I wish to thank Mr. Fitzgerald for his letter to the Record-Bee (April 19). While the institutions of racism in the US have been abolished by law, the results of the hundreds of years of those institutions will not die out in a generation or two. Thus it is helpful to see it in the open where it can be discussed, understood, and learned from.
I couldn”t help to note that like me, Mr. Fitzgerald has an Irish surname. I imagine he never learned that our ancestors were considered to be sub-human when they fled starving to America in the mid 19th century, and that European/Americans of 150 years ago were convinced that their “unique way of life” was being threatened by these hordes of immigrants.
As to the “ideals of democracy” mentioned, democratic republics existed in India before the 6th century B.C., so Europeans can hardly claim to have invented it. To put it that in perspective of time, Alexander the Great rose to prominence more than 200 years later.
Ironically, the United States wasn”t even the first democratic tradition on this continent. The Iroquois had a democratic process of selecting their leadership prior to the establishment of the colonies, and a system of laws and representation that was studied and discussed by Jefferson and Franklin when setting up the U.S. Constitution.
Finally, what makes America great are not European traditions, which have been unjust or horribly bloody, but our faith in and adherence to that great document, the Constitution. That document begins with “We The People”, not “We the Mostly White People”.
Mike Sullivan
Kelseyville
