I have never written a letter to the editor before now. Being a former member of the American Civil Liberties Union, I am of the opinion that all ideas have a right, in a free society, to be heard.

Having said that, I also think it appropriate that in hearing these ideas, they should also be challenged if they are off base or morally bankrupt. That is the essence of the market place of ideas envisioned by our founders in creating the freedom of speech.

Mr. Keith Pounds recently had published what he termed a response to the opinions of Mr. Eugene Robinson, a columnist with The Washington Post, on the issue of race in the presidential election. Mr. Pounds postulated that African-Americans and Sen. Barack Obama had injected race into the campaign because African-Americans had voted overwhelmingly for Obama in the Democratic primary.

Mr. Pounds further stated that a 90 percent vote for one candidate over another can only call to mind vote totals for three despots, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Kim Jong-Il of North Korea and Fidel Castro of Cuba.

Mr. Pounds then goes on to cite half- truths and untruths to support his thesis that it is Obama and African-Americans who have injected race into the campaign.

Mr. Pounds conveniently ignores the reality that we, as Americans, face. Note, I do not delineate Americans by race. I never have and personally find it not relevant because whether we succeed or fail, we all share the result. Additionally, if 9-11 taught us anything, it should have taught us that our enemies do not care if we are claiming credit for something in which we had no hand; i.e., the color of our skin.

Our skin color, like our names, for most of us was in the one instance selected by God and in the other selected by our parents. Therefore, unless we change our skin color, like Michael Jackson, or change our name, like Prince, we can accept no credit for God’s determination of whom he created or blame our parents for what they thought was important in the name they gave us.

Mr. Pounds theorizes that African-American support for Mr. Obama must be racial. There can be no other explanation. Certainly that support cannot be because the dollar has been devalued and is now heading toward the value of the Mexican peso. Certainly, it cannot be because of the devaluation of the dollar that gas prices have skyrocketed because internationally it takes more dollars for the suppliers to achieve their profit margins.

Certainly, it cannot be because the regulations placed on the banking industry during the Great Depression were removed and now we are faced with a mortgage crisis and bank failures. No, none of those wonderful accomplishments could possibly influence anyone’s choice between the presidential candidates. Instead we are told we must concern ourselves with Mr. Obama’s race, his name (did he select it?), his former pastor, whether he put his hand over his heart in Iowa when someone sang “America the Beautiful” (Mr. Pounds certainly knows that was being sung, not the National Anthem as he suggests), and finally his wife, who made an off-the-cuff comment about being proud of her country that now entitles Mr. Pounds to suggest she needs handlers and finishing school.

I found the last particularly galling because Mr. Pounds’ attack upon Mrs. Obama was so vile that my dead mother, who smiled at everyone she met, would have been offended by his assault on the mother of two children. Unlike Mr. Pounds, Mrs. Obama is like the rest of the human race: We don’t always find the exact words at the exact moment we intend. We say only a part of what we are thinking or we say a part of the incomplete thought or we thought we said something only to have our listeners tell us we said something totally different. There is no more humbling an experience than the receipt of a transcript of our words. That beautiful point you thought you made comes back in the transcript as barely intelligible.

But of course in Mr. Pounds’ world, he is always perfect, he always says exactly what he means and there is never a reason to reflect or amend any comment or writing.

No, Mr. Pounds, we of the human race are not perfect. We do the best we can and sometimes our best falls short. But to suggest that any people are incapable of analytical thought and to act on their view of the world is selling us all short. I do not have to demonize anyone. I merely have to look at where we are and know that we as a country cannot continue down this path. It is time for a change.

— Lawrence Keitt, Orangeburg

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