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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991                   TAG: 9103130440
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DEROGATORY NAMES/ AFTER RALEIGH, ROANOKE WAS

I AM A white middle-class citizen. Four years ago I moved to the Roanoke Valley with my husband and two young sons. We came from Raleigh, where busing has been a way of life since 1971.

We could tell a difference in racism from Day 1. The biggest shock to me was to hear almost everyone still calling blacks "colored." I hadn't heard this word in years! I hear the "n" word more in Roanoke too.

The attitudes, the comments, the jokes - all racist.

I'm sorry to let you down, fellow whites, but no race is superior over another. And I do want to see the black population spread out evenly in our county schools.

I am ashamed to see so few blacks at Mountain View Elementary, where my son attends kindergarten. There is only one black in his class of 18. How can I be assured he won't become a racist when he sees blacks as such a minority?

I hope his home training and our Christian life will overpower the peer pressure that teaches prejudice. We are members of Shenandoah Baptist Church. Our church welcomes all believers in Christ. God loves us all: "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight."

If you call your child stupid or dumb, how do you think he or she is going to act (or appear to act)? Well, if you call your fellow man derogatory names, how do you think he's going to act, or appear to you? LIBBIE McCUTCHEON ROANOKE

by CNB