Ethnically Speaking by Larry Meeks

Dear Larry: I think the conclusion reached by the librarian who asked a group of teenagers to line up according to their skin color is naive. When they lined up from the lightest to darkest, the librarian failed to recognize that there are two distinct methods for determining who is first in line.

Being first can mean "order of importance" or "first in a series." The latter has no correlation to importance or "pecking order"; it is only a method for organizing.

Organizing by skin color is no different from organizing alphabetically by first name or chronologically by birth month. If it is done alphabetically, what is, for example, more important, the letter "C" or the letter "K"? If it is done by birth month, what is more important, September or June?

The point is this: The kids were arranging not in order of importance or pecking order, but in a series of light to dark, with no importance on one color above another.

If that were the case, the conclusion would be people whose names begin with "B" are more important than those whose names begin with "C" through "Z." No rational person ever would draw that kind of conclusion.

The faulty conclusion deduced by the librarian was an error and probably based on a personal presupposition. I suggest that humility and integrity prevail, and you should print a corrective answer in your next column. It is wrong to perpetuate this bias with such naive and erroneous interpretations.

I urge you to rethink critically your endorsement of such a demonstration.

Dear Stephen: Thank you for your letter. I understand your point but do not agree with you. I have seen this demonstration conducted many times with both children and adults. The results are always the same; the lightest is always first, and the darker ones are to the rear. What is amazing is all the lined-up people silently agree to this "pecking order."

I always have wondered what the results would be in other countries. This question would make a good research question. If any student decides to undertake this as a dissertation topic, please share the results.

Dear Larry: A reader of yours had a letter stating that people should be required to take their driver's exams in English because the street signs are written in English. You stated that you agreed with her opinion.

I disagree. I am a U.S.-born citizen, and I speak, read and write virtually English only. I have driven in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark and Germany with a legal license issued in Germany. I obtained this license by passing a test written in English.

Had it been in German, I never would have passed, because my German is limited to reading parts of a menu. — Jack

Dear Jack: Europe is a unique place that does not apply to America. Europe is divided into bickering ethnic groups that have sought to destroy one another.

I believe the only way for America to survive as a united, strong country is to have a language with which we can communicate and to focus on our sameness, not our differences.

To find out more about Larry G. Meeks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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