Letters

Carlos Sandoval, I was offended by your column “Mirror, Mirror” [Vistas, Opinion, July 8]. Your celebration of the debate about “Critical Race Theory” and its forced introduction in our secondary schools and academic institutions as a way to confront Americans with the darker episodes of our history is deeply cynical and misguided.

Americans who love their country and its history are not afraid of learning that we have struggled through difficult periods in our existence that defied our better angels and exposed our human failures to each other. This current obsession with our racial history is not designed to elevate us. It is an argument that falsely suggests that America’s greatness is a zero-sum game: Blacks lose so whites can gain.

Your obsession, and others that embrace your philosophy, are blind to the progress that is born out of the unique origins of these United States.

You and others seek acknowledgment of the injustice of the past. Some even demand reparations to compensate them for their suffering. My response to those intoxicated by their sense of victimization is to stop looking backward.

Mr. Sandoval mocks us as a “gutless nation,” unable to stomach the reality that we are not as perfect as he thinks we see ourselves. You, Mr. Sandoval, with your law degree and filmmaking accolades, are not wasting your life languishing in the excuses that victimization affords you. No, you enjoy the privilege of pontificating in the column our local newspaper makes available to you.

America is the best place in this world to live and plan your success in.

Those devoted to their status as victims of an oppression are addicted to finding just cause to continue their suffering. Yet, all around them, freedom exists and success occurs. This history of progress is written every day by people everywhere who had nothing but the guts to succeed at all costs.

The idea of America is not a guarantee. It is an opportunity. For the record, our founders believed in the “equality” of men, that no man was born to rule over another. Yes, it took a great Civil War to deliver that promise, but strive we did to make it so. Yes, there were missteps, and, yes, there were abject failures in delivering that premise; yet forward we move toward our best version yet.

CRT does not take us forward. It gives legitimacy to those who hate America and would undermine the world’s only example created to give man his opportunity to live free from the yoke of tyranny.

Americans are the bravest, most generous people of every generation. Our children deserve to know this — not that we are perfect, but the closest anyone has come yet.

Ed Surgan

Westhampton Beach