‘A Blow to Discrimination’

The Times editorial (May 19), “A Blow to Discrimination,” on the U.S. Supreme Court decision on racial discrimination renews this American Jew’s faith in his country. Until that decision, I must admit, I took all official or semi-official sanctions against such discrimination with a grain of salt.

While the court decision probably will not end racial discrimination in America, it does, by inference, make racial acceptance perfectly legal and thereby socially desirable. We no longer need fear of stepping out of line whenever we welcome a next-door neighbor whose skin color or religious belief differs from either our own or that of most of the others living on our block. Also, the landmark decision now makes it a federal offense to desecrate a home as well as a meeting place on the basis of the victim’s racial or religious tenets.

For many years, I have felt compelled to maintain silence as an American Jew. I have held my tongue out of fear of some insane reprisal against my home and family. Now I am eager to suggest that any form of discrimination on the grounds of race and religion is both criminal and stupid.

Life is too short to waste it by expressing the insidious type of personal discrimination that visits us under an assumed name. We tell ourselves that we are open-minded and have no deep-rooted prejudices--just some preferences. These preferences usually are not simple at all.

Take industry, for example. Most companies do not discriminate against Jews and blacks, or others, in employment; but employees of those companies may feel free to lump “others” under some alien flag that accentuates the differences of these “others.”

On this Memorial Day I thank God that I am an American ex-GI. It feels particularly good to be an American today.

SHELDON J. KARLAN

Buena Park