Mailbag: Privileged teens often lack perspective

Seventeen-year-olds are deep into manhood in many parts of the world, earning food and shelter for siblings and parents.

By 17, many girls of the world are mothers by traditional mandate. They lift the weight of womanhood by transporting water, firewood, bricks.

The typical Laguna Beach 17-year-old is a child struggling to decide which party to show up to, whose Instagram to follow, what concert to attend. Yet he can’t be blamed for not realizing millions of the Earth’s tented refugees are under age 18. After all, that fact has nothing to do with him.

However, when given a glimpse of a world different than one’s own, it’s a humble opportunity to learn.

Seven years ago, we had that opportunity when a beautiful boy from Malawi came to live here. Lagunans embraced him. He flourished, due to the profound love of his parents. He thrived, made friends and became a superb athlete.

Friday’s news about the shameless, ugly deed of five Laguna Beach “boys” left us stunned (“Laguna parents file hate-crime complaint after watermelon is thrown at their home,” Jan. 13). More stunning is some people’s response that “kids that age are so stupid.”

“Stupidity” seems a trait reserved for privileged Southern California 17-year-olds. The consequence of living in an Apple-filled existence with Netflix and Starbucks, removed form poverty and Zika, may be the inability to recognize immorality and indecency.

Wrong and right have blurred. Reputation doesn’t matter. When we see black and/or white skin, ignoring the content of character, we ignore Dr. Martin Luther King’s work.

This is cause to mourn. No family is an island, child care is not a spectator sport, and each child seeks a champion. So who among us will build a community worthy of our children knowing what Africans believe: “It takes a village to raise a child”?

Anita Razin

Laguna Beach

Proposed pier restaurant is too big

I understand, if not quite agree with, the Newport Beach City Council’s propensity to make Newport Beach into a West Coast version of Miami Beach. Think of all the tax revenue the city will get from building new high-rise structures. But do they have to put a large restaurant at the end of the pier? When is too much too much?

Lenard Davis

Newport Beach

Congressman has overstayed his welcome

Last year, I worked on a campaign to unseat Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), thinking that a moderate USC Business School professor, Sue Savary, would fit the 48th District well as an alternative. The majority of voters disagreed, but they still need — we all need — a new representative.

Whether you believe in “Retire Rohrabacher” or “Dump Dana,” help find a potential candidate or persuade your friends to change their future endorsements or lobby President-elect Donald Trump to appoint Rohrabacher to a position, any position.

In years past, voting for Rohrabacher may have been wise, but that time has passed. We truly need a new congressional representative to serve the Orange County coastline. Whether right-wing, left-wing or moderate, it doesn’t matter as much as competence in serving our district.

Dennis Ashendorf

Costa Mesa

Open the library on Sundays

There are Sundays

And there is the park

But the closed library

Seems so stark

In a beautiful city

Cloistered by the sea

The doors to the library

Should be open you see

For Surf City is for readers too

Sunday in the library

Serves me and you

Ben Miles

Huntington Beach

The writer chairs the Huntington Beach Library Board of Trustees.