October 21, 2012Dear Sir,Re: Disadvantaged whites.The Letter to the Editor dated October 17 and signed “PARENT” that was published in your newspaper on October 19 refers. The writer of that letter mentions “disadvantaged whites” and states inter alia that white parents are “forced to drum up large sums of money” to send a child to private school in order to avoid persecution in public schools. I consider it essential to comment on this letter because of the assumptions inherent in the statements contained in it.Let me comment first of all on the farcical attitudes that accompany a race-based society. I recall quite vividly that, during my teen years in the 1950s, we often discussed the “poor whites”. Those discussions were tinged with a certain level of condescension towards the poor whites under the assumption that anyone who is white must be rich and if not there is something ‘wrong with them’. This was an obvious absurdity as every category of persons contains both rich and poor; however the segregation of societies often leads to unreasonable fears and ideas about the unknown “other”.Getting back to the issue at hand the writer assumes that white children in a predominately black school would be persecuted by the blacks. The writer implies also that adult whites experience persecution in public places. Let me deal with these two issues separately.With respect to schools and based on my long experience in that environment, I am not aware of any situations where white students were persecuted BECAUSE OF RACE in predominantly black schools. I agree that there are conflicts between students of different races but such conflicts are almost inevitable at that age and there are troublemakers in all racial groups.With respect to the labelling of all children of a certain category based on isolated incidents, I recall clearly an incident during 1999 in which students from Saltus Grammar School set fire to a classroom space at Harrington Sound Primary School. There was no comment from anyone about the behaviour of THOSE CHILDREN and no one implied that ALL Saltus students are wrongdoers.At present it is notable that, when the media talks about incidents in schools, race is rarely part of the equation. If the writer is concerned about a general level of “poor” behaviour in public schools based on what is seen in newspapers, there may be a case. However when I made an enquiry about newspaper reports on school incidents I recall that the Editor of this paper told me on one occasion that incidents in public schools are reported because such schools are paid for by the public. Incidents in private schools are underreported as these are assumed to be “private matters”.In terms of persecution in public places, the reports in the media refer consistently to BLACK-ON-BLACK incidents. In this case also I do not understand the assumptions of this writer. However it is these types of assumptions that will continue to bedevil the health of this community unless and until people grow out of them.Finally the writer would make a better use of money by sending the child to a public school and saving to invest in the college/university education of the child.JT CHRISTOPHERWarwick