to the editor: I am struck by the research that guest contributor Martin Seligman and Noah Love did in examining the degree to which events that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s had a positive effect on how Americans, especially black Americans, viewed their sense of personal agency during those years and continues to the present (“The civil rights era changed the way African Americans see themselves” June 18).
This op-ed makes me wonder what they would find if they conducted a similar examination of the sense of personal agency among white evangelicals.
It seems to me that the current majority of the Supreme Court is handing down a series of rulings, particularly on the Voting Rights Act, that are particularly aimed at meeting the demands of this segment of the American citizenry alone, at the expense of citizens who are neither white nor these types of evangelicals.
The discussion in this op-ed gives us a new target to aim for: the sense of personal agency we all have as American citizens. It seems to me that it should be our goal as a nation to promote principles that allow members of each subgroup to pursue this feeling, but also respect the right of members of groups to which we do not belong. No I belong to achieve this feeling too.
Steve Wood, Ventura
