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Letter: Accepting others as they are takes work

(J. Scott Applewhite | AP file photo) U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., second from left, speaks, as U.S. Reps., from left, Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.,Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., listen, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington on Monday, July 15, 2019.

I’ve spent a lot of time lifelong working to understand, get comfortable with and value people who are different than me in skin color, or sexual preference, or socioeconomic level, and it’s been hard work. My profession, social work, demanded it.

The religion I grew up in, I thought, expected its members to do this. My generation, 1960s and 1970s baby boomers, also adopted this as the way it’s done. We came up fighting for equality.

Looking back over the years, and looking at right now, I couldn’t do it any other way. How can anyone expect anyone to accept a majority’s judgement that they are inferior or bad or expect a group of people who gained some freedom denied to them because of race or sexual orientation to relinquish that freedom, to go back?

I do know acceptance is ongoing work, ongoing self-examination.

I get irritated at people who refuse to do this hard work. Our current president, with his “go back to your own country,” and negative talk about what he calls being “politically correct” gives people a reason to avoid doing any work in this regard.

My worry is that many people will take this way out which means the dissension will continue.

Carla Coates, Holladay

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