Letters to the Editor: Did Byron Donalds really ‘praise Jim Crow’?

To the editor: Columnist LZ Granderson joins the piling on of Democrats against Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) for daring to be a Black Republican. (“A Trump running mate who praises Jim Crow? That’s a red flag,” Opinion, June 11)

Granderson uses a familiar formula: Take a statement by a conservative, ignore its plain meaning (in this case, that before President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty” welfare programs, Black family units were stronger, despite the oppression they endured), and substitute a completely false idea that Donalds praised the Jim Crow era.

And then, after laying out the indisputable evils of those Jim Crow laws, he ends by misleadingly saying that Donalds claimed “Black people had it better during the Jim Crow days.”

Granderson should know that everyone has a right to their own opinions but not to their own facts.

Bruce Thompson, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: Thanks to Granderson for his excellent columns, especially the one about Jim Crow. As a Black man, I wish every Black man and woman could read it — it’s that important.

Lionel Bain, Los Angeles