Dear Ed Gillespie,

You are aiding and abetting in the type of repulsive politics that could make the Republican Party as notorious as the swastika.

Your campaign ads conflating undocumented immigrants with gangsters sadden me.

I would think that you, being the son of an Irish immigrant, would be one of the last people to endorse stereotypes and blanket generalizations.

Despite the fact that this nation was built on the inhumane treatment of enslaved Africans flagellated by white Americans for the benefit of free labor, I have learned to judge people by the content of their character and not their skin color, or political party.  

When I was a new voter, I used to vote straight down the party line. My family is from Abe Lincoln’s state and we take emancipation and voting seriously. But, we weren’t savvy enough to research candidates prior to the elections and often the first time I heard of some of the local candidates was on Election Day. I seldom even knew when the primaries were. So I voted for whomever was affiliated with the party in which I was registered.

As a college student I became critical about who I endorsed and why. I realized that my signature had meaning and that putting my “John Hancock” on the dotted line shouldn’t be taken lightly.  

Your approach to getting voters is traumatic and reminds me of Virginia’s discriminatory history.

Even with the increasingly radicalized, divided and polarized country that we live in, Virginia has, to me, become the moral conscience of America.

We’re a swing state because our citizens care about principles and not just politics.

I’m proud to be a Virginian.

And as a person of color and as a person of faith, I cannot in good conscience vote for you on Nov. 7. I can’t vote for you because of the way you have stereotyped Latinos in your campaign ads. The ads are racist, and racism will neither make Virginia safer nor stronger.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Quan Williams

Richmond

The writer is policy director of New Virginia Majority.