A letter written in response to Mr. Burt Prelutsky's Townhall article dated, Monday, 12-Nov-2007...

 Dear Mr. Burt Prelutsky,

After reading your column, specifically the paragraph about black racists, I could not help but laugh out loud at your obviously prejudiced and extremely ignorant statements plus the fact that you don't think what you wrote was racist. Whites do not march in the streets when a white thug is arrested because it is white police officers/detectives doing the arresting and white judges and juries doing the sentencing. Blacks march regularly for many issues (I.e. annual commemoration of the civil rights marches) the ones that receive media attention are those of a racial tone.

 Rodney King? Watch the video! He was beaten severely and repeatedly far past the point of submission. That much is blatantly obvious. Dog lovers would riot if they saw a police officer beat a viscous dog the way they beat Rodney King.

 O.J. Simpson?! Some marched but many were shocked and in disbelief. Just like with Michael Jackson, only a handful would actually leave their family members anywhere near them.

 Michael Vick?! Dog fighting was and continues to be an activity of the rich and powerful. Rooster (C_ck) fighting and dog fighting was the pastime of kings and queens in Europe and the rich and powerful in America. The officials only went after him and his operations because he, a high profile/highly paid black athlete was involved. If Vick had his dog fighting operations in Georgia he would have only received a fine... That's right, not a prison sentence. That's the South for you.

 The Jena Six?! I don't know what you have read or not read but when the black students were beat up (after the nooses were hung and nothing was done) and nothing happened to the white students, this was very likely to happen. You have to defend yourself. They told the school officials and the police both of which did nothing. But when the black students fight back when a loud mouth white student, who helps to beat up a black student, is cursing them and calling them the N-word... I can only hope and pray that we as parents (and conservatives) are teaching our children to defend themselves and fight back!

 It seems to me that when the basis for immoral actions against a person or persons is predicated solely on having similar pigmentation, we’re obviously talking racism.

 And to add to the insults... you make the transition to coffee... the trivial topic of coffee and Star Bucks bashing (I thought you were a conservative? Starbucks is a capitalists dream!!!) based on pigmentation... Whew! I find it extremely difficult to NOT think of you as a racist... You sound, at the least, like an ignorant man making racist statements who does not know enough to realize that what he is saying is racist.

 I have and continue to experience much of the same ignorant racism in my life when interacting daily with teachers, professors, officers, non-commissioned officers, managers, directors, and CEO's in the work place and leisure time… and of course journalists, both liberal and conservative. You a journalist/columnist who transitioned from talking about dogs, to black people being racist, to coffee as if all three were trivial topics. Apparently, to you, dogs were obviously the most important topic since that is to what you devoted the most space.

 I challenge you to either drop the racial subject entirely or at least be serious about scrutinizing your natural bias to the white side of an argument because of your limited understanding of people of a different pigmentation.

Sincerely,

W. Sanks

P.S. - A brief background on me – I am a black man who was born in Philadelphia and raised from the 6th grade up in the south (Niceville, Fl) where minorities were less than 10%. I attended/graduated USMA, West Point, NY 1988 (minorities were less than 10%) and served three years in the Army, Desert Storm/Shield, and have 15+ years experience in production and distribution with small companies and a fortune 100 company (Motorola).
P.P.S. - A life observation - If/when the entire management of a company is white; nothing is said or even thought of about it. If/when the majority of the entire management of a company begins to have more than about 25% minorities, then everyone (white people especially) takes notice and it is something to watch and monitor. That is just a fact of life in this greatest country on earth! And neither I, nor any of the black people I know or have known, would ever dream of leaving it.