Are we better off?
I applaud the editorial staff for the recent article “Bad timing” (June 17). While the Biden administration ran on President Joe Biden’s great skill in being a statesman, moving across the aisle and the list goes on and on, many of us should ask ourselves, are we better off? Not only is inflation — gas, food, etc. — through the roof, but how are international affairs going? Total disaster check boxes abound.
The Biden administration seems to have woken up midterm to the Israeli-Palestinian situation and wanted to rush together a peace summit. “An attempt to appease PA President Abbas.” Maybe there has been no movement on a peace process, rightfully pointed out, due to lack of leadership. The kind of leadership that got the world the Abrahamic Accords, which President Donald Trump deserves due credit for.
Lack of direction. Lack of care to Israel overall. Well, who can blame Biden with the radical left-wing members of Congress trying to influence him? For those who were counting on “yes, we can” or “change” (sorry wrong administration), this one has fallen flat.
Sheila Schwartz
Baltimore
Critical of critical race theory
I remember Fred Pincus well from my years on the faculty senate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the early ‘70s. His op-ed (“Where do Jews fit into critical race theory?” May 20) leaves me in disagreement with at least three of his apparent positions.
1. Equity versus equality. If many Black people can’t compete with others because of poorer education, the solution is to improve their education, not to give them equal outcomes (equity) by putting them in schools they are unprepared for or jobs they are unqualified for.
2. Critical race theory teaches that white people are bad (oppressors) and Black people are good (oppressed). Martin Luther King Jr. must be turning over in his grave. In his “I have a dream” speech at the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington that I attended, he argued that people should never be judged on the color of their skin.
3. Slavery in America needs to be taught, but within the context of the whole story. To pretend that only white people were slave owners, or that only Black people were slaves, or that slavery only happened in America is odious. Slavery had been a part of most human societies from time immemorial including the untold thousands of Black Africans who kidnapped millions of their Black brethren in order to sell them into white and Arab slavery. Saying this is not blaming the victims or absolving slave traders and owners of their guilt. The very word “slaves” derives from “Slavs,” white enemies of the Romans whom they defeated and turned into slaves.
Jeff Knisbacher
Lakewood Ranch, Fla.
