn F. Kessler

Sherman Oaks