Koon’s Book on the LAPD

Koon’s unpublished manuscript is a classic example of racism driven by ignorance. According to your article, Koon claims “he was merely trying to draw out the antebellum image of a large black man and a defenseless white woman.” “In society,” Koon is quoted, “there’s this sexual prowess of blacks on the old plantations of the South and intercourse between blacks and whites on the plantation. And that’s where the fear comes in, because he’s black.”

In fact, the overwhelming majority of “defenseless” women in the Old South were female slaves who feared being raped by their white masters. If anyone today should have a reason to be afraid, it is the black women. Koon’s reference to black “sexual prowess” is an attempt to camouflage his own fears and inadequacies by projecting his aggression through black men--all the while insisting that he is not a racist. One is forced to wonder how a police officer who thinks like this could have been elevated to a position of command.

FORREST G. WOOD, Bakersfield. The writer is author of “Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction” and “The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America From the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century.”