Institutionalized Racism Apparent

* Three white suspects attack a young black woman and beat her to the point of causing her an apparent fatal heart attack; the individuals are charged with involuntary manslaughter. A group of white and Latino youths get involved in a fist fight and during the melee, the result of a freak accident, a white youth is speared with a paint roller rod; only the Latino youths are arrested and six of them are charged with murder.

To any fair-minded individual, the manner in which these two cases are being prosecuted would appear as clear and simple institutionalized racism.

Unfortunately, your reporting of these two incidents may have contributed to this sad state of affairs.

Your headline regarding the attack on the young black woman called the incident a “fight.”

With respect to the incident between the white and Latino youths, although your later reports have acknowledged that there was a fist fight between the two groups, your earlier reports called the incident an “unprovoked attack” on the part of the Latino youths.

This type of biased reporting reminds me of historical accounts of battles between the U.S. Cavalry and Indians in which “victories” were those instances when the U.S. Cavalry won while “massacres” were those instances when the Indians won.

ANGEL D. SISTOS

San Clemente