Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Racism does not improve union

The late, great, Bahamian and American actor Sidney Poitier, who carefully chose his roles to avoid crooks or cads, wrote in his memoir: “All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given to denying me value ... I hereby declare myself better than you.”

His comments are relevant in light of the rise of the conspiratorial “replacement theory,” which has driven violent backlash by white supremacists and antisemites who fear they will soon be in the minority.

This theory was most recently manifested in the recent mass shooting in Buffalo, where an 18-year-old devout racist who had such an evil heart as to drive 200 miles to murder 10 African Americans in a supermarket. Police found a manifesto written by the killer complaining about whites being replaced by minorities.

We should also remember the 2017 white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Va., in which people marched with torches chanting “Jews will not replace us.” During this rally, a Nazi sympathizer ran over and killed a young woman who was peacefully counterprotesting.

For a nation whose governing document exhorts its citizens to form a more perfect union, racists, white supremacists and antisemites should not only be replaced but extinct. Vile ideologues are hardly worthy of determining the worthiness of others, especially those they mistakenly deem to be inferior to them.