First, I've been following you for a while, and I want to acknowledge you for the growth in your writing. When I started with you, your issues were not always stated clearly, you were too often sidetracked to unrelated issues, and your grammar and speling were often messy. None of that is true about your present-day writing.

Second, I don't see opposition between you and the past commentator. Not being black, it is only natural that the audience he/she wants to impact is different than yours. But both of you are confronting a naivete and narrow-mindedness that should be considered by all Americans. I have the same frustration with the idiots who respond to every dissent with "if you don't like it, leave", as if they spoke from a superior place of ownership. (When I was young, the similar refrain was "better dead than Red".) But it is a waste of time to direct your words to those fools: those people will always exist, but they don't matter and never will.

But for all my disenchantment about the preent state ofAmerica, I still do not believe that the majority of (white) Americans feel the same way.

In the late 60s, America was about the anti-Vietnam war protests and the black riots in the cities. During that time, I hitchhiked through Europe, with no money and sleeping by the side of the road or occaasionally in people's homes. I left anti-American, to say the least, but by the end of those months, I was dying to get home. I didn't feel any less strongly about racism or the Vietnem war, but I saw that, if I was to have a fight, it must be here not there.

What I see in both your article and the comment is a call to your people to get off the couch, stop expecting Jesus or Portugal to solve your problems, and get to work.