On the September issue:

Revolution

To the Editor:
Abe Greenwald’s “Yes, This Is a Revolution” (September) is trying to reinforce the troubling status quo by describing things that are clearly wrong (such as public destruction, vandalism, and violence) but that do not represent the majority of those who are marching. Those in that majority are against the chaos, but they would also like to see the police held accountable for their actions.

Professional social workers should be involved in more police calls. They are trained to handle angry, irrational people, and they know how to de-escalate situations. A social worker and a policeman working as a team could eliminate a good number of the unfortunate incidents that rightly upset so many Americans.
George Anne Hume
Mt. Prospect, Illinois

To the Editor:
Abe Greenwald reminds one of those people who once panicked about the supposed Y2K problem and the civil disorder that it would provoke. These panickers were calmly told by responsible officials that they had no reason to anticipate a problem of this nature. Those officials were correct.

We should not anticipate the problems that Greenwald describes either. Large, peaceful protests about real problems have been marred by a small number of arsonists and such. The acts of a few criminals do not make a revolution.

The threat to our democracy comes not from the many peaceful protesters, or from the violent few, but from the Trump administration and its armed supporters.
Jamison Wilcox
Vancouver, Canada

To the Editor:
This article was truly a wake-up call to me. I had assumed that the “revolution” is so crazy that it will burn itself out. While that may happen, it is by no means guaranteed. It is at least as likely that the opposite could occur, and right-thinking people must be made aware of that.

I applaud Greenwald’s sound advice against countering the left’s onslaught with like measures. The right path is to speak up and counter the craziness with the truth—there are still things that are true.
Frank Drohan
Naples, Florida

To the Editor:
This extraordinarily well-thought-out and well-written essay had me shaking. It made my heart race and sent chills up my spine. Much of what Abe Greenwald wrote about has crossed my mind since the onset of the pandemic, the reaction to it, and the tragedy in Minneapolis.  We are at a crossroads in America. This article, however, inspires hope that with concerted effort, young minds will be changed and the direction of the country will, in time, be reversed.
Graig Larsen
Thousand Oaks, California

To the Editor:
Even before the killing of George Floyd, members of Black Lives Matter were in the business of bullying those with whom they disagreed. Now, as Abe Greenwald ably summarizes, if you politely criticize anything about their movement, they will try to take away your job—and sometimes succeed. Nowadays they often succeed. Their supporters may also physically hurt you.

The CATO survey cited by Greenwald showed that 62 percent of Americans are afraid to express their political views. Crucially, there are disparities: More than three-quarters of conservatives (77 percent) are afraid, compared with a slim majority of self-described liberals (52 percent). And “staunch liberals stand out as the only group who feels they can share their political opinions.” The bullying seems to be working.
Kevin Jon Williams
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania

To the Editor:
Thank you for such a well-written, informative, and convincing article. I’m now emboldened to not be silent about the upheaval of America values and the threat to the precious freedom and liberty that so many died to preserve. I often feel helpless to alter the course of this frightening revolution, but thanks to your article, I am compelled to speak out in my small circle of influence. For the sake of my young children, I must.
Katie Henry
Fort Worth, Texas

Abe Greenwald writes:
I greatly appreciate the thoughtful and encouraging words from Frank Drohan, Graig Larsen, Kevin Jon Williams, and Katie Henry. They join a chorus of voices who have, in recent months, begun to speak out forcefully and clearly against the unraveling. While revolutionary violence and intimidation have not ceased, it is heartening to note that they’ve taken an appreciable toll on the popularity of Black Lives Matter. A recent Pew Research poll found that Americans’ support for BLM dropped 12 percentage points between June and September. This is, I hope, only the beginning of the public’s more accurate understanding of what has seized the country. As I wrote in my article, “because the United States is fundamentally good, most Americans may, in time, become circumspect about tearing it all down.”

George Anne Hume writes that the majority of Black Lives Matter supporters disagree with the violence being perpetrated in the name of social justice. This is undoubtedly true. But until that majority takes a clear stand against the violence—and stops wishing it away—the country is certain to see more of it. As for police partnering with social workers, whatever benefits such an arrangement might provide—if it could even be safely arranged—it’s almost impossible to see how an on-the-scene social worker would be of help in the type of high-risk, quick-decision scenarios that give rise to challenged police shootings. Indeed, the proposed partnership might produce a great many more tragedies under those conditions.

Jamison Wilcox likens my concerns to those of Y2K prophets. The glaring difference, however, is that Y2K was a prediction and what I wrote about is already happening. It’s now a question of how far the revolution goes and for how long. Regarding violence on the political right: It is every bit as condemnable as violence on the left. But the plain fact of the matter is that multiple American cities have been set on edge as a result of left-wing violence. Its far-right counterpart—dangerous and despicable though it is—has been responsible for only a fraction of the unrest.

Learning Racism

To the Editor:
Naomi Schaefer Riley’s article hit home very deeply (“My Kids and Their Elite Education in Racism,” September). I have a soon-to-be 12-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter in a very good private school. We are bypassing our retirement to give them this opportunity because we want more for them than what we had. I am so incredibly sad about this new (or not so new) focus on race. After instilling in my children the lesson that we should treat everyone according to his character, this feels as if a perfectly tied shoelace, which took gentle guidance to master, is being deliberately unraveled so that they will trip and fall. 
Laura Neumann-Mahon
Kennett Square, Pennsylvania

To the Editor:
Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote an excellent article. I graduated from the Fieldston School long ago, and there were always a number of black students in class. But there was none of the nonsense that Riley describes. And what she writes about is all too true. At Stanford, where I taught for 15 years, I now see similar foolishness. The irony is that the university now has fewer black students and faculty than it did in the 1990s. Black Lives Matter refuses to look at the real problem: the kids being underserved in Baltimore, Chicago, and other cities. That’s where things have to change.
Marjorie Perloff
Sadie D. Patek Professor Emerita of Humanities
Stanford University

To the Editor:
Congratulations to Naomi Schaefer Riley for keeping her head about her while all others are losing theirs. She may be among the sanest people on the planet.

What Riley notes in the article is, in some sense, nothing new. My older son attended the Francis Parker School in Chicago, and I have very similar anecdotes from 20 years ago. Today, however, the frenzy is out of control. I hope Riley will keep interested readers informed of her views as her kids get older. If her experience mirrors mine, it will get worse before it gets better.

The true genius of the left is its ability to enlist those who have benefitted mightily from the “system” to help tear the system down. Riley’s article illustrates how that begins at an early age.
John Simon
Sarasota, Florida

1620

To the Editor:
Meir Y. Soloveichik has written a wonderful article (“The 1620 Project,” September). But I quibble with Soloveichik’s quote of Gordon Wood’s: “Whereas slavery existed throughout much of the world, ‘it’s the American Revolution that makes it a problem for the world. And the first real anti-slave movement takes place in North America.’” Slavery was abolished in France in 1794 and in Britain by rulings in 1772 and legislation in 1809. The first state (literally) to abolish slavery was Vermont in 1777. Clearly the pressure of abolitionism was felt throughout the Western world simultaneously. While I respect Wood’s eminence in all things historical, I question whether the first real anti-slave movement took place in North America.
Robb Allan
Palm Beach, Florida

Hello Dolly

To the Editor:
Rob Long’s column about Dolly Parton is full of wit and humanity (“The Beauty Parton,” September). The political points are clear and convincing, but the main point is the grace and greatness of the towering Dolly, and how high above the current mood she stands. And Long’s sense of humor shines through. 

This is really a fable for our time. Even when someone, or something, is obviously great and above our pettiness, current society fights to bring it down into the dirty, Twitter-fed, polarized arena. But the devil doesn’t always win. We can all, in a less talented but equally important way, join Dolly in declining to pull everything down into politics. Let’s look up joyfully at the five-foot wonder and the other joys this country produces.
Kevin Johnson
Sarasota, Florida

To the Editor:
While reading “The Beauty Parton,” I couldn’t tell if Rob Long is himself a beautiful, moving writer or if he is just a writer who was writing about a beautiful, moving person (just kidding, Long is a beautiful, moving writer who was also writing about a beautiful, moving person). When I was growing up, there was no such thing as a “personal device,” so, on car trips long and short, I listened to Dolly, Kenny, Merle, Willie, and the rest because that’s what my dad’s choice in radio stations was playing. A few decades on, I still listen to and love Dolly. We need to treasure her, because we are going to miss her when she’s gone.
William Still
Cumming, Georgia

To the Editor:
Rob Long’s piece on Dolly Parton is beautifully done.  As neat and lucid as one of its subject’s songs.
Wynn Wheldon
London, England