Student Prank

Re “Reviving a Resort’s Race Pain,” Jan. 18: My hat goes off to Ricky Wright, the principal of Palm Springs High School. The students who were punished had a choice--either tell who scribbled the racist slurs or suffer the consequences of not going through graduation. If they chose to be influenced by their peers and kept silent about their “senior prank,” then I say suffer the consequences. If they had chosen to speak out, then they could have walked up to receive their diplomas. In this instance, silence isn’t golden. Maybe they will learn that there is a consequence to their inaction as well as the action they took with the white paint.

DANIEL V. DuROSS

Manhattan Beach

* If what those kids did is a prank, then Hollywood take heed, because American history is chock full of equally gut-busting gags. Get real! Meeting beforehand, a coordinated plan, a dead black cat (road kill or not), a six-letter word that starts with “N,” a swastika/logo and walkie-talkies to “coordinate their retreat.” Will somebody please figure out that racism does not always mean lynching, that terrorizing does not always mean truck bombs and that belief in white supremacy does not always mean poor Southerner?

As to Palms Springs’ 1960s clearing of mostly black and Latino “Section 14” to make room for resort and business interests, perhaps if racism were treated like urban blight, or in this case, gated community/suburban blight, with whole communities thus falling under laws of eminent domain and promptly bulldozed, perhaps then whites would finally understand what racism feels like.

To the angry parent who complained against the punishment meted out to his/her son with the exclamation, “I never thought that this [could] happen in the United States of America,” you’re not alone. Go talk to the “1,000 or more” former residents of Section 14; they, too, thought they lived in the United States of America.

JEAN-LOUIS DE BIEN

Long Beach

* Help me to understand. Students commit a criminal act of vandalism--and probably a hate crime--to which none present will implicate the wrongdoers. They are only excluded from some school activities and not criminally prosecuted. The students have no criminal records that will interfere with their future. What are the parents complaining about?

OMER MURRAY

Newhall

* I was struck by how smug one young man seemed to be about his explanation as to what exactly was on the principal’s front door, saying that if it was a swastika, “I’m Jewish and that offends me as much as anyone.” As an Asian American who has lived in L.A. County for over 20 years, I have experienced racism from all kinds of people. As a victim of racism, I have learned to be colorblind--I expect racist attacks to come from any source, because the problem of internalized racism in America is a problem that has yet to receive the national attention that it deserves.

The young man claims Jewish heritage, as if that would make him immune from making racist attacks. Being a part of a minority group does not shield a person from being a racist.

JOANIE CHEN

Walnut