Upset over Crenshaw tweet
Who are ‘real Americans’?
Regarding “Inauguration Day,” (A8, Jan. 21): I just read Dan Crenshaw’s inauguration quote: “On day 1, Biden is making clear that the era of prioritizing regular Americans is over.” I would like to know who he considers a regular American. Is he referring to Americans who look like him? Is he referring to the status quo? When you separate Americans into regular and not regular and prioritize some, it shows your bias and sows division. So sad.
Robert Lange, Houston
Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s criticism that President Joe Biden is ending the prioritizing of “regular Americans” presumes the existence of other “irregular Americans.” I reject those categorizations. Each of us is an individual, but we are all Americans. When a pandemic has killed over 400,000 of us in one year and millions struggle for food, safe housing and jobs, what higher priorities are there than emergency financial aid and a program to vaccinate everyone who is willing? Save lives, get us all back to work.
Carolyn Truesdell, Houston
Dan Crenshaw’s tweet that “the era of prioritizing regular Americans is over” is the most offensive, racist, homophobic, xenophobic statement I can imagine coming from an elected official. “Regular Americans” are not just privileged white guys. They are white, Black, Latino, Asian, Native American and mixed race. They are straight or gay. They are Christians. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, many other denominations or none at all. Their ancestors may have come on the Mayflower or on slave ships or or they may be newly arrived seeking a better life. It took less than a full day for Crenshaw to sabotage President Joe Biden’s message of unity and return to the divisive politics of the Trump era.
Marc Freedman, Houston
Who does Crenshaw think regular Americans are? Are the millions of Americans who will benefit from newly organized COVID-19 relief by the new administration not “regular Americans”? How about Americans who will be more secure after President Joe Biden repairs relationships, fractured by our outgoing president, with foreign allies — are we not “regular
Americans”? Or Americans of color whose children are sick from unregulated pollution, low-income Americans with lives in increased jeopardy from canceled and unenforced environmental safeguards and unlivable minimum wages? It seems that Crenshaw only considers the employees of fossil fuel industries to be “regular Americans.” Yes, fossil fuel industries may lose some jobs and profits, a time-limited transition to new jobs, if Congress and Biden negotiate an agreeable path forward with a new national agenda. Let’s give the new administration a chance.
Mary E. Schultz, Houston
Correction: An op-ed published Jan. 22 incorrectly stated that the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals has not had a Hispanic judge since 2018. Judge Michelle Slaughter was elected in 2018 and is currently the court’s sole Hispanic judge.