To the editor: After reading Clyde W. Ford's article defending former WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes for saying black people can't be racist, I feel like that nonsense shouldn't go unanswered.
I don't care what the Kerner Commission is or how it defined racism in the 1960s. Saying that people from any particular American racial or ethnic minority cannot be racist is absurd.
Racism does not require superiority in power or numbers on par with whites in the United States. It can and has infected individuals and small groups of people who have little or no power. It is simply an attitude or belief, usually derogatory, about a race or ethnicity that is not true.
But even if you believe the Kerner Commission's higher power requirement, that doesn't exclude individuals. Any time a black person or a member of another group is stronger than another person and subjects them to harm because of their race, that is racism.
Al Fisicaro, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Swoopes apparently never met North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who happens to be black.
He is a Holocaust denier who has made other anti-Semitic statements. He is against women's bodily autonomy. He is also running for governor.
His opponent, Josh Stein, is that state's attorney general and Robinson's polar opposite. He believes that all Americans deserve the same rights set forth in our Constitution, regardless of race, sex, religion, or place of origin.
These are the facts. Please look them up.
Marcy Bregman, Agoura Hills
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To the editor: Although competing definitions of the term “racism” run the risk of being controversial and being labeled Orwellian, Ford is right: “If we don't talk about race in this country, all we're going to do is fight about it.”
Saying that black people can have racial prejudices, but cannot be “racist,” begins a valuable discussion about the proposition that the prejudices of the most powerful may be more harmful and therefore deserve a higher priority for redress than the prejudices of the less powerful. .
However, there is also the risk of losing sight of the fact that racial prejudices, whether associated with power or not, remain harmful.
Anyone who is treated with less respect because of their skin color suffers an injustice, which may make them less interested in discussing the proposed distinction between racism and prejudice.
Racial prejudice is not “simple” harm, any more than petty assaults and petty theft are “simple” misdemeanors. It's still wrong and still part of the discussion.
G. Andrew Lundberg, Los Angeles
