Letters: KC readers discuss obeying police, year-round school and Vietnam veterans
Don’t get shot
Here are some simple rules to follow to avoid being shot by the police:
▪ Don’t resist arrest.
▪ Don’t run from the police.
▪ Don’t try to run over a police officer with your car.
▪ Don’t point a gun at a police officer.
Following these rules will likely reduce the number of police shootings.
- Peter W. Connors, Lee’s Summit
School reality
Nice commentary from Ann McFeatters on the need for year-round school. (May 26, 7A, “It’s now time for year-round education in the United States”) She was spot-on about our current waste of time with three months off for students. No other country among the 34 in which I have visited schools gives students anywhere near that much time off.
About 1% of Americans live on farms. Do we still need three months off school for the 99% of kids who don’t need to work on farms? Those kids wouldn’t know a wheat field if you threw them in one. How unnecessary.
Maybe we should institute a system of 50-day quarters with two weeks off between. That would add about 20 days to a school year and still allow a nice summer break. Of course, it would require new thinking from school boards and substantive pay raises for teachers.
Don’t think we need to make changes in how we educate our kids today? Well, look at the unbelievably low test scores of most high school students in our cities. Many kids in third-world countries do better in school than we do in the United States.
- Jim Peters, Basehor, Kansas
A window
I served in the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. For all the people who wonder why Vietnam veterans have some issues, the coronavirus pandemic might help you understand.
For the 90 days or so we’ve been dealing with this virus, we haven’t been sure who around us is safe and who isn’t. Try living like this for a year, uncertain who is friend and who is foe.
Be truthful: Do you think you might have some problems, too?
- James F. Stauch, Kansas City, Kansas
It’s his say
The author of a Wednesday letter to the editor (10A) suggested a different opinion that he thought KU professor emeritus Burdett Loomis should espouse, rather than what Loomis wrote about in his Star guest commentary on Monday, “All-night GOP power grab was Kansas Legislature’s darkest day.” (7A)
College professors, retired or otherwise, are entitled to voice their opinions, just like everyone else. The First Amendment hasn’t been repealed.
- Andrea DeHart, Olathe
Poor role modeling
On Saturday, Fox News showed a video report about cattlemen in Bolivar, Missouri, honoring school employees by serving them a meal. This was one of the best examples of what not to do regarding social distancing and protecting each other with facial covers, because nobody I saw was using personal protective equipment.
School employees interact with our children. How many of these people serving them are asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus? How many more cases will be generated because of this blatant disregard of safety and common sense?
These folks should think twice about their actions and the example they are showing our children. Things are not back to normal, people. The virus is still out there.
- Mark Gaskill, Bolivar, Missouri
Our responsibility
I am profoundly ashamed to be white in this horrifying time of growing public displays of white supremacy and senseless, cruel police killings.
Yes, I am a recovering racist — a term I use because no matter how much I want to be rid of racism, some bit lurks in me like a cancer, just as it dwells deeply and destructively in our society. I continually seek treatment — praying, learning, confessing, seeking change in whatever ways possible.
This letter comes with awareness that I may seem to want to be seen as a “good white person.” But every one of us who is white, no matter what economic or social or political class, has benefited from the hateful history of slavery and its continuing effects.
What to do? It is tempting to feel powerless. But I beg us all to speak up, stand up and work toward a new way of life in our country. It has taken too long already and may take longer. But if we — especially those of white privilege — don’t persist, this cancer will continue to kill and divide us.
In God’s name, may we live and act for a new way.
- Jane Fisler Hoffman, Raymore