Sheila Plotkin

On Sep. 8, a letter to the editor bemoaned the negative publicity the police are getting. It doesn't mention that summary street executions of unarmed black citizens are a legitimate reason for negative publicity.

Another letter complains that "...cops are in the minority and should enjoy equal protection under the law." Given the dismal lack of consequences for the aforementioned summary street executions, I maintain that they enjoy more than equal protection. These executioners operate with apparent immunity from the “people’s laws”. The letter goes on to characterize Black Lives Matter as an "igniter" spreading a "disease". There is a disease, but Black Lives Matter is the potential cure, not the cause.

White supremacy is the disease. If we weren't afflicted by it, Black Lives Matter wouldn't be controversial. If we weren't crippled by it, those murdered, unarmed black citizens would have been "innocent until proven guilty", as the "people's laws" require.

White supremacy’s symptoms are legion: slavery, the KKK, lynching, Jim Crow, "segregation forever", "whites only", separate and unequal schools, redlining, over-incarceration, crippling unemployment, and "crimes of poverty". White supremacy breeds self-righteous murderers like the Charleston assassin. We must judge him "mentally ill" because we can't admit that we share his disease. But, we do.

White supremacy is our addiction. Until we admit it, we'll be unable to fight it. Black Lives Matter demands that we admit it. Our shared humanity demands that we fight it.