RACISM: Ward's solution

How refreshing it was to read on the front page of Saturday’s Press about the Hayden couple, Ward Connerly and Janice Camarena, who will be traveling to attend a reception in honor of Black History Month and meeting with President Trump. Mr. Ward has advocated to drop the hyphens in naming Americans (as in African-American, or Asian-American, etc.), that tend to divide Americans, rather than unite us.

Ward is a person of brown skin, but does not identify as African American, as he is a broad mixture of ethnicities, as are a majority of Americans I would guess. Why should we have any hyphens at all? How about we ALL identify as Americans!

Ward is against affirmative action of any sort, arguing it “betrays the fundamental belief in our founding documents (and the 1964 Civil Rights Act).” I agree with him that racial based affirmative action is by very definition, racist, and against what we as Americans are supposed to be about. How ironic and hypocritical it is that the party that portrays itself to be non-racist accuses the other party to BE racist if we speak against race-based affirmative action! Because Mr. Ward is a person of color, he can say this without being labeled racist, but if a white skinned person said the exact same thing, they would immediately be decried as racist!

It is the exact opposite of what the Rev. Martin Luther King advocated, to judge people based on the content of their character and not on the color of their skin! Nobody should be discriminated against OR given special privileges because of race, but only on their abilities and qualifications. Let’s become color blind in this country and get rid of the things that divide us. We would all be better off.

ANNE SEDGWICK

Coeur d’Alene