I appreciated Robert Azzi’s opinion piece, “It’s always about race” in Sunday’s (10/23) Concord Monitor. I had just returned from a nine-day workshop in Alabama on racial justice. In museums, on historical markers and especially in deep conversations with local leaders, our group saw the long and devastating history of cruelty and terror inflicted on people only because of the color of their skin. It is too easy to dismiss that history as the erroneous ways of other people in other times and other places.
Azzi’s piece reminds us that, even though the expressions may be different, cruelty and abuse of others are all around us, even in New Hampshire. The painful history shows that we must now put aside our comfortable privilege and stop the suffering from continued racism in all its ugly forms. Our communities are better for everyone when we welcome and treat all people with care and respect.
Becky Field
Concord