Race Relations

The organizers of the city's race-relations summit plan to meet this week to prepare a report summarizing the summit's workshops and detailing its various recommendations."

My wife of 55 years, Mallie, recently passed away in our home in South Florida after a hard-fought, three-year battle with stage-four lung cancer, although she never smoked, consumed alcoholic beverages, or, for that matter, ate red meat. But excruciating as it was to serve as her caregiver - and to ponder incessantly why a disease so unrelated to her lifestyle befell her - the ordeal brought into focus a neglected side of the current debates over immigration policy as well as the debate suggesting the decline of race relations.

A survey conducted for People for the American Way, a liberal civil rights group in Washington, shows that 50 percent of Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 feel that race relations in the United States are "generally bad." Also, more than 50 percent feel pessimistic about America's future, although 37 percent think the best for the country still is ahead.The Evening Sun would like to know what you think. Are race relations better or worse than 10 years ago? Do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about the country's future?

In Britain to promote her film "The Butler," Oprah Winfrey gave an interview to the BBC this month. Not surprisingly, she promoted her movie about race relations in the White House with comments about race relations and the White House. The BBC's Will Gompertz asked: "Has it ever crossed your mind that some of the treatment of Obama and the challenges he's faced and some of the reporting he's received is because he's an African-American?" Now there's a fresh take. Either Mr. Gompertz has been handcuffed to a radiator in someone's windowless basement for the last five years or, more likely, he was riffing off the suggested questions Ms. Winfrey's PR team handed out to interviewers.

When Sidney Hollander Sr., the legendary Baltimore civil rights and social activist, celebrated his 90th birthday in 1972, he reflected on his life's work seeking equality for those who had long been denied it. "I was always warned by my conservative friends that if you give Negroes one finger, they'll want the whole hand," he told a Sun reporter at the time. "That's what I'm for. If they get the whole hand, then they'll finally be equal. "We've broken down a lot of the taboos and restrictions, but we haven't broken down the emotions behind those taboos and restrictions," he said.

THE PRESIDENT'S idea to open a national dialogue on race was not exactly new to James E. Henson Sr.Howard County's human rights administrator has assembled people from various backgrounds to talk candidly about race relations for the last 15 months.I have my doubts about whether efforts by President Clinton or Mr. Henson will fundamentally improve race relations and lead to better public local and national policies, but the discussion is worthwhile.Study circles conceptThe "study circles" concept that Mr. Henson introduced to Howard County brings together diverse groups to sit around a table as equals.

I managed to intercept the playwright, J. Annette Barnes, before she could disappear backstage.This was Monday at Catonsville Community College, where a workshop on race relations on college campuses was geared to high school and college counselors and administrators and community groups that work with young people. Barnes' play, "Watcha Gonna Do?" was to be the focal point of the workshop and a discussion group that followed.She was directing. Curtain time was minutes away."There aren't going to be any answers to the problem of race relations in this play because I don't know what the answers are," said Barnes.

Frank Reed and I are having coffee at a fast food restaurant in Columbia and it is no big deal. We shake hands. We exchange pleasantries. But after a while, I feel compelled to shake my head in amazement."

On a brisk afternoon 50 years ago, Timothy Hyman snapped pictures as officials cut a ribbon to open the newest stretch of Interstate 95, connecting Baltimore to Delaware and onward north to Maine. Amid the large crowd gathered at the Maryland-Delaware border, Hyman still remembers the civil rights advocates picketing just outside his frame, calling for the interstate to be interracial and to further advance their cause. In that moment, Hyman said he saw a dual promise - of travel without congestion, but also without oppression.

I agreed with almost everything that Thomas F. Schaller said in his recent column on race relations ("A welcome call for soul-searching about race," July 24). I think he was correct in writing that President Barack Obama "cannot be easily dismissed with the usual racial tropes. That is, so long as he keeps his mouth shut about race matters, which for most of his presidency he has. " President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, in their positions, have sworn to defend the U.S. Constitution and uphold the laws of this country, including our system of jurisprudence.

In the past month, I anxiously awaited the outcomes of several important civil rights and criminal justice court decisions. But the case that triggered the strongest and most varied emotions was the criminal trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman, who followed, shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. In the aftermath of the verdict, President Barack Obama, facing a divided nation, encouraged Americans to channel their passionate views into calm reflection and action. He commented that African-Americans' dismay about the verdict could be explained by our experiences and the history of race relations in the U.S. While he did not specify historical events, I immediately thought about how black America endured almost 250 years of enslavement during which black families, particularly men and boys, were brutalized and murdered simply because of their race.

Lisa Akchin hit the nail on the head on how to advance race relations in this country when she decided "to stop seeing a statistic when I approached a black man on the street and begin seeing an individual coming from somewhere and going somewhere" ( "Moving from fear to friendliness," July 25). That's great advice. This method of being aware of the assumptions that spring up in your mind when seeing a person of another race, and then finding you can fairly quickly negate those assumptions by purposely looking at The Other as an individual human being instead (with race as only an afterthought)

I know first hand that racism still exists in America, but I keep wondering why so many presume it was the key factor in the Zimmerman-Martin tragedy or the jury's decision ("For white Americans, it's time to listen," July 21). Those who weren't in the courtroom didn't hear 50-some witnesses, didn't see the photos, weren't privy to 16 hours of deliberation. Few outraged by the jury's decision seem to care how plagued with crime the neighborhood was, nor do they seem to care about Trayvon Martin's character.

The best that can be said for the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action in college admissions is that it did not immediately and totally ban the practice. But the decision to send a University of Texas at Austin case back to the appeals court from which it came with instructions that the circumstances be scrutinized more closely certainly suggests that the justices are dubious about the continued need for the policy. That's hardly an encouraging sign as the court readies for a ruling in a case on whether a critical section of the Voting Rights Act - one that requires certain Southern states to have changes in voting law screened by the U.S. Department of Justice - is not constitutional after nearly five decades in use (and despite unsuccessful legal challenges in the past)

Regarding the NAACP's recent rally for Trayvon Martin in Baltimore, I thought one of the goals of the organization was to improve race relations, not worsen them ("'We are Trayvon,' marchers proclaim," March 27). I am as outraged as anyone about the horrible fate that befell Trayvon, but how is the death of this young man any different than the hundreds of other innocent young black men slain every year In this country? The answer is: The race of the murderer. If the NAACP wanted to advance its goals, it would hold a rally every day, not just to shine a spotlight on mixed race-violence when the victim is black.

"What's wrong with you people? You're all so cynical. You don't smile, you smirk. " - Megan Through all the years, through all the Peggy Olson working-girl iterations and Betty Draper mood changes and Don Draper bed-mate changes, one thing about "Mad Men" has remained the same: the show's about identity, how people cope with changes, roll with the punches or duck and run for cover. Society is there, too. Changing. In it's super-changey 1960s way.  And in the eagerly awaited "Mad Men" Season 5 premiere, it's right there in the viewer's face and on faces of the characters: Cultural upheaval!