To the Editor:

The 50th anniversary of the “March on Washington” and Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech have been recently observed. King hoped to see a generation of black Americans who would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

For the past 40-odd years we have indulged a system called affirmative action, which demands a person be evaluated by skin color. We have added equal opportunity to the mix, so now we have affirmative action based on gender as well as race.

As we celebrate King’s vision, the dreams, hopes and aspirations of white male Americans — for my two sons, my three grandsons and 10 great grandsons — are substantially over, or greatly inhibited, or even seriously imperiled. I naively allowed my own career to be halted early and abruptly by Jackson County Schools and WCU because of my lack of appreciation of changes in the workforce.

For 50 years we’ve been mesmerized by King’s words, and now we’re equally enthralled with more euphemistic drivel of liberal origin such as diversity, social justice, and (my favorite), multiculturalism. In 50 years of strengthening the weak by weakening the strong all we’ve accomplished is to trade one model of discrimination for another.

A French writer, Charles Louis de Secondat, (1689-1755), stated: “There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” Would that our leaders could even begin to grasp such a passionate and straightforward warning, much less heed it.

David L. Snell

Dillsboro