Cultural Education Won’t Stem Hate
* Regarding Rev. Randy Jordan’s “White Youths Need to Learn the Contributions Made by Other Races” (Platform, July 29):
Please, before we get into a futile discussion of the influence on European civilization of alleged black men (Moors? Would they consider themselves black Africans?), let us consider this: Hate and hateful acts exist because people are confused about who they are and who God is. Racist youth and young people who enjoy evil of other sorts will not be restored to health by information.
This century has a number of examples of “educated” people who have wholeheartedly participated in horrors directed toward others not like themselves. Would Armenians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Kurds, Palestinians, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Bahais, Hindus, Buddhists, Ibos, Ethiopians, Ugandans, Liberians, Southern Sudanese and today’s black-African slaves in Mauritania have fared better if their oppressors had known about their contributions to the world?
No. As Jeremiah said, “The heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick.” The answer is not another state framework for students.
The real solution is recognition of who we are and the acknowledgment that we are unfit to determine right and wrong on our own.
Jordan is better equipped than I to argue this point.
RICHARD J. MOHR
Fullerton
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