To John Howard Griffin: Your action spearheaded the American society's advance and attempt to resolve racial problems. The book Black Like Me will always be the most influential record of reality in the United States history. Your valiant act granted new meaning to the action of passing and has shown every single person in this country how a small act can change the whole status quo. From this book you wrote back in 1959, I can see your eagerness to solve the problem and wipe the racial problem out of America's national identity as a whole by changing your own identity. To some extent, you are not only a trailblazer but also a patriot. Your records opened window for every single citizen to see with their own eyes how injustice had plagued the nation and how important it is to resolve the issue.
How to Discern a Race Issue?
Dear Claudia Rankine, I found your writing about Serena Williams to be particularly fascinating and it brings up a lot of questions about the current state of race in corporate America. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on a few things. I'm not sure if the officials in these games were confirmed to be racist in that sense, but if so that would affect the interpretation. If, for example, they have no known racist background, how do you tell if such an incident is inherently about race? You say that the ref didn't like seeing the black body on her court, but without evidence how can you in fact confirm such a thing? Not that I am questioning your assertions directly, but in what situations can you discern that actions are definitely a race issue? I know that there are plenty of situations in which refs have screwed over white men in sports, so I wonder as to how you can tell. Thanks, Vaughan Siker
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