Jackson gets no slack

Re “ ‘Old Hickory’s’ slaves,” Opinion, March 21

Can we say that President Andrew Jackson was wrong to intentionally enslave people? Can we say that Osama bin Laden is wrong to intentionally kill people? Yes, they are both wrong. Ethical thinking is evolving toward moral truths, and much of humanity has outgrown the barbarisms of slavery and murder.

Carl Byker is correct to say that we need to “figure out who we want to be in the future,” but that does not absolve Jackson of his moral failings. If we have evolved far enough ethically, we can say Jackson was wrong to own slaves and Bin Laden is wrong to murder, regardless of their moral evolution, culture or context. No amount of sophistry or quotes from ancient texts can disguise these facts.

We can have an “honest, thoughtful national conversation” when Americans can accept the reality that our ethics are evolving for the better. That Sen. Barack Obama encourages us to do so is certainly one of his strengths.

John Taylor

La Habra

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Byker forgets to mention that Jackson also ordered the deportation of Cherokees from their native homelands to Oklahoma, the infamous Trail of Tears in which thousands of Cherokees died. Those folks in Tennessee who think that slave owners were kind desperately need to take a course in American literature featuring Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” In both novels, the slave owners were kind. In fact, the farm in Morrison’s novel was called Sweet Home. Yet both Uncle Tom and the Sweet Home men were destroyed primarily because their owners were kind.

White people are upset by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s politically incorrect statements. Yet ironically, the pundits who are launching the attack are the very pundits who attack the whole notion of being “politically correct.” They should ask themselves how a Native American or African American feels every time he or she touches a $20 bill. If we are going to ostracize Obama for what his pastor said, then we need to remove Jackson’s portrait from the $20 bill and rename every town that bears the former president’s name.

William Joseph

Miller

Los Angeles