Mr. Rees makes use of assumptions as to the motives that led to the death of his forbearers that he reports were given in opposition to slavery. I suspect that they joined the revolutionary effort on the side of the union as much to end slavery as to preserve the union. But given they were abolitionists it is even more presumptuous to site the motives of his biological lineage as proof of his own purity and lack of bigotry. He conflates and denigrates the honor of his forbearers by hanging own clearly racist attitudes on the reputations of men who seemed better than him. His bigotry is profoundly underscored by using the same flawed logic to besmirch the motives and personhood of President Barack Obama, a black man, by tying him to the behaviors of his African and Muslim forbearers that might have been involved in slavery.  He should at least make the connection with the President’s white ancestors as well. Neither President Obama nor Mr. Rees deserves or can take benefit from the social behavior or moral inclinations of those who preceded them.  His letter more accurately reveals the racism inherent in republican and conservative politics when he uses the FOX News iconography of “race hustlers” to condemn those who speak against racism reveals the imbalance of his views. Like Fox News he hopes to relieve American society of the stain of racism. For him to suggest that “racism was and is over blown” within a week of two white children using the iconography of lynching to abuse a Black high school colleague is not simply short sighted but indicative of his indifference.
The responsibility for spreading racism becomes Mr. Rees’s responsibility when he indulges in the sort of irrational and ignorant rant to support a point of view that excuses racism as anything less than it is. I would hope that he understands that race is a biological fiction contorted to support the tyranny of racism imposed by the rich to distorts human relationship, promote isolation fear and anxiety, all this to protect slavery as an economic activity. With slavery the rich and powerful (we now call the 1%) could achieve their narrow and relentless desire for the power to control the larger society. That was and is the purpose of racism to make it morally and legally OK to use human beings as slaves. In its creation to serve slavery and later to perpetuate Jim Crow capitalism infected the American society and its institutions with a disabling disease. A disease that thrives on not being noticed and abuses from the shadows of our collective unconscious.  Mr. Rees extends that nurturing darkness of racism by telling us not to pay any attention to this overblown and irrelevant attack on civility and the common wealth.
Racism was initially constructed to mark people of color as less than human so that they can be abused for capitalism’s ruthless purposes - a mindset that Mr. Rees furthers by urging denial. The virus of racism is alive and capable of infecting at least two white teenagers at Denfeld high school and God knows who else. Everyone is vulnerable to disease of racism; it is an essential aspect of our economy. It infects from the shadows of our subconscious to feed our insecurities and fears. Mr. Rees wants to set our fears aside suggesting  “nothing here to be concerned with just move along”. His purpose is to help hide the disease of racism in Duluth.  We want to believe that we’re all (or at least some of us) are above average and above racist behavior. Suddenly, out of the darkness of our inattention it appears in one of our high schools. Where else might it be hiding, just waiting for an unguarded moment to destroy someone life or loose a job or a place to live or the health care needed to live a more secure life? Where will this technique for domination and oppression serve to isolate us from one another at a time when we need each other even more?
 Racism is an instrument of economic oppression first and most persistently. The draft that fueled the civil war with dirt farmers in the south and the mill workers of the north was not the last effort of capitalism to use human life for its own selfish purposes. The idea that “…many of our war draftees suffered more than any slave”, his quote, is a statement that Mr. Rees uses to divide us, to isolate even victim from victim. I understand his willingness to pass on the “guilt thing.”  After all Mr. Rees is only guilty of wanting to hide the existence of racism.
I wonder if he understood that Black and Native American men risked their lives for this country only to come home to institutionalized and personal bigotry in housing, health care and education right here in Duluth. And its not gotten any better. Slavery killed millions of Black people in the 400 years of its government sponsored economic oppression and the indoctrination of America to accept slavery has continued to take its toll on people of color ever since. Perhaps those fires Mr. Rees warns us of can help to illuminate the continued spread of racism in Duluth and in that light we might find the end to that affliction.
I will keep Mr. Rees’s letter at hand so that the next time someone wants to make me believe that racism is no longer a threat in Duluth I can use his letter as evidence of its existence.

Rogier Gregoire Ed.D.
Duluth MN

Co Chair of the Board Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Inc.

Member of the Duluth Human Rights Commission

Member of the Twin Ports African American Men Group

Chair of NAACP sub committee on Education