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The Marshfield Mariner
Marshfield, MA
Editorial -- Finding solutions
Wed Jul 09, 2008
Maybe Marshfield's efforts to stamp out hate in town could be better
served by working with a program other than the Anti-Defamation
League's No Place for Hate. Perhaps the ADL's stance on the Armenian
Genocide has compromised it so much that it is not credible as an
organization that fights racism.
That will be up to the selectmen to decide, and while withdrawal
from No Place for Hate might be the option they choose - and that
would certainly be a defensible position for them to take - any racial
problems that may exist in Marshfield will require solutions that have
nothing to do with what anyone calls the mass killings of Armenians by
the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1918.
It could be that the alleged racially motivated beating of an
African-American teenager from Jamaica Plain in Marshfield last month
was an isolated incident, and we obviously hope that it was, if
that was indeed what happened. But any steps the town takes going
forward will have to be about education and, as was written in this
space in the June 18 issue, getting people to realize that this is
the year 2008 and it's about time old attitudes on race get tossed
into the trash where they belong. (By the way, an acknowledgement of
an error in that editorial is due here, as the last two
U.S. secretaries of state have been black.)
If No Place for Hate is the best way to accomplish that objective,
that's what the town should do.
If it's not - either because of the Armenian Genocide issue or some
other reason - then the town should do something else.
And while we're at it, a little more education on the Armenian
Genocide wouldn't be a bad idea either.
The Marshfield Mariner
Marshfield, MA
Editorial -- Finding solutions
Wed Jul 09, 2008
Maybe Marshfield's efforts to stamp out hate in town could be better
served by working with a program other than the Anti-Defamation
League's No Place for Hate. Perhaps the ADL's stance on the Armenian
Genocide has compromised it so much that it is not credible as an
organization that fights racism.
That will be up to the selectmen to decide, and while withdrawal
from No Place for Hate might be the option they choose - and that
would certainly be a defensible position for them to take - any racial
problems that may exist in Marshfield will require solutions that have
nothing to do with what anyone calls the mass killings of Armenians by
the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1918.
It could be that the alleged racially motivated beating of an
African-American teenager from Jamaica Plain in Marshfield last month
was an isolated incident, and we obviously hope that it was, if
that was indeed what happened. But any steps the town takes going
forward will have to be about education and, as was written in this
space in the June 18 issue, getting people to realize that this is
the year 2008 and it's about time old attitudes on race get tossed
into the trash where they belong. (By the way, an acknowledgement of
an error in that editorial is due here, as the last two
U.S. secretaries of state have been black.)
If No Place for Hate is the best way to accomplish that objective,
that's what the town should do.
If it's not - either because of the Armenian Genocide issue or some
other reason - then the town should do something else.
And while we're at it, a little more education on the Armenian
Genocide wouldn't be a bad idea either.