Racial Problems

Fighting crimes through word of GodThank you for publishing the May 19 article about Will Craig, a minister who raised money to lease billboard space in high-crime spots in Baltimore. The billboards read, "Thou Shalt Not Kill, Exodus 20: 13" and included a challenge, "Look it up."Interest has grown, thanks to the good write-up your paper provided.The city has tried so many ways to stop the senseless killing. Isn't it time to try the word of God?Sharon MagerPasadenaGilman not about student hairstylesWhat a glorious day for the Gilman School community, especially the 1997 graduates.

White Reflections on Malcolm XI'm not at all surprised to find a major movie about Malcolm X and a broader interest in his life and ideas by the public.As a young Baltimorean in the 1950s, I can remember accidentally discovering and listening to several recorded radio transcriptions by Malcolm X -- which I likened to sermons.As a youngster, I often explored the complete spectrum of the local radio dial. This included Saturday and Sunday religious programming, which is when I heard some of the 15-minute Malcolm X segments sandwiched among a quilt work of evangelical tracts and fund raising appeals.

DENTON -- Perched on a bluff overlooking the Choptank River, this town of fewer than 3,000 residents seems quintessential rural America. Children and old folks gather for afternoon concerts on the courthouse green. Farmers sell sweet corn from their pickups. Neighbors swap gossip at the corner lunch counter.On the surface, life appears as peaceful as a box turtle walking through a flower patch.But there's an undercurrent of unrest, a snake in the garden that has upset the notion that little towns have only little problems.

Here is what Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is uncoincidentally black, has to say about race in America:"The time has come for honesty within the black community. A generation of well-meaning social scientists has made the notion of "the culture of poverty" taboo. . . . It's time to concede that, yes, there is a culture of poverty."How could there not be? How could you think that culture matters and deny its relations to economic success? In general, a household made up of a 16-year-old mother, a 32-year-old grandmother and a 48-year-old great-grandmother is not a site for hope and optimism.

Check the news, and there is progress. On the surface, there is always progress. Michael Jordan reportedly could become a 20 percent owner of the Washington Wizards, making him the largest African-American shareholder in an NBA franchise. Tampa Bay's Shaun King and Tennessee's Steve McNair could become the first pair of African- American quarterbacks to start a Super Bowl, and Tampa Bay's Tony Dungy could become the first African-American to coach in one. Progress. Undeniable progress.

Carroll County Sheriff Kenneth L. Tregoning pledged yesterday to work with the local chapter of the NAACP to "maintain a work environment free of adversity," after meeting with the group's president to discuss inappropriate racial remarks made by a correctional officer and the warden of the county detention center. "We're going to continue to do what we've done in the past, which is to provide training to all employees and to make sure that cultural diversity and sensitivity is part of our training," Tregoning said in a telephone interview.

WASHINGTON -- When six black Secret Service agents accused a Denny's restaurant in Annapolis of denying them service earlier this year, the lawyers representing them called the incident "a remarkably clear-cut" discrimination case.The six black agents sitting together at one table were ignored by the same waitress who promptly served groups of white agents at other tables with first and second helpings.When the black agents filed their lawsuit against the Denny's restaurant chain in May, they maintained that they were sitting together simply because they had worked together for several months.

The U.S. Justice Department has opened an investigation of alleged discrimination in Baltimore County's Fire Department amid complaints by black firefighters and the NAACP that their concerns have been ignored.County officials confirmed the inquiry this week, even as they acknowledged a lack of progress on race relations within the 1,100-member department, including former Chief Paul H. Reincke's telling a racially offensive joke to four white fire officials in late 1996.The joke -- which Reincke has admitted telling in his office -- was widely circulated and was seen by black firefighters and officers as symptomatic of racial attitudes they had complained about for years.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The doorbell rings at the home of Madam Gwen, but Eve, the black maid, refuses to answer it. This act of defiance spells trouble for plump and proper Madam, who idles away her day while her domestic servants do all the chores. Madam reluctantly pulls herself up from the sofa and opens the door. "I don't think I've ever seen you answer the door before," says the startled visitor, a neighbor. "I wouldn't let Eve have time off to see her Uncle Joe, so now she's getting back at me," says Madam.

'Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City,' by Antero Pietila (Ivan R. Dee, 320 pages, $28.95) Builder James W. Rouse is remembered as a visionary because of his shopping malls and new towns, like Columbia - promoted as free of racial discrimination. But Rouse had another, less egalitarian side, according to Antero Pietila, a former Baltimore Sun reporter and editorial writer. That side had shown itself a few years earlier in 1951 when, as vice president of the Northwood Co., Rouse looked the other way as blacks and Jews were excluded from the Northwood community.