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Racist incident provides teachable moment

Dear Tom Houlihan,
I just reread your editorial “Viewpoint” in the May 1 issue of the HF Chronicle and was struck by the box reading HATE HAS NO HOME HERE. 

That conviction was not shared by the boys who posted pictures of themselves in blackface on a recent Saturday night. If it wasn’t hate, then ignorance/lack of empathy/cruelty. 

One of the questions posed to the participants at the “Peaceology” community meeting that followed a week later asked: Why isn’t the racism worse? You say in your column, “Diversity works when people of good will share both what they have in common and what makes them different.” 

There is an abundance of “people of good will” in our communities! Those who have worked for many years on Diversity Dinners have not labored in vain – but that work is not done, because there are always folks who haven’t heard the message. 

There are children of all ages who watch and listen to find out who we are, what we value, if we are for real – and whether it works. The teachable moment has been provided; we have to keep talking and listening to each other.

Karen Maurer
Homewood

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