If you can do the city of Glendale a big favor and write a little about this topic, the Scouts from Troop 127 Foothill District would be grateful.
SASOON AMERIAN
Glendale
Politics of race don’t belong
Thank you for your article examining the recent election (“IN DEPTH: Local blocs; Armenian candidates split vote,” April 17).
The politics of race are the politics of the lowest common denominator. They’re the politics of separation, division and alienation. To focus campaign efforts on one group based on ethnicity or race is a failure for America.
When running for office, politicians should run as Americans and campaign toward Americans, because everything officeholders do, or don’t do, affects all their constituents, not just those who by happenstance of birth they consider “like themselves.”
One of the ugliest aspects of race politics is the erasure of individuality caused by looking at people based on what they are instead of who and how they are, and expecting them to behave a certain way because of a skin color or heritage over which they have no control instead of personal will and self-determination, which they do.
Race politics does occasionally yield short-term victories, but always at the expense of long-term unity and community benefit. All residents in the 43rd Assembly District are the winners because of the results of last week’s election. And crybaby Chahe Keuroghelian and tax-increaser Nayiri Nahabedian are now where they deservedly belong: sloshing against each other at the bottom of a barrel somewhere instead of on the June ballot.
TOM CELLI
Burbank
Lessons can be learned from vote
