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On 7/24 this Letter to the Editor, published in Prescott AZ's @TheDailyCourier, discussed the issue of racism and different perspectives. Because it's an important issue in our community right now, I felt the need to respond. <THREAD>
#DemCastAZ
#DemCastAZ
Forty years ago when I was a Second Lieutenant stationed at the Air Force Weapons Lab in Albuquerque I was a new Research and Development Engineer. One morning, I went into a technician’s workshop & up on the wall was a poster of a woman in a bikini advertising a Stihl chainsaw.
That poster was so sexist and offensive to me that it adversely affected how well I could focus on my conversation with the technician. I mentioned this to my boss and later that day, my boss’ boss, Larry Sher, came in to talk with me.
It’s hard to describe how validated and valued I felt. Larry recognized systemic sexism and that it adversely affected how well I did my job. Larry Sher has served as a role model for me and he has passed the test of time with the truth of his words and actions.
Now I would like to address C.R. Shoemaker and his Letter to the Editor on July 24. John Wayne said he would be a white supremacist until Blacks became more educated. C.R., you wrote that you wanted people to be more open minded. Are you willing to be more open minded?
Are you willing to look at the systemic racism in education that keeps Blacks less educated? One issue is that a good education in this country depends on money. Currently predominantly black schools have much less money than predominantly white schools.
If we truly want to remove the systemic racism in education we will make sure that each school gets the same amount of money regardless of the economic setting where that school is located.
That's the end of what I submitted to @TheDailyCourier because of the 270 word limit. What follows is what else I would have liked to have said.
Onto the next topic. John Wayne made a racist comment & he has not passed the test of time. Any idealized image of him as an iconic American hero is gone for me. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/us/john-wayne-airport-name-change-orange-county-democrats/index.html
Seeing him sitting on top of a stagecoach shooting Native Americans doesn’t feel like entertainment anymore. John Wayne, you have to admit, was no mental giant & he has become a symbol of racism. To have an airport named after someone who was a racist seems unfair to me.
It’s unfair to Blacks and others like me who are no longer willing to tolerate systemic racism of this kind. In the same way, statues of General Robert E. Lee are being removed because he was a racist & enslaved black people for economic gain.
Robert E. Lee was a slave owner & a racist. In grade school I can remember studying General Lee’s leadership in the Civil War and admiring him for his service. What was not taught was that he was a racist.
If I were a black child reading this whitewashed American history, I would be totally offended in the same way that forty years ago when I walked into that technician’s office and saw the poster of the woman in the bikini.
We need to remove the symbols that send the message that racism is OK because racism isn’t OK. And while we’re at it, we need to remove the symbols that say sexism is OK because it isn’t. https://twitter.com/RepAOC/status/1287414896393625600?s=20
We need to be more open minded to see all of our perspectives, right C.R.?
Mavis Brauer, Chair
Prescott Indivisible
Mavis Brauer, Chair
Prescott Indivisible
