Editor:
This afternoon as I was walking in my Santa Monica neighborhood, happy as a lark, past John Adams Middle School, I heard a boy shout from a group of several other boys as they walked around a green field at their school, ‘We hate n——-s!’ The other boys laughed uproariously and I stopped in my tracks. I called the front office and reported what I heard, and an administrator said she’d send someone outside to investigate.
It was a sad day in the history of our city, and I can only hope that someday we will evolve to understand that we are all related - we are all brothers and sisters. It is not just an issue of ‘That is not okay’ or ‘That’s racist.’ It is that - no matter what our skin color - we are all one family.
I hope that one day those boys will understand the words of Odetta who once said, ‘The better we feel about ourselves, the fewer times we have to knock somebody else down to feel tall.’
Best regards,
Viola Picard, Santa Monica
