DEAR EDITOR:

Racism and bigotry in America are not going away any time soon unless we stop “pasting” it all over the airways all day, every day.

This is not to say that those who unlawfully discriminate should not be held accountable in a court of law, because they certainly should be. What I am saying is this, and think about it in your own life — when you have been unfairly treated by someone and you keep replaying that incident over and over in your mind, it never stops bothering you? It only serves to increase the bitterness that is eating you up. It is like a festering wound that won’t heal. That is what the mainstream media is doing to us. Their motives are good, but the results are tearing the country further and further apart.

I believe there is actually reverse discrimination going on now where the media and the federal government are trying to make up for past “sins,” and there were many of them, by giving people of color and gender an unfair advantage in many different areas of our society. Again, this sounds like it might be a good thing to do on the surface, but it only works to create more dissension between the races and genders. People aren’t blind or stupid. They can see what is going on in America and it’s not helping us. It’s only making things worse. It is fostering resentment and hatred between the different segments of our society.

Here is what we need to do, and it is very simple and very common sense. Treat everyone the same all day, every day, with no discrimination of any kind either on behalf of or against any particular group of people. Let there be no unmerited advantage or favoritism for anyone. See affirmative action as a necessary, but now antiquated policy that served its purpose in the past but is no longer helpful. Stop seeing the difference of color and gender and start seeing only human beings created by God to love and serve each other.

As Jesus said in Luke 6:31, “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” No human being enjoys being discriminated against, even if it is intended to be for a good cause.

If we will do this, I believe the chasm that now lies between the many different segments of American society will begin to shrink, and we will eventually become the brothers and sisters of that “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” that the Founding Fathers could only dream of in 1776.

KEITH McCOMBS

Mineral Ridg