Editor,
Re: “'Outraged' by racist act,” Letters, April 24
When it comes to such ugly sentiment it is typically acquired during childhood, though it's often enough even passed down generationally (if not also genetically) like a serious illness.
Especially if it’s deliberate, rearing one’s very impressionable young children in such an environment of baseless contempt and overt bigotry amounts to a formidable form of child abuse.
If racists won’t do it for plain moral reasons, they then should do their own children a big favour by NOT passing down onto them such destructive anti-social/-societal sentiments and perceptions (including stereotypes and "humour"), since such rearing can readily make life much harder for those children.
It fails to prepare them for the practical reality of an increasingly diverse and populous society and workplace. It also makes it so much less likely those children will be emotionally content or preferably harmonious with their multicultural and multi-ethnic/-racial surroundings.
Children reared into their adolescence and, by extension, young adulthood this way can find themselves seemingly always feeling angry yet not really knowing exactly at what. They also may feel self-compelled to move to another part of the land, where their own ethnicity/race predominates, preferably overwhelmingly so.
This serious social/societal problem can/should be proactively prevented by allowing young children to become accustomed to other peoples/cultures/faiths in a harmoniously positive manner.
Frank Sterle Jr., White Rock
