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Letters Aug. 26: Acknowledge racism; city is in embarrassing condition; a great radish

Acknowledge existence of racism Re: “Painting all police as being racist,” letter, Aug. 20. A letter writer concluded that since Canadian police forces include people of colour that systemic racism is not possible.
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Saanich is considering lowering the speed limit on many of streets to 40 km/h from 50 km/h. TIMES COLONIST

Acknowledge existence of racism

Re: “Painting all police as being racist,” letter, Aug. 20.

A letter writer concluded that since Canadian police forces include people of colour that systemic racism is not possible.

I urge the writer to look beyond the individuals within the system, and instead look at the systems themselves. Systems founded on oppression, discrimination and misogyny cannot help but be reflected in written and unwritten codes of conduct, workplace culture and behaviour.

We cannot change the past that the present is reflected in. Acknowledging the existence of systemic racism does not discredit the good work of many police officers – but it allows them to change and shape organizations to be less racist in the future.

Ken McFarlan
Victoria

Our capital city is in embarrassing condition

For the first time in many months we ventured to Victoria for dinner and walk-about. We were shocked at the condition of the streets. I felt like I was driving in a northern Interior town after a long rough winter; the washboard, potholes, faded lines. We are not talking about the side streets — this is all the main streets leading into the downtown (Blanshard, Douglas, Government).

For the capital of British Columbia, this is an embarrassment. Surely while tourism is down, traffic is down, the municipal and provincial politicians would take the opportunity to improve the roads and clean up the capital city.

This city is looking dirty and unkempt. Dallas Road, once the scenic tour drive and pride of Victoria, is a mess. The park walkway is unkempt and is a dirty backdrop to a once beautiful waterfront.

Lowering our standards and letting everything deteriorate does nothing to draw people to the city. There has to be a balance struck between maintaining our capital, where it reflects the pride of our province, not a race to expose the underside of our growing homeless population, making our streets and parks and our city representative of what we have to offer.

Please open your eyes and see what we see and clean up the city.

Jo-Anne Berezanski
North Saanich

Children could put parents at risk

It makes sense that parents are scared. Imagine having a condition or being a survivor of something that makes your immune response weaker. Any parent in this segment would already have worried about what if they could not work or passed away. Who will look after my kids? Now they will have that same worry as they send their kids to school. What if this is the start of the end of my life? Who will take care of my children? Why am I sending my kids now?

Kids will contract COVID-19 and they will spread it to their families.

When, not if, a parent or grandparent does contract COVID-19, how will we explain to the children that their parent is in ICU or worse because they went to school?

Give parents a break. Let them make their choices. For some it is life or death.

Curtis Matthias
Saanich

Why this radish is so large and round

Re: “Garden radishes can be enjoyed all winter,” Aug. 22.

A footnote to Lee Reich’s interesting article on garden radishes in Saturday’s Times Colonist.

He mentioned the Sakurajima variety as being particularly big and round. Sakurajima is the name of a volcanic island in Japan, out in the bay opposite the city of Kagoshima on the southern tip of Kyushu .

The volcano is very active, erupting 300 days a year and constantly spreading ash over the houses and cars of the many people who live there. They simply sweep off the dust and get on with their lives.

This often involves growing vegetables in the fertile volcanic soil including the Sakurajima variety of radish, or daikon as it is called in Japanese. The interesting aspect of the Sakurajima radish is that it is the same variety as the normal white long legged Japanese daikon we are familiar with but when it pushes its root down into the volcanic soil it encounters ever hotter temperatures. It therefore redirects its growth into its circumference and becomes very large and round, with a well deserved reputation for succulence and flavour.

Terry Milne
Victoria

Runners and the mist they leave behind

In these peculiar days of distance, masks and heightened social courtesy in an already courteous town, each day as I walk the lovely Ogden Point breakwater, dutifully following the posted “stay-plague-free” advice, I am at a loss to understand the mindsets of those who jog past everything and everyone, mask-less of course, as they steam on through us all leaving their panting shrouds of mist and droplets floating in the fresh ocean air. Why?!

John Fry
Victoria

Lower speed limits will limit disabled

Saanich Mayor Fred Haynes wants to lower the speed limit on city streets to 40 km/h from 50 km/h – a 20 per cent decrease.

For Handydart drivers this means a 20 per cent decrease in our speed and while we spend about 60 per cent of our time on city streets this means about 50,000 trips will be lost in a year or about a 1,000 trips a week gone.

For the disabled community this is unacceptable for any reason.

I hope other mayors will read this and understand the grave situation this idea will leave our most vulnerable.

Victoria has done a lot of this nonsense and the difficulties at Handydart have greatly increased because of these decisions.

Dennis Bourne
Victoria

Feel lucky enough to open schools?

Perhaps as a person with no children, and no skin in the game, I perhaps may presume to comment on the issue of sending children back to school in the middle of a pandemic.

We have already seen the results of sending children back to school in various countries, for example, from the terrible example of Israel, to the better of example of Denmark.

It seems that the better examples are a result of more stringent requirements of lower class size, masks, spacing, and so forth. These better requirements are of course more expensive. Thus we should demand of our provincial government a cost/benefit analysis of their school reopening plan; for example, how many children do their plans project will be infected, to how many will they spread the disease, and how many people will sicken and die as a result. These projections have been publicly lacking, subjected to feel-good stories of homilies and sermons.

For the parents, of course, there is only one question. Are you feeling lucky?

Ian MacDonell
Victoria

Fifty people indoors is too many

Why are we allowing gatherings of up to 50 people indoors? This seems far too many. How can they possibly maintain distance with those numbers? Also, once you allow that many it is easy to see how it could rapidly escalate via social media.

I see Hawaii is considering limiting indoor gatherings to ten only. I think we should be reducing our allowable gathering size to a much smaller number than 50.

Dr. John Miller
Family physician, retired
Victoria

Wear masks and face shields

Why is it that I am still walking into grocery stores and drug stores and finding most customers not wearing a mask or a face shield?

Grocery aisles are not being monitored, even with arrows on the floor, and personnel are in tight groups chatting around the customer service counter.

Either we are serious about this virus or we are not. I just don’t see managers of some stores making much of a move to enforce rules.

People should not be walking around grocery stores and pharmacies with no masks or shields. Someone has to start making rules and sticking to them.

We need help from the province to enforce these rules.

Ruth Rabinowitz
Victoria

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