You don’t get to rewrite history
Flushing: The statues are part of the past. Let them stand. Most people don’t look at them anyway. As for the future, when a statue or memorial is nominated, take five years searching the background before anything is erected. After all, there’s a little bit of sadness in everyone, so sooner or later, we will have no more statues. Right now the protesters should forget about removing the statues — and should put their time and energy into rebuilding Houston. Evelyn Zorovich Oakridge, N.J.: Taking down all these statues is a joke! Like there’s not important work for the government to do. Kevin Murray Valley Stream, L.I.: The liberal Democrats who want to take down all these monuments of our ancestors are twisted. This country was built on blood and death to form a free society — to be governed by the people, for the people. You don’t try to hide the past, but should learn from previous generations’ mistakes. You can if you wish call our Founding Fathers traitors; the British were trying to expand their influence to the Americas, and, once colonized, our forefathers rebelled against the crown of England. Slavery was part of everyday life back then; so was conflict and war. Does that make it right? Of course not, but it is our history. George Koshefsky
Let her speak
Staten Island: I never heard of Jemele Hill since I am not a sports person. But it seems to me that if she was sending out a tweet or verbalizing a thought on her own and did not name ESPN anywhere in her tweet. Then isn’t she acting as a private citizen? The mere fact that she works for ESPN doesn’t preclude her from having an opinion about the President, and it isn’t like she said she wanted him harmed in any way. She is a citizen of the United States, and the last I heard, we still have free speech. Marsha Korot
Art imitates life imitates art
Brooklyn: Is it my imagination or are Bill Bramhall’s depictions of President Trump getting more and more bizarre? He draws him with flat, thinning hair, wild, bushy eyebrows, tiny nose and mouth, buck teeth, flabby jowls, a bigger gut and teeny, tiny hands. Bramhall is right; Donald Trump truly is an ugly American. Keep up the good work. Linda Goldstein
Leave Mexicans alone
Bronx: This letter is for President Trump, an ugly American. It looks like he doesn’t want to make America great again. He wants to make America all white again. Another thing: He can’t kick all the Mexicans out of the U.S. because a lot of Mexicans were born in California, Texas, Arizona and other states. Also, a lot of Mexicans fought at the Alamo, led by Sam Houston, to make Texas a state in the Union. How about deporting all the illegal Russians instead?
Doris Festante
Booing the booth
Brentwood, L.I.: Voicer Susan Watson’s letter on the great Yankee announcers of the past finally got me worked up enough to write. I wish the Yankees would never hit another home run, because I cringe at the punny descriptions of them that come afterward. If these announcers had been there in 1961, Roger Maris would have been too embarrassed to come out on the field. And what’s with this “15th out of the game” stuff? And not just the Yanks but ESPN inviting special guests into the booth and skipping the play-by-play entirely to talk about Aunt Sadie’s new hairdo? Charles D. Brown
We’re Americans first
New Hyde Park, L.I.: It is with dismay that I am writing to let you know how disappointed I am in the Daily News. You are unfairly criticizing this legally elected President. I have been reading The News since 1978 and have never seen this level of unfair coverage. Rajpaul Jailall
It’s history
Brooklyn: To Voicer Ellen Isaacs: The Palestinian refugee problem was precipitated by the Arab-initiated civil war against the Jews in December 1947. It was accelerated by the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War, which was started by the Arabs. Israel absorbed 850,000 Jewish refugees forced out of Arab countries. The larger and underpopulated Arab countries refused to accept the smaller number of Palestinian refugees, cruelly confining them and their descendants to refugee camps.
Lawrence Freedland
Wrong target
Floral Park, L.I.: Voicer Marie Delus said concealed-carry reciprocity will threaten public safety. Like her, I lost a relative to a maniac with an illegal firearm — yet I am all for CCR. It would not increase the number of illegal guns by any means. It simply makes it possible for people who are legally licensed to carry a concealed firearm in other states to carry them into New York for their protection. I myself have a pistol license and find it very unfair and unnerving to have to leave my firearm home when visiting New York City.
Salvatore Mazza
A modest proposal
Rochester: I am totally baffled by something. For years I have been asking many of my fellow liberal and progressive Democratic kindred spirits a question without receiving any response at all most of the time. It is this: Why don’t you support the passage of a national wealth tax on multi-millionaires and billionaires of, say, $30 million net worth and over? Other countries do it. The unequal distribution of wealth in the United States is a much bigger problem than the unequal distribution of income. But I cannot find more than a handful of Democrats who agree with me. Why are we okay with taxing income but not okay with taxing wealth? At least income is earned by the individual; 80% of wealth is not earned, it is inherited.
Stewart Epstein
Birth of a slur
Lansdowne, Pa.: Why does the Daily News continue to publish letters calling birthers “racist”? Birthers are about fraud, not race. Voicer Ed Temple complained of “birther accusations that persisted throughout Obama’s presidency.” They will persist until Obama gets his college admission records and passport records out from under lock. Georgia Makiver
Antifa vs. America
Manhattan: Voicer Rodney Rigoli defends antifa with lies. Their actions speak louder than dribble. With covered faces, these cowards seek to prevent opposing viewpoints using radical and militant tactics. They are losers probably on welfare or in crappy jobs with no futures other than disruption. They cannot amass any wealth themselves because they lack skills. So they band up to become street hoodlums opposing the Trump agenda. As someone who worked and went to college evenings, I now am a contributor to this country, not a low-life who refuses to strive for a measure of dignity and morality.
Angela Torres
Black, white and wrong
East Syracuse, N.Y.: Voicer John McCarthy should get his facts straight. He calls Colin Kaepernick and Barack Obama black men. If he spent any time in school, he would know that their ethnic background is mixed-race — not white, not black. It is definitely wrong to call them black men. Lorraine Regan
Red in the face
Brooklyn: Re: Harry Siegel’s column on the Red Cross (“A black eye for the Red Cross,” Sept. 2): My husband told me when he was in Korea, the Red Cross charged the soldiers for cigarettes. Mary O’Hara
Bad company
Brooklyn: I am appalled when I read the Voice of the People — both by the hatred that is expressed of different opinions and by the lack of knowledge contained in many letters. Americans are supposed to differ without calling each other names.
Alan Podhaizer
Bike lanes work
Brooklyn: To Voicer James League: Bike lanes have been installed in neighborhoods all over the city because thousands of New Yorkers — taxpayers like you — depend on their bicycles to get them to their jobs every day, and for doing important errands. I work in Midtown Manhattan on Broadway near Times Square, and I was initially surprised by how many people ride their bikes to work on Broadway’s bike lane each morning. Before the bike lanes, they had to ride in traffic to get to work. Maybe if there had been a bike lane in the Brooklyn neighborhood where that man was killed earlier this year, he would have made it home safely.
Cheryl Rosenthal
Elmer Gantry incarnate
AP Bronx: What’s the difference between Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar? Nothing comes to mind. Billy Graham must be turning over in his grave.
Michael Hanahoe