Ignoring societal racism isn’t working

TO THE EDITOR,

Robert Clegg’s opening paragraph shows clearly that he is not aware of the true nature of the topic that “critical race theory” addresses. (“What happened to the great melting pot?” June 18, NH Business Review.) For example, he writes, “We walked to school together, sat in class together, ate lunch together.” This is simply not an accurate depiction of what life is like for most Americans of color.

Because of ongoing practices like redlining, people of color have been excluded from many communities and neighborhoods for decades. European minorities may have been integrated into America’s “melting pot,” but it has been a slower, less complete process for people of non-European descent.

Mr. Clegg goes on to describe the “arrival of people in the new world. Many spoke of their parents or grandparents as having passed through the great halls on their way to be an American.” This is an insulting sentence to the millions of African Americans, who arrived in chains and were stood on blocks and sold as property. It is not ameliorated by his later comment that in spite of being enslaved, African Americans “refused to give up or give in.” Being enslaved is not like being stuck in a losing sports season.

After he trivializes slavery, it is not surprising that Mr. Clegg mischaracterizes critical race theory completely. It is not about using the past to promote division in the present. It is about teaching the true story of the past in order to acknowledge that, as William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

There is abundant evidence that racism persists in American society. Mr. Clegg’s “solution” is to pretend it doesn’t, which is obviously not working.

Bill Chaisson
Wilmot

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