Dear Sir,

The op-ed by Monica Jones (Royal Gazette, July 15) was interesting and no doubt well-intentioned. But it would have had more validity if it had been more balanced. Her obvious self-induced blindness reinforces the walls she writes about rather than building bridges.

To be specific, she could see the lack of wisdom in the attitude of the black parent, but nowhere does she acknowledge the reason for it. Nowhere does she explain that, while lacking in wisdom, it was reasonable.

If that parent sees whites as “lions”, it is because they first enslaved black people then segregated them to ensure their economic inferiority and dependency. It is really incredible that she could write “racism” is taught and then go on to point out that it is racism for blacks to characterise white people as “evil, white devils” etc, and at no point acknowledge in any way that the “racism” of blacks is the inevitable and human response to the racism of whites, who have inflicted, and still do inflict, such destruction on the black community.

She might have minimised what white racism has done to blacks, or even tell blacks “to get over it”, as she lectures them on their racism, but to ignore white racism so completely makes all of her “words of wisdom” empty rhetoric.

EVA N. HODGSON