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COVID-19 appears to be "racist." A report in The Maui News (Aug. 22) noted that "people of color" are worse affected by the virus than "white" people. Or, is it that "racism" has left "people of color" in much less healthy and wholesome living conditions than "white" people to make them more vulnerable to the virus?
To me, there is a worse virus than COVID-19 that continues to plague our society. It's the use of such terms as "people of color" or "colored people." Those terms chain us to a racist mentality. I gather that "people of color" (or its variations) is understood in the Mainland and especially in the once "slave states" in the South as referring to people who are "non-white" and who were (are) regarded as inferior to and not entitled to be accorded equal dignity as "white" people.
The sly mischief in such terms as "people of color" or "colored people" is that their use overlooks the fact that "white" is a color, and could only serve as a devious way of treating people unequally and unfairly.
Let's stop using those historically racist terms.
Antonio Ramil
Wailuku