To the Editor:
In response to the letter from Joanne D. Taylor (Bluffton Sun, July 14), I’m afraid.
When I read that there is a difference between the BLM movement and all other Black lives, I become fearful. When I see statues and memorials of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln defaced or torn down, I become fearful.
When I see governors and mayors allowing destruction and looting under the guise of the BLM movement, I become fearful. When I think of my 68-year-old wife who still works and lives in New York City, I become fearful.
When the call to defund or eliminate our police department while letting criminals out of jail with no bond, I become fearful. When I see media sowing discord, purposely pitting Black against white while vital statistics go unchecked or ignored, I become fearful.
So please, don’t say there is hatred in my heart because I become fearful when I see what’s happening to my country under the guise of the BLM movement. I am of the age and race category that I am told I am the problem.
Tearing down our system and rebuilding it on intolerance, shaming and violence makes me afraid. So please, don’t preach to me about love and hatred when you should be looking inward to your own motives of what is happening to our society.
Remember, fear has an insidious and unpredictable way of manifesting itself. Let’s continue talking and, most importantly, listening to each other’s differences.
Benjamin Benzaia
Hilton Head Island
To the Editor:
Drafted by Alice Paul, the Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced to the U.S. Congress in 1923, nearly 100 years ago. Today, 156 countries have equal rights for women in their constitutions. The United States does not!
The only right women have in the U.S. Constitution is the right to vote. The battles women fight every day for equal access to pay, education and health care would become obsolete if their rights were protected by the Constitution.
Every vote we cast when we go to the polls is an important vote, but now, more than ever, it is important to vote for candidates running for office locally, at the state level, and at the federal level who overtly state their support for women’s equality.
Candidates running for the South Carolina legislature as well as Congress have gone on record as to their platform on the ERA. Some have said they will not support women’s equality; others have said they will.
Be an informed voter. In addition to other sources, the League of Women Voters has interviewed candidates and placed their responses on VOTE411.org.
The Equal Rights Amendment guarantees equality and respect for all people under the law. Equality for all, y’all!
Barbara Hammes
Hilton Head Island
To the Editor:
I want to add my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to John Lewis. The non-violent movement initiated by Martin Luther King Jr., and supported by men like Lewis and C.T. Vivian, was a primary reason there was no “Black vigilante” uprising in the U.S. in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.
When I was 15, 14-year-old Emmett Till was kidnapped, tortured, shot and thrown in the river. When I was a senior at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., President Dwight Eisenhower sent the101st Airborne Division to desegregate the school of 2,000 with nine Black students. In the early ’60 (my 20s), three freedom riders were murdered and buried in a dam; four young Black girls were killed in the bombing of their church; Medgar Evans was assassinated; countless non-violent demonstrators were beaten, hosed and gassed; on April 4,1968, MLK Jr. was assassinated. Watts excepted, there was no Black uprising.
These Black lives mattered then and matter today. We cannot let the few “thugs” take over the non-violent protest today that all these civil rights pioneers died to insure! Change, not chaos, was their goal; and it is ours to take up today.
May they all rest in peace as we bow down in repentance and rise up in non-violent protest. II Chronicles 7:14
Ken Reinhardt
Bluffton
To the Editor:
Thanks once again to the Town of Bluffton and Marc Orlando and his staff for the wonderful Veterans Memorial built at Buckwalter Place.
Many of the donors who have purchased bricks in memory of or to honor a veteran or a very special loved one have seen them installed at the Memorial and remarked that it was a moving experience.
One mom stated that she now has a place to sit, have a cup of coffee and talk to her son whose brick she purchased as a lasting tribute of a mom’s love.
Another man remarked that he purchased a brick to honor his father. When he went to the Memorial, he photographed that brick and included it in a collage of pictures he presented to his mom, who was absolutely ecstatic.
There are now over 200 personalized bricks in place and orders for more have been received. Anyone wishing to purchase a brick and have it installed in time for the Veterans Day Ceremony and Dedication should place their order no later than Aug. 30. The brick has three lines of 14 characters each (spaces count). A check for $100, payable to Bluffton Veterans Memorial, should be mailed to P.O. Box 1933, Bluffton, SC 29910.
Kay Ranta
American Legion Auxiliary Unit 205
Bluffton
