Tom Ault
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
It never dawned on me how ill-informed most of us were in our childhood years. We attended schools that taught partial history. We attended churches that welcomed different races but rarely saw anyone of color there - that welcomed all religions but infrequently saw a Catholic, Jewish, Asian or a Muslim person there. Being innocent and trusting, there was no reason for the wisdom of our leaders. Were they wrong? Were they oblivious of reaching out?
In my grade school of those times, there were some Mexican kids and few Blacks who attended. It was the poorer part of town, where we just saw kids just like us, that color was blind. We played together, did sports together, served on the School Patrol together; basically, we were all one unit, not racially or culturally divided. We must have learned segregation, but from whom?
Had we been able to continue being racially blind and without nationality prejudice, believing as we did as children, this country and this world, would be better by far. We become too influenced by the news, the poor religious teaching of the past, and the schools that only teach partial history? Education is key to understanding, but teaching it truthfully makes a difference in our moral foundation. We should never have looked at race, nationality or religion, but rather realized that we have had, and do have, many brilliant people of all of those identities who made, and continue to make, this country great. Those people should never be defined by any description other than United States builders that continue to make us strong.
The continuous barrage of yesterday's mistakes, of today's sins, and the hatred being festered everywhere we look is tearing us apart! We cannot buy the trust that has been lost. We cannot rectify the past, but we can move forward as a country of love and ingenuity rather than hatred. Dependence on other countries was not our nation's founder's dreams. Let's make America proud once again.
We can do that if we stop tearing down our history and start building a better foundation for our future citizens to be not only a part of but also to be proud of. We cannot allow other nations that are jealous of our country's prosperity to infiltrate our minds and cause actions against each other to persist. We are better than that!