Is her message "Let blacks have whatever they want because they are too lazy to work to achieve it"? Well, I'm sorry, this white girl is not buying it.
KATHLEEN CURRAN
Philadelphia
*
Alma McDaniel (letter, "Whites have it all," April 19):
All whites do not feel as though blacks are always looking for a handout. Only uneducated people, both black and white, scream for freebies. The rest of us are too busy working for a living!
McDaniel tries to make a case for racial parity of wealth by mentioning that various sectors of business are mostly white-owned. What percent of the total population is white? She doesn't mention high school dropout rates or crime statistics - or could it be that some people find it easier to just give up? There are black role models in nearly every aspect of society, not just entertainment and sports - one just has to open their eyes to see them!
Sour grapes, bitching and complaining and blatant demands will never generate the respect that education, ambition and hard work ethics bring. McDaniel seems to feel she's owed something - a typical knee-jerk reaction to her frustrations!
JOSEPH M. SANFORD
Willingboro, N.J.
Alma McDaniel: No one owns airports; the city does. No one owns a bus terminal or a train station; companies and cities do. Large department stores are also corporations; anyone can own them if they have the schooling or just plain smarts. If enough blacks get together, they could own one.
There may be white owners of sports teams, but blacks play - 99 percent of basketball players are black, baseball is almost all blacks and so is football.
White and black work alongside each other in factories, utility companies and newspapers. There are more black cops than white cops, and also firemen. There are black governors, senators and politicians, lawyers and judges also.
There are also more blacks in jails than whites.
PAT DUNLAP
Chester
BEST-QUALIFIED COPS?
Re Dave Brown's letter (April 13), "White males bypassed:"
I am a Philadelphia police applicant with a test score of 96. Last year I was contacted for my interview, and that was the last time I heard anything. I decided to call police personnel last month to find out the status of my ranking. An officer told me, "If you are a black male you should be called soon." I told him I was a white male, and he said, "I don't think they will call you this year." When I asked him for his name and badge number, he hung up.
Mayor Rendell says the city plans to hire a minimum of 250 police officers this year. I sincerely don't want to believe that Dave Brown was correct when he wrote that white males are bypassed, but what else can I believe? I can only hope that Mayor Rendell hires competent personnel interested in helping the city.
A person should be hired for his qualifications, not his color. If a minority doesn't get a job, it's called discrimination. What do you call it if a white man doesn't?
ALESSANDRO CRICELLI
Dave, blacks and minorities have been overlooked, kicked, stepped on and bypassed for employment for years at the hands of whites. If we both applied for the same job in this city and my credentials are better, nine times out of 10, they will hire you. Why? Look in the mirror.
So stop crying. It is only right that the so-called City of Brotherly Love tries to right the wrong it has been guilty of for years.
Just because you score high on an exam doesn't make you better than the next person. The 95 you scored would not make you a better police officer. Police work is a lot more than just scoring well on an exam.
As for citizens protected by an inferior Police Department, I'd rather have blacks working for the Police Department in black communities than white officers too scared to even go into most black neighborhoods.
By the way, I scored a 97 on that same police exam, so by your standards, I must be smarter and better than you, so stop griping and wait your turn.
ANTHONY ELLIS
EAGLES SENT JUST A PHOTO
The recent deaths of two Philadelphia firefighters precipitated a raft of generous donations for the bereaved families. All the sports teams in Philadelphia were contacted and asked to donate some sports items to be auctioned off to raise money for the two firefighters' families.
The Flyers, Phillies and 76ers came through with many items to be auctioned off. The Eagles sent a team photograph only.
Jeffrey Lurie: Check your inventory when you take over the Eagles. Norman Braman may be selling equipment to the French.
(Lt.) JOHN VACCARELLI
NOT ALL JEWS ARE PACIFISTS
Tony Fusco, who opposes gun control, joins Farrakhan in blaming his problem on "The Jews."
Calypso Louie blames the Jews for slavery, in the teeth of the reality that when slavery was flourishing under the European powers, European royalty, in order to steal the modest property of the Jews, threw them out of nearly all of Europe, using religion as the excuse for grand larceny. So Farrakhan blames ''the Jews," although they were fleeing for their lives at the time, instead of the Spanish, British, Portuguese and French, who profited from the slavery.
Now Tony Fusco, with admittedly less venality, claims falsely that "the Jews" are "in the forefront" of gun control legislation "to disarm Jews and other Americans." He would have some difficulty explaining how Jim and Sarah Brady represent the "Jews" through their gun control bill, or the Kennedy family, or Gov. Casey, or President Clinton, or Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, or Fraternal Order of Police President Dewey Stokes.
Tony implies nearly all Jews are leftists, ignoring that many conservatives, like the undersigned writer, recognize the Brady Bill will have little net effect on street crime.
If Tony thinks all Jews are leftists and pacifists, he should talk to Yitzhak Shamir and the British imperialists he once hunted. By contrast, the Arabs claim the Israeli Jews are "too militant" and too ready to use guns.
JERRY BORIS
COPS AREN'T BEING SHORTED ON VEHICLES, MAYOR SAYS
Several letter writers have criticized the city for allowing City Council to have new cars but not doing the same for police.
That is simply not true.
In this fiscal year, 107 new marked police cars have been purchased at an
average cost of $19,000 each, for a total cost of over $2 million. Additionally, we are procuring in the next few weeks 10 emergency patrol wagons and nine unmarked sedans for a total cost of over $800,000. In fiscal year 1995, which begins July 1, we plan to purchase even more marked police cars and wagons.
A 1993 survey by Stone & Weber Management Consultants for a national magazine found that the national average age for police cars is 3.0 years. With recent delivery of the new 107 marked police cars, the average age of our fleet will be 2.2 years, well below the national average. As for the City Council cars, their average age was over six years old, and the new cars purchased for them cost an average of $14,800, for a total purchase commitment of $238,000.
This administration is committed to giving our police force the best equipment and vehicles possible and providing the best maintenance for them as well.
EDWARD G. RENDELL, Mayor
FILM DISTORTED TRUE PICTURE OF AIDS
John Rose (letter April 21): Thanks for pointing out how inaccurate the movie "Philadelphia" is as it pertains to gay males, AIDS and our city.
As a Philadelphia AIDS activist, I was distressed that so much of the real history of activism and what's good in the management of the AIDS crisis here was virtually ignored and indeed distorted.
In mid-trial, Tom Hanks descends the steps of City Hall and is met by fanatics bearing placards saying: "G.A.Y. - Got AIDS Yet?" They then are met by radicals, a loose depiction of ACT-UP Philadelphia. No speeches are heard, and no truths revealed, just a blurred two-second melee - the typical sound- bite type coverage on the 6 o'clock News.
Hanks lands in Graduate Hospital. Being rich, white and insured, he has no trouble accessing health care. Where are the poor, the uninsured, the denied? Right there in the lobby. What of their suffering?
Life and AIDS are not as cut-and-dried as a court case in which one is wronged and later compensated. For all too many with HIV/AIDS, there is little compassion, therefore little justice, and I fear these issues were not addressed - creating the illusion that everything is OK and we live in a just society.
With the spin of fiction and the mainstream sugarcoating of "I did something about AIDS by seeing a movie," one can only produce cotton candy, all fluff and little substance.
RICHARD T. DESVERNINE JR.
THE GREEK PICNIC
Re Stu Bykofsky's comment about the fraternity picnic:
* It's not called the all-black Greek Picnic, just the Greek Picnic, which means those in fraternities across the country - black, green, white or purple - attend.
* There are whites, Hispanics and members of other races in these
fraternities, so although they may discriminate on how popular or how
physically attractive a person may be, race is not a factor.
You find more whites and other races in so-called black fraternities than you will find blacks in the white ones.
And by the way, what black colleges or high schools do you know of that have boating as an extra-curricular activity?
SHARON WATERS
STOP BLAMING OTHERS
Re the letters about race: Everyone is proud of their ancestry, but we don't need it shoved down our throats all the time. We are all Americans, plain and simple.
How can African-Americans blame everyone else for their problems? Stop whining and do something about it yourself and quit relying on others.
THOMAS P. MacCLAVE
