Inadequacy Revealed

In your recent column on bigotry, Leslie Powell’s comments on unnecessary racial slurs are timely. Facing the threat of job loss, the Persian Gulf crisis and increasing economic competition from overseas, it is easy for the insecure to seek solace by denigrating others.

However, if one’s own pride derives solely from one’s racial extraction, over which a person has absolutely no control, then uttering racial slurs only serves to unmask the speaker’s sense of personal inadequacy.

JOHN T. CHIU

Corona del Mar