‘Racism Is on the Rebound’

I agree with the basic premise of Haywood’s article that racism is not dead. Racism will undoubtedly never completely disappear; it will continue to ebb and flow for the duration of man’s existence. Our task is to make sure that it ebbs more than it flows. But in his discussion of white apathy, in which Haywood compares himself to Chicken Little, he would have done well to consider another fable, that of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

The charge of racism, often hard to prove or disprove, has been made countless times over the years. Often the charge is well-founded. But sometimes the charge is made by people with purely self-serving motives, people trying to gain an undeserved advantage or blaming others for problems of their own making. If whites are apathetic, as Haywood believes, perhaps they feel they have heard the cry of “racism” too often.

GREGORY C. PEARSON

Santa Monica