Letters

I have to agree: I’ve lived here “40 plus 30 years’ experience” — it’s a challenging time, and some people unfortunately seem to forget who was really here first, the welcoming Shinnecock Nation.

And as a local born and raised here, it gives me an interesting thought: How many are experiencing how it feels to be overlooked? Having to cross the street and dare not look in the eyes of the more privileged ones. It’s definitely not a good feeling to feel “less than” a human being, and sold like a farm cow, and being forced to enter into the back of a restaurant, if at all, while blatantly seeing “Whites Only” signs; having to keep walking past cool water fountains on a hot, scorching day, never able to quench your thirst. Or pushed and demanded, ordered and threatened, to sit at the back of the bus. Just not a good feeling.

Hoping that one day you might find a son that was taken away from you at 5 years old and sold to a farmer for $25 to work on the farm, and lent out to other farmers. Not a good feeling at all for that “motherless” baby boy.

Devastating, being forced to stand by a tree with your frightened kids, seeing your husband (their father) hanged or burned in front of them, while others are all dressed up in their Sunday best, like it’s an after-church service family traditional picnic.

And now some ponder that it seems like a familiar bad feeling, like we’ve been here before.

We shall overcome.

Brenda Simmons

Southampton Village