MORRIS DEES

This letter to protest the racist overtones in “The Long Crusade,” by Richard E. Meyer (Dec. 3). Although the article gives the initial impression that is informing readers about the man who bankrupted the Klan, it goes into detail about the circumstances of the lynching of a young black man in the South. The details were such as to relish every detail of the act. And then, the article dispenses information on Tom Metzger and his neo-Nazi skinhead son’s hate campaigns. The pictures that accompanied the article were shot in such a manner as, in one case, to showcase racist epithets on the wall behind Metzger; in yet another picture, an upward view into the hateful faces of Metzger, his Nazi son and white attack dog were reminiscent of nothing less than Hitler. I think the Los Angeles Times has a responsibility in this multi-ethnic city not to stir up racial hate or publicize the bilge of white supremacists. This is not the first anti-minority article I have read in the magazine. From now on, I will see that this magazine gets promptly dispensed where it belongs--in the trash.

J. SMITH, Los Angeles