
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991                   TAG: 9103130435
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

WHITE PRIDE NOT RACIST/ LET ALL RACES AND ETHNIC GROUPS BE PROUD OF HISTORY

I THINK the reason racism exists in the 1990s lies in overemphasis on the accomplishments of one race to the exclusion of other races or ethnic groups. The racism we think we are experiencing is really defensive resentment by excluded races/ethnics.

I was in Salem Feb. 9 for the Black History Month parade. While I enjoyed the parade and its meaning for the most part, I was saddened that blacks are the only ones allowed to aggressively proclaim their pride, and that white pride is condemned as racist, as a remnant of slavery.

White history in America is not exclusively about slavery or the Ku Klux Klan, and not all blacks were slaves or descendants of slaves. A majority of whites opposed slavery, and a majority of whites supported the civil rights movement in the 1960s. I am proud of those facts.

As a white mother of three white children, I believe our history in this country gives us as much to be proud of as any other race or ethnic group. I believe a true racial balance will be achieved only when all the races are allowed to share the pride of their heritage and the pride of their accomplishments, simultaneously, without relying on the shortcomings (real or imagined) of one race to make another race feel superior.

As Dr. Martin Luther King was fond of saying: "As long as one person remains a slave, we all remain slaves." DEBORAH K. WATKINS SALEM

by CNB