Checking the Angles of Understanding
* In your editorial (“Listen Before You Leap” Aug. 7) you characterize the members of the Orange County Grand Jury as a “group woefully out of touch.”
It appears to me that you are the one who is out of touch.
You, along with just about all media, constantly refer to the “Anglo” as an appellation for everyone who is not Asian, Latino or African.
Anglo is a reference to a person descended from the Angle and Saxon tribes of ancient Germany and England. To refer to an Irishman, a Frenchman, an Italian or a Pole for instance as an “Anglo” is a terrible insult since all have been mortal enemies of the Anglo-Saxons for thousands of years.
To be correct, the term Latino refers to persons who descended from peoples who speak the Latin language or a language based on Latin. This would include the Italian, French, Portuguese and Romanian people; but not, interestingly enough, the people of Mexico and Central and South America (except those who have Spanish or Portuguese ancestors) who descended from “Indians” who actually migrated either from Asia or Europe so are obviously not “Latinos” at all!
Please get in touch with reality and quit mislabeling people. In this day and age of everyone claiming that they are subjected to “verbal abuse” because they are not identified according to this week’s politically correct terminology I would suggest you find some other less insulting form of address when referring to persons who are not Africans or Asians. I, for one, am sick and tired of being referred to as an “Anglo.”
BUCK CUSTER
Huntington Beach
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