Editor:

Identity politics in America is divisive and destructive. While there are many different hyphenated nationalities and races here, the operative word describing each is “American.” There are Polish-Americans, African-American, Asian-Americans, Hispanic–Americans, Native-Americans, and many others, and none are gender specific. Knowing and befriending many in each of these hyphenated groups has been an honor and privilege.

Today, we have an overheated and obstructive political environment. The concept of hyphenated nationalities and gender has been weaponized. Today, politicians and their media partners play games placing the rest of us into categories specifically to divide us. We are victims of their hateful poignant rhetoric. The bitterness expressed by one group against another, and the openly public bias each group shows to the other, is in no small part, the result of their divisive efforts. Hasty, unresearched and prejudiced judgements fostered by, and featured in, social media simply add to the equation. There is chaos and the beneficiaries of all of it are politicians who believe they cannot harvest the necessary votes to win otherwise, and mainstream media hungry to sell their version of news.

This is recognizable behavior in societies that derive their existence from propaganda and dishonesty, and have failed. While America has warts to contend with, this kind of dishonesty and corruption has not been openly accepted here, at least until now. Our hope should be to unite as Americans, and bring to task, activist politicians and their media partners who would make us believe otherwise.

Peter Kapuscinski

Dillwyn