Human Values Supersede Race

Re “A Rescuer’s Tale: Fight, Then Flight,” April 22: Bobby Green is a hero. Although outraged by a social injustice, he acted with personal grace and justice. He is also a pointed example that the concept of identifying and categorizing people by the color of their skin makes as much sense as the measuring of people by the color of their hair. The people of this world are not divided by race, they are divided by values representing the decent and the indecent. Green is just another color that makes up the rainbow of the decent.

Michael Chacon

Tustin

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Every once in a while, among the daily dose of betrayals, lies, murders and inhumanity that is the daily newspaper, a morsel of hope for the future of humanity appears. Monday’s Column One was just that morsel. Green said, “To me, what [Damien Williams] did was wrong. Just as what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong.” And, “I saved another man’s life because to me, he was another human being who needed my help.”

Green makes his views known about the events that preceded the 1992 riots, and he states clearly that much injustice occurred. He described himself as very angry and frustrated about those injustices. Yet when he saw a fellow human being beaten for the color of his skin and watched that beating continue past the point of consciousness, Green’s beliefs in right and wrong superseded any other beliefs or loyalties. He acted upon the simple concept of right and wrong.

Until we as people act upon the belief that “right is right and wrong is wrong,” our differences will only further divide us. It is clear to me that I cannot change the world. What I can do is influence my little part of it. What I can do is raise my children so as not to assign labels to groups based upon skin color, political party, gender, sexual orientation or other differences but instead judge people as individuals. And, like Green, I can refuse to put my group’s interests above those of the common good.

Paul Erkel

Victorville

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Green is a true hero and role model for all of us. Forget sports figures or entertainment figures; Green is a man who should be held up to our children, in all communities and from all backgrounds. Hollywood is missing the boat in terms of a good story depicting Green and the others who assisted him in the rescue of Reginald Denny. They exemplify the values that we as Americans should cherish.

Wayne Frost

Chino