To the editor:

I write in response to two of Matthew Fletcher’s letters to the editor, published in the September 16th and September 2nd editions.

Mr. Fletcher claimed in his first letter to be seeking “truth,” and to “stand with Martin Luther King, Jr.” by citing a quote from a 1953 King sermon noting the importance of personal choices, and going on to outline “simple” choices that he believes everyone should make.  These simple choices included graduating from high school and getting a full-time job.

Of course personal choices are important, but Mr. Fletcher’s letter suggests that those choices are equally simple for everyone. They are not. Access to public educational opportunities has been driven by many years of legalized school segregation (which had not changed at the time of Dr. King’s sermon) and federally endorsed practices such as redlining. As for full-time job prospects, a 2017 study by Harvard Business Review found that hiring discrimination was significantly greater for black Americans than white Americans, and hadn’t changed in 25 years. That study accounted for differences in educational credentials, which for fore-mentioned reasons, are also not equally available to all. The suggestion that making the same personal choices is equally easy and leads to the same outcomes for everyone is laughable. Even for those with the economic resources to choose a high performing school system like Barrington’s, the choices are often more difficult for some than others.  People of color in Rhode Island with economic resources must often make a choice between sending their children to school in environments where few students or teachers look like their children, or sending them to schools that don’t perform as well in state assessments as Barrington. These problems are a “truth” not unique to Rhode Island or Barrington, and pretending that personal choices are equally simple for all is a slap in the face to what Dr. King worked for and denial of the systems of inequity he worked against.

As for Mr. Fletcher’s second letter, his premise that black Americans are not really killed by police at a higher rate than white Americans is contradicted by the data he himself provides. The data cited, from 2019, notes that 250 of 999 victims of police shootings were noted to be black, while 403 were noted to be "white.” Mr. Fletcher fails to mention that black Americans make up only 13 percent of the nation’s total population, meaning they were killed by police last year at a rate that is about double what would be expected when accounting for population. Moreover, he mentions that only three officers were charged with a crime and convicted between 2015 and 2019 following police involved shootings of black Americans, out of 35 such convictions in police shootings overall. This is a pretty small sample size, but seems to indicate less than 10 percent of convictions involve black victims, while the other data Mr. Fletcher provided indicates that black Americans make up a much higher percentage of overall shooting victims. Mr. Fletcher also suggests that these convictions account for the only times when someone is shot unjustifiably by police. So, for example, Breonna Taylor being shot five times in her home while police served a “no-knock” warrant would not be considered an unjustifiable shooting in Mr. Fletcher’s mind, because there have not been charges brought on the officers involved yet (despite the city of Louisville recently settling a wrongful death lawsuit with the family) and they have not been convicted. I say none of this to speak ill of police, particularly the Barrington police, who I always found to act with professionalism and courtesy when I lived in the town. I say it because Mr. Fletcher’s denial of the existence of any problem nationwide is refuted by both his own data and anyone can see with their own eyes by Google searching George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Jacob Blake and Amaud Arbery (who was killed by civilians making a “citizens’ arrest”).

The most disturbing thing about Mr. Fletcher’s letters is not that he would write them. As he says in his first letter, his opinions are shared by many Americans. He isn’t wrong about that. The most disappointing thing to me is that his letters have seemingly gone unchallenged to this point. I would urge those in Barrington now engaged in anti-racist work and protests, protests that Mr. Fletcher would like to characterize as baseless and destructive, to challenge him and anyone else who denies the existence of any systemic inequities.

Sincerely,

Jon Alschuler

Bronx, N.Y.