To The Herald-Whig:

The questions posed by Jim Burns in his letter of April 22 about black people who visit or live in Quincy feeling unwelcome go to the heart of deeper issues of community and national racism. Quincy indeed has an ignoble history of racial prejudice. As late as 1940 black citizens could not eat in local restaurants and had separate sections in movie theaters; elementary schools were largely segregated with black children attending the old Lincoln School on 10th and Spring. In the mid-1930s, the Quincy Board of Education boarded over the swimming pool it had built at the then Quincy High School at 14th and Maine before it was ever used because many white parents vehemently objected to their children swimming with black children.

Jim asks what we can do about racism now. First, I believe, we must value education foremost in our lives, for with knowledge of the history and heritage of other peoples and cultures and of what science knows about human life comes understanding, appreciation and empathy.

Second, we can place the commonweal above self-interest while removing ourselves from the celebrity and money-mania pervading this country. How many readers can name five of the nine United States Supreme Court justices? Or the U.S. secretary of the interior? Or eight of the 14 Quincy aldermen? OK, how many readers are "not" aware of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump and Madonna?

Last year a Fox News commentator stated on a nationally televised show, "Wall Street loves the war in Iraq!" I never felt so dismayed by twisted values. If each of us works for social good rather than looking out for No. 1, people will more likely be judged on character and not their place in the pecking order. We will no longer esteem ourselves and our kind first and pit "us" against "them."

Third, we can see human beings as individuals. I worked for Census 2000 and had the unenviable job of asking people to classify their race.

From classrooms and kitchen tables and workplaces and pulpits, let us proclaim and live the truth that beneath superficial differences we are all human: We breathe the same air, are sustained by the same sun, have the same color of blood, and one day will lie under the same ground.

Joseph Newkirk

Quincy