Reader's letter

Nobody can fail to be shocked and disgusted at the events unfolding in Zimbabwe.

However, while I do not condone the actions, it was only a matter of time before this melting pot started to overflow. For how many years have black people been persecuted because of the colour of their skin?

What about the thousands sold into slavery to satisfy the white man's superiority over them, as they were thought lesser mortals, because of their colour, their way of life, their customs and cultures. It has taken hold in virtually every country, and we should be ashamed to take part in racial attacks in our so-called sceptred isle.

Over here it's not just black people who suffer, it's anyone who seems to be different, Jews, Indians, Pakistanis.

Before people bleat on about the shooting of the white farmers and the beatings, I must remind them of the treatment of blacks in the early Sixties in America, separate buses, separate shop queues, separate schools and 'no blacks' signs everywhere.

Can anyone imagine how that makes a person feel, to be told they're worthless because of their race? People don't like coloureds, and yet we spend millions each year going abroad to lie in the sun and go golden brown.

Remember the saying: So shall ye reap, what ye sow.

Colin Henson,

Moorcroft Road,

Woodthorpe,

York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.