Jonah Goldberg’s “Defenders, opponents of critical race theory prone to exaggeration” (July 9, TribLIVE) is probably one of his better columns, but I don’t agree that there is equal exaggeration. However, it is useful in understanding our current racial climate.
It is axiomatic and understandable that a proportion of Black people are vindictive and seek retribution over slavery and Jim Crow. Benjamin Franklin and the Philadelphia Quaker abolitionists recognized that abolition presented serious challenges when Franklin wrote “that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.” He further emphasized this in writing that “excess of power in the rulers ” may be less of a danger than the “defect of obedience in the subjects.”
Franklin and his group devised what was essentially a plan of action to integrate slaves as citizens through education and other means. It is apparent that we have not performed with solicitous care and forthrightness, thus causing resentment, distrust and vilification of each other.
In my opinion, we must de-politicize our resolutions and rhetoric where both sides can accept them as virtuous efforts. Otherwise, this republic has no chance of surviving as provided in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Louis F. D’Emilio
Penn Township, Westmoreland County