Mediaboss Marketing

Black in America means fear of mistreatment

Here I go again. It's impossible to explain to people like March 2 letter-writer Tom Anderson what it's like to be black in America. Although he mentioned a valid fact, Ill bet he never had to tell his son (if he has one) not to disrespect a police officer or he'd get his head beaten in.

Even though I'm old enough to have lived through the many injustices of a "Jim Crow" South, and then found out what it was like to live in the North, fear of mistreatment has always been a part of being black in this country.

In the Jim Crow South, for example, it was fashionable to send black men to Vietnam when they couldn't vote in their home state.

More recently, we've had eight years with a black president, and it seems more incidents of injustice against blacks have surfaced.

Anderson should stop trying to justify why Trayvon Martin got killed. If Trayvon had been white, in my view, George Zimmerman never would have followed him. Trayvon was followed because he was black and wearing a hoodie. That made Zimmerman angry, especially after being told by the police dispatcher to stop following Trayvon.

That gun Zimmerman was carrying told him to keep it up. I think the charge should have been manslaughter, not murder. I'm a retired cop, and I can tell you of incidents I witnessed where blacks were treated unfairly.

Charles L. Perry-Kelly Casselberry

I am appalled at the WikiLeaks revelations of the un-constitutional capabilities that have been developed or considered by the CIA. In particular, I refer to:

Hour by hour, further atrocities are coming to light. Our elected officials are hired to protect us from exactly this type of overreach. They pledge to defend the Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment.

Please, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, Sen. Bill Nelson and Sen. Marco Rubio, take actions to initiate and/or support new legislation to provide oversight to the CIA, and perform audits to ensure compliance with the Constitution.

No government should ever have these unchecked powers. The consequences of these powers staying intact appear to be a clear and present danger to the republic, for obvious reasons.

Joshua McConkey Orlando

I cannot believe the Wednesday letter to the editor by Cindy Singleton, a former teacher of Christopher Redding Jr. She describes him as smart, articulate, athletic. Perhaps he was. But dont forget he shot a deputy sheriff. He could have killed that deputy, and if he had been successful at that, he probably would have shot the other deputies who were there.

Yes, all lives matter, as Singleton writes. So do the lives of the law-enforcement officers; so do the lives of the elderly women whom he was suspected of robbing. My life matters, too. I am an elderly lady who is afraid to go shopping because of others like Redding out there.

Alice Russell Deltona

Link:
Being black in America means fear of mistreatment: Letters - Orlando Sentinel