Being anti-communist does not equal racism

In response to "Here's the reality that young Asian Americans are facing every day," a letter by Winston Chu of Glenview that ran May 27: There's a difference between anti-Chinese Communist Party sentiment and anti-Chinese sentiment. The former is political, the latter is hatred. Mr. Chu and our community need to make this distinction, or else, as happens so often in society today, anything remotely touching on race is attacked as racist - usually as a ploy to silence the political viewpoints of messenger, in this case, Turning Point USA. While the TPUSA image may have poorly distinguished between its criticism of the CCP and anti-Chinese animosity (and, given the recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, should probably have been denied public display on this basis), any fair-minded person can see that the message is political.

Would an identical display about the Russian Communist Party lead to the same calls about racism? It's easy, and is in fact encouraged in today's society, for everyone to take knee-jerk emotional offense at any opportunity and label oneself a victim and the other a racist. It's far harder to employ the critical thinking skills that GBS is supposed to nurture, and make distinctions based on logic and common sense. Let's everyone calm down and stop baselessly imputing the worst possible motives to others.

Phil Pinc

Glenview