Editor: I can’t speak ….

Editor:

I can’t speak to Pamela Mc-Dougal’s letter (Aug. 6) that “I have endured more racism in Leisure World than throughout my 67 years,” as she failed to cite dates and incidences of her complaints as she suggested we all do in her last paragraph. I hope there is not systemic racism where we live, rather that she indulged in hyperbole born of her undstandable frustration at any such behavior. The incident she did cite might even been a matter of misrepresentation; those “20-plus white residents” might merely have looked up in curiosity at any group entering the pool area and perhaps the lady who “jumped out of the pool to retrieve her purse” might coincidentally have decided it was time for her to leave. Not everything that happens in her presence is racism, though I do not mean to minimize her “daily hurdles,” as I do not walk in her shoes.

I’m a white woman of 79 years who’s been told nearly all her life “but you don’t look Jewish.” The 24 percent of by DNA, which according to Ancestry.com identifies my ancestry as eastern European Jew, would have been more than enough to condemn me in the camps of Nazi Germany. One doesn’t have to look very far to know there is rampant prejudice against Jews.

Before this horrible pandemic hit, I saw a billboard that said, “Everyone is dealing with something.” How very true, I thought then, though little did I know.

Shirley A. Herron Mutual 1