Racism certainly exists, but there is no “white America” and there is no “black America.”

Although I usually agree with Derrick Z. Jackson’s piercing op-eds in the Boston Globe, I objected when he turned the police state in Ferguson, Missouri into an indictment against “white America” (“White America’s racial blinders,” Boston Globe, August 20, 2014.) Today the Globe published my response, reproduced below, with the Globe's title. It also publish another letter that I thought was particularly insightful, “How have we come to accept shoot-to-kill approach as normal?” by Paul Czerny (link).

For starters, let’s agree that there is no ‘white America’ or ‘black America’

WHILE I share Derrick Z. Jackson’s outrage about the shooting of black men by white police officers, I disagree with his accusation against “white America” (“White America’s racial blinders”). Referring to “white America” lumps all whites together into one stereotype.

He reports, for example, that 37 percent of white respondents agreed that the shooting in Ferguson, Mo., raises important issues about race, while 80 percent — and only 80 percent — of blacks agreed that this was so.

Those in the significant minority of that 37 percent should not be disregarded and treated as though they are the same as the remaining 63 percent.

Just as I do not want to be lumped together with all “African-Americans” as though we all think alike, I will not lump together all whites as though they all think alike. They clearly do not.

There is no “white America” and there is no “black America.”

But there is racism.

JOHN L. HODGE

Jamaica Plain