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THE YOUTHFUL FACES OF HATRED

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Terri Garland’s photo essay “All in the Family” (Aug. 15), chronicling organized racism, teaches a lesson.

The most erudite, literate and well-read person I ever met was an editor on our newspaper in Jackson, Miss. Research for a story on the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi revealed our colleague was the statewide recruiter for the Klan and the neo-Nazi movement.

The insidiousness of organized racism is not that its members are freckled, buck-toothed caricatures. They are us.

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TERRY KING

Los Angeles

How very nice that Garland is “interested in going beyond the Sieg Heils” in her ongoing photographic exposition of white racists. Was it that, or Jill Stewart’s writing that seemed to lend this story a “human touch”?

When it comes to racism, there is no human touch. These young white children are not sweet, adorable youngsters--they are young hatemongers who will grow up to contribute to the ugliness of a sick, racist country.

Their parents are not loving, supportive responsible adults. They are ignorant, uneducated, insecure people.

The platform of these people is one of pure hate. Their past is genocide. Their future is despair. Humanizing them only opens the door to understanding them. Can one ever understand hatred?

ARLENE ROSENTHAL

Palm Springs

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