'Responsibility' for Slavery Based on Generalizations

To the editors:

Carine William's comments (Column, April 22) show the deep, rotten racists core of today's African-American leadership. She states that all European-Americans are responsible for the current problems of the black community.

As a Polish-American descended from serfs who lived under the oppression of Russian imperialists, I find this comment so absurd I would laugh if it didn't make me ill. My ancestors were serfs unit 1861, when Alexander II of Russia finally emancipated them. Afterwards, they lived in wretched poverty and were constantly harassed by the Russian government because they were Catholic. My family moved to the United States during the 1930's, where they progressed to just regular poverty and religious discrimination. I grew up in a working-class family of eight and received the same public education that was available to African-Americans in my small Indiana town.

Do I deserve an apology from Boris Yeltsin? How Have I gained from the oppression of slavery that would make me responsible for a whole group's position? No and no. Williams, you cannot group me into an oppressive group just because of the color of my skin. Your sweeping generalization and lack of perspective represents the problem in America--a willingness of others to make judgments about people on the basis of their pigmentation, and is not the solution to the problems America faces with poverty, bigotry and injustice. CHRISTOPHER G. ROBERTS '01   April 23, 1998