Letters to the Editor: He's 83, Black, and still worried about his safety in America
To the editor: Thanks to LZ Granderson for telling it like it is on racism and violence against Black Americans. As I reflect on his cogent statements, I think about what I am supposed to do in order to live a safe life in the United States. I have lived as an African American male, Air Force veteran, good citizen and taxpayer for more than 83 years, and I still wonder.
I have never been one of the "good ones," as Granderson talked about, even though that hasn't made a positive difference. I will not get out of my car after a traffic stop and lie face down on the ground to satisfy the macho whims of a 29-year-old white cop, no matter what. I have never and will never do anything to have my dignity diminished.
I wish somebody would explain to me why the majority of police officers are white when most other civil service jobs have many more minority employees. Is it because the white people who chose this profession have an overwhelming desire to bully, boss and dominate people, especially minorities, with impunity?
I guess with our super-human strength and drug-filled bodies, we must be contained.
Ernest Williams, Granada Hills
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To the editor: Granderson should not have to wear a mask with the "Golden Girls" characters on it to make white people feel safe around him in public. Black people should not have to "compartmentalize [their] trauma." White people like me should stop asking Black people "what can I do" and just get busy working against racism.
Start by doing some homework. Join a racial justice discussion group or start one. Our group reads American history and contemporary issues as seen by Indigenous people, Black people and anti-racist scholars.
Objecting to the injustice that allows some people to get off with a slap on the wrist while others are incarcerated for lack of bail money or met with disproportionate force for small issues is not "cancel culture" — it's the way forward.
White people can step back from using white privilege, and instead support agendas to enable everyone to breathe and grow and learn and love. Engage in activism and neighborliness, especially to children. Post anti-racist commitments on social media so friends and relatives know we are determined to help solve the American sickness of racism.
Ellen Gruenbaum, Redlands
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To the editor: The reactions by white women that Granderson experiences are products of decades of media coverage that portray Black people as criminals. But now, the more we read and see about others, the more we realize about our similarities.
News outlets, print and other, have let all of us down, and Blacks and now Asians continue to pay the price. I am an angry white woman who was cheated, as were most whites, of getting to know our Black brothers and sisters beyond the headlines, beyond the few we attended school with, beyond the few we worked with.
The Times could do much more to address these issues.
Suzanne Brugman, La Habra Heights
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To the editor: How is it that an experienced police officer felt she needed to Taser an unarmed 20-year-old man of average height and weight?
There were three officers there; couldn't they have subdued him without resorting to any kind of violence? Tasers can injure or kill people too.
What does this say about police training? Our hearts are broken. Things must change.
Linda Cooper, Studio City
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
