Post-Dispatch column touches nerve in reader

e_9c64deeb-40ac-5a94-a07c-b40df441e5f1.html”>McClellan: Time for a crime czar?”

To the editor:

I was startled to read Bill McClellan’s column, “Crime Czar,” in which he declared that the solution to a perceived crime epidemic was to “declare martial law and suspend the Constitution” and to mandate “racial profiling,” “frisking … young black men” without cause. He also thought it a good idea to jail African-American women, bridging both racial and gender bigotry.

Did McClellan bump his head on his way to work, or was he kidnapped and brainwashed by a roving band of fascists? And what was the Post-Dispatch thinking in publishing such poppycock?

The previous day, the paper hung out to dry bombastic media personality Kevin Slaten for saying “black voters are bigoted” for voting for President Obama. Fourteen front page column inches and a picture of Slaten to tell us that he was fired again for his lack of judgment.

Will McClellan face the same fate and front page spectacle? Certainly, McClellan’s remarks are far more egregious. Expressing one’s opinion is one thing, but advocating a return to the Jim Crow past when “an earlier generation showed us the way” (McClellan’s words), when every African-American was the victim of a segregated and unjust society, is a brutal thought.

McCellan sounds like an angry guy concerned about the changing demographics of his own neighborhood and wants to set back social progress 150 years. He should be reminded that the English government once practiced racial profiling, imprisoning folks because they were named McClellan.

Terry Beckmeyer

New Haven, Mo.