Ed, regarding L.A. Paker’s recent article. I am a white baby boomer who considers L.A. Parker to be the best columnist in the Trenton area. Some of his columns about personal and parental responsibility in the African-American community have been classic, right out of the Bill Cosby playbook. I agree with him that a sense of growing racism apparently presents a very real threat to our society. The problem is ignorance spawned by a deteriorating educational system that is far inferior to other first world nations, particularly European. I read recently that 46 percent of Americans believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. There is a growing lunatic fringe of right-wing extremists in this country. I fear daily that some Southern redneck with a deer rifle will actually consider he is doing his nation a service by eliminating this wonderful man who he considers to be an illegitimate socialist president. If this occurs the race riots of the ’60s will seem like a minor urban dust-up.

Watch Out

I contend that of those 46 percent who believe the Earth is younger than 10,000, only half feel that way based on religious teachings. That half I can respect. The other half of the 46 don’t know that Toronto is in Canada or that the Pacific is an ocean, and they probably had a 50/50 or chance of picking the “10,000 years” option on the multiple choice phone survey came up with that statistic. —Ed. Note