Councilman Cook Comments On Racism

To the Editor,

Councilman Cook

In light of the recent incident regarding Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the NBA in their stance of zero tolerance for racism in the NBA today. I believe their action to ban Donald Sterling for life from the NBA should be applauded.

Racism should never be tolerated in any form or in any environment, especially in today’s world, but unfortunately this notion of zero tolerance is slow to creep into our society.  We as a people are so far advanced in so many ways, whether in technology, science, innovations, environmental preservation etc., but somehow some people think that it’s okay to make racial, sexual, religious and gender specific slurs against people that are different from them.

Education begins at home. Hateful words and labels of our past need to get deleted from our vocabulary and we need to instill better human values in our children and grandchildren.  We as parents need to lead our children responsibly and teach them that hatred in any form is not acceptable. My Mother always taught me that if I had nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. Words do hurt, and seemingly innocent words can leave very visible and lasting scars.

I hope that everyone reading this will take some time to reflect on this message, and work as I am, to make sure to respect everyone around them, and to gently remind all of our families, friends, and colleagues to do the same.

Respectfully yours,

Eugene Cook
Huntington Town Councilman