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LETTER: White person wants apology

From reader Jeff Fry...
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Re: Nelson racism: 'White people don't want to accept it'

The article “White People Don’t Want to Accept It” is a highly inflammatory and oddly racist article that should really warrant an apology from the Nelson Star to the overwhelmingly white population of the Nelson area for insinuating we are racists.

It should be obvious that racism is a very charged term that has to be applied carefully and accurately.

Cherry picking acts of discrimination of the few and then inputing those faults onto the many is the common logic of racist thinking we know to avoid. Though there are racist people no matter where you go, the people of Nelson at large are not raging racists.

To make it more absurd, most of the stories of “racism” by the minority individuals speaking in the article are so tame that it almost reads as satire. Some old people give me glares.

A cop pulled me over wrongfully (never mind the police officer’s account). Someone merely acknowledging another is not white. A barely unsavory joke from a friend. If that’s the worst out there, we should instead be thinking how we are happily progressing in the right direction, not that racism is “alive and well.”

Indeed, the coloured women of the previous paper said that any racism was minor in what was overall a lovely community to live in.

Western culture is the most open and tolerant culture in the world by far, and Nelson is certainly not behind in that regard. Let’s not have the people of Nelson needlessly smeared by your sloppy and careless reporting.

Jeff Fry, Nelson