Oklahoma Gazette provides an open forum for the discussion of all points of view in its Letters to the Editor section. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Letters can be mailed, faxed, emailed to [email protected] or sent online at okgazette.com. Include a city of residence and contact number for verification.

Be accountable

The recent controversy surrounding the OU SAE fraternity and the racist remarks of its members is not the fault of those few individuals.

It is the fault as society as a whole. We, as a society, must make any form of racist word or act, regardless of the context, unacceptable.

I am the mother of three children, all of whom are of biracial ethnicity, so I can see both sides of the “race card” argument. I dare a child in my home to even think of making a racist comment regarding the race they are, or any other race for that matter.

However, if society ever expects to make a real change in the way race is viewed, the first step is to end racism in ourselves. Just because you may be a person of a non-Anglo-Saxon decent doesn’t give you the right to use racist slang just the same as these men at OU did. What they said on that bus was wrong. What was heard after the OU basketball game was wrong also.

Be accountable for the things you say and do. Enough is enough!

— Jessica Smith Oklahoma City

Government problem

Former President Ronald Reagan once said, “The government is the problem.” I’m not sure that was true then, but it’s certainly true now. For starters, Oklahoma’s two Republican U.S. Senators (Jim Inhofe and James Lankford) as part of a total of 47 Republican senators, were called traitors in the March 10 issue of the New York Daily News. The newspaper said that these 47 senators signed an open letter to the leaders of Iran. I believe the letter was intended to sabotage President Obama’s efforts to negotiate a settlement to keep Iran from becoming capable of and intending to produce nuclear weapons.

President Obama, our commander-in-chief, is the one to negotiate with foreign countries. Unbelievably, these arrogant, ignorant senators undermined President Obama. They also made former President Ronald Reagan sound prophetic when he said, “The government is the problem.”

— Wanda Jo Stapleton Former State Representative Oklahoma City

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