FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com JULY 21, 2016 • TIMES 13 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com JULY 21, 2016 • THE COURIER SUN 23 oped oped While much of Queens has seen dramatic streetscape changes over the last 70 years, the corner of Dry Harbor Road and Furmanville Avenue in Middle Village is one exception to the rule. The one-story storefronts seen in this 1945 photo can still be found today, although the types of businesses have changed in recent years. The pharmacy, tailor and “cut-rate market” at right are now home to an insurance agency and Coldwell Banker Phillips Realty. Send us your historic photos of Queens on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/QNS, email them to editorial@qns.com or send printed pictures to The Ridgewood Times 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned to you upon request. letters & comments EMAIL SCANDAL WAS ANOTHER ‘WASTE’ OF EVERYONE’S TIME AND Regarding Hillary’s “email scandal” — Republicans vowed that the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails would put an end to the “scandal” once and for all. Did it? Of course not. When FBI Director James Comey said they found no evidence “that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them,” that made the GOP mad. They wanted a do-over. But since they couldn’t get one, House Republicans dragged Comey in to testify about his decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton. Well, that completely backfi red. Comey destroyed one of the key points of the GOP conspiracy when he said that some of Clinton’s emails that were deemed classifi ed could be judged not classifi ed. Time and money wasted on another nonexistent “scandal.” Robert LaRosa, Whitestone WIESEL’S ‘NIGHT’ LEADS TO POWERFUL QUESTIONS IN CLASSROOM Elie Wiesel’s death earlier this month was marked by refl ections on the Holocaust in which numerous members of his family were murdered. He survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps and through his many books and public appearances, raised global awareness not only of the mass exterminations, mostly of Jews, during World War II, but also of subsequent “ethnic cleansing” atrocities from Cambodia to Bosnia, and their timeless and universal implications for all humanity. His most famous book, “Night,” is powerful and direct. It details the deportation of Wiesel’s family and other Hungarian Jews to death factories. “Night” is often taught to “gifted” high school students. “Gifted” is a quality that cannot be defi ned or measured and is as arbitrary as is the former DOE classifi cations of “grade level.” Knowing that, I picked “Night” to study with my seventhgrade students. They fathomed the unfathomable. None of its dimensions escaped them. Brilliantly loaded questions were posed by my culturally diverse classes. They wanted to know how Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, two mass killers linked to Wiesel’s anguish, were able to escape capture, sometimes with identities intact, left alone, or actually protected by certain governments. The bitter truth is that some of the most infamous practitioners of genocide were spirited out of Europe after the war, despite knowledge of their horrifi c legacies, through the intervention of individuals, including at least one notorious senior priest, of the Vatican. Documents were secured and emigration arranged on their behalf. Should a teacher share unpalatable history with students even if they may be traumatized by it? What is the student draws an intended inference that their descendants may have been guilty in some way and they feel they must bear burden because of their cultural extraction? Should teachers play it safe and avoid controversy even when the lesson is immaculately faithful to the truths of history? Or should they be the voice of the voiceless victims of mankind’s inhumanity echoing through the ages? Ron Isaac, Fresh Meadows DAUGHTERS’ INTERVIEWS EXPOSE MEDIA HYPOCRISY,’ SAYS READER The hypocrisy and disparate treatment of and by the media in the presidential campaign is absolutely fl agrant. When Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka is interviewed by the press, nearly always she is asked about her father’s alleged sexism and disrespect for women. Yet when that same media interviews Chelsea Clinton, I have yet to see one journalist or reporter question her about her father’s extramarital affairs, abuse of women, disrespect for females. Bill Clinton has made a decades-long career of treating women as sex objects, promising them the world and using his offi ce as a tool to lure them. Plus he lied to a grand jury, an offense for which most of us would have been heavily fi ned or imprisoned. Edward Riecks, Howard Beach THANK YOU IN NEED FOUNDATION! On behalf of the When In Need Foundation I want to express our profound gratitude for the generous charity donation from The Queens Courier. Your donation will play a critical role in helping us with many ongoing projects we have here in the United States and overseas. George Onuorah, Media Director When In Need Foundation, www.winfound.org ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ SHOULDN’T BE A STATEMENT BY COUNCILMAN RORY LANCMAN Last week at a nationally televised town hall meeting on CNN, “Black, White and Blue: America 2016,” I made a comment that shouldn’t be controversial: I said black lives matter. The question being debated at that moment was a variation of one I hear repeatedly: “Don’t all lives matter?” Of course all lives matter, I explained. But as a white guy I’ve never felt that my life didn’t matter. I’ve never been pulled over for “driving while white.” I’ve never been stopped and frisked. The phrase “black lives matter” doesn’t mean that other lives don’t matter. The “black lives matter” movement is about acknowledging that black Americans have a different daily experience with law enforcement than do white Americans. Every day, people of color are subject to far higher rates of street stops, arrests and summons than white New Yorkers. The disparity in enforcement is so bad that recently one Brooklyn judge, while arraigning yet another Latino defendant for carrying an open containers of alcohol, said, “I cannot recall ever arraigning a white defendant for such a violation.” Overall, 81 percent of summons go to black and Latino New Yorkers. At the height of stop and frisk, black and Latino New Yorkers were subject to 83 percent of all street stops. Just two weeks ago, Philando Castile was killed in Minnesota after he was pulled over during a traffi c stop — just one of the 49 times he had been stopped by police in 13 years. Like elsewhere in the country, including New York, black and Latino men and women are more likely — up to seven times more likely in predominately white areas — to be stopped by the police in Minnesota. The governor of Minnesota said he didn’t think the shooting would have happened if a white person were driving. One day before Philando Castile’s death, Alton Sterling was killed in a Louisiana parking lot after he was tackled to the ground by white police offi cers. Video footage shows he was on the ground right before he was shot. There is a clear difference in the issues black Americans face in their day-to-day lives that white people don’t experience. Instead of being divided and debating phrases, white Americans should recognize the different experience black Americans have and they should understand that when people say black lives matter, they aren’t saying that white lives don’t matter — they’re simply saying that they want their lives to matter like white lives already do. A LOOK BACK While much of Queens has seen dramatic streetscape changes over the last 70 years, the corner of Dry Harbor Road and Furmanville Avenue in Middle Village is one exception to the rule. The onestory storefronts seen in this 1945 photo can still be found today, although the types of businesses have changed in recent years. The pharmacy, tailor and “cut-rate market” at right are now home to an insurance agency and Coldwell Banker Phillips Realty. Send us your historic photos of Queens on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/QNS, email them to editorial@qns.com or send printed pictures to The Queens Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned to you upon request. ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ BE A CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT ANOTHER MONEY WIELEL’S ‘NIGHT’ LEADS TO POWERFUL CLASSROOM MEDIA ‘HYPOCRIS,’ SAYS READER THANK YOU FROM WHEN IN NEED FOUNDATION!
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