Editor:
I applaud the news that the Colorado attorney general has joined eight other state attorneys general in a letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission protesting a new guideline that prohibits using criminal background checks to reject job applicants. The rational for this new rule is that by using the criminal background check, such checks can discriminate against African-Americans because they being are arrested at a disproportionate rate compared to the rest of the U.S. population. Really.
So, given that if you commit a crime, get caught, and then are convicted in a court of law, how does race have anything to do with that? Are we to assume that if a child is born black, then we should simply excuse any criminal behavior simply because the child is black? Law enforcement officers arrest and convict perpetrators of crimes regardless of their skin color, national origin, religion, and, etc. The claim by some that blacks are arrested more frequently simply because they are black is both illogical and offensive.
The problem, which people like Eric Holder and Al Sharpton refuse to address, is that black families are too often comprised of a single mom with no source of support outside of government and the father is absent. The present stat is that 75 percent of all black babies are born out of wedlock. This is not solely a black problem. This is an American problem and we should all care about fixing it. The loss of a single person to the prison system is a huge loss to all of us. We should quit creating phony “civil rights” violations, and all work together to save these kids so that we can realize their divine potential in our society.
Charles Thompson
Lewis