The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis is more than a reminder of white supremacy’s perpetrated racism. It is a modern day act of structural violence against an African-American. It is a public lynching of an African-American by a white supremacist who is a cop.

I am an angry person, not just because of the death of Mr. Floyd, but because I continue to permit structural violence racism — to exist. In essence, each of us had a hand in the treatment of Mr. Floyd by our not demanding racial justice and equity now and by not creating a cleansing revolution now.

We don’t need any commissions to “study” anything. The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy and all of us must commit to boldly remove white supremacy’s presence, remembering, for so many of us, the primary message of Pogo’s existential reality — we are the enemy.

JOHN WHITLEY

Williamsburg

The writer is a board member of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.

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We need to ask ourselves: Why is the U.S. veterans hospital in Richmond named honoring Hunter Holmes McGuire, an avowed racist medical officer in the Confederate Army who fought against the United States government? Why is the statue of this racist Confederate medical officer gracing the Virginia Capitol grounds?

Why do our African-American veterans, who have fought and sacrificed for the United States, need to enter the Veterans Administration hospital through a gateway that honors a racist officer of the Confederate Army?

Dr. McGuire’s fame rests primarily on his service to the Confederate Army as the surgeon-in-chief to Confederate Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson. If Gen. Jackson’s statue is to be removed from Monument Avenue, should we not also remove the statue of his doctor from Capitol Square?

The shocking, racist beliefs of Hunter Holmes McGuire are found in his own words printed in the 1901 introduction of a racist book, “The Old Plantation: How We lived in the Great House and Cabin Before the War,” by James B. Avirett. This book was written as a counter narrative to the exposé of the cruelty of slavery found in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a book Dr. McGuire described in his introduction as “bad.”

Hunter Holmes McGuire bemoans, “... the manumission and enfranchisement of a race inferior both from heredity and servility.” He goes on to write, “Public opinion from the lakes to the gulf, is voicing American utterance as to the superiority of the Caucasian race.”

As an avowed supporter of the institution of slavery 35 years after the Civil War, Dr. McGuire writes in the final paragraph of his racist screed, “The truth is the institution [of slavery] had knit the hearts of the two races together too tenderly, in the happy life of the old plantation” He opines that, “... the race problem of the South would be solved — not in the penalties of odious lynch law, but in the displacement of the fiendish crimes which lead up to it.”

In his introduction, Dr. McGuire writes that, “The day of our vindication in the world’s judgment is nigh at hand.” But rather than his vindication, the world’s judgment instead indicates that indeed time is nigh at hand for the immediate removal of the name of this racist Confederate officer, Hunter Holmes McGuire, from the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Richmond, as well as the removal of his statue from the capitol grounds.

CHARLES POOL

Richmond

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We all are immigrants. None of us can say this country belongs to us. If anyone can make that claim, it would be the Indians that were here before us. Everyone else came by choice or by force.

African-Americans were stolen from their homelands, adventurers came seeking new opportunities, criminals ostracized from their countries came here and indentured servants came to seek their freedom.

Upon finding that Africans could survive the diseases and sickness brought here by slave owners, many more black people were ripped from families and homelands to be brought unwillingly to this strange new land to build a world that was the dream of the other immigrants.

The Africans became property to be sold and claimed, losing their human identities.

When the Constitution was written, it was not written to include the black man or woman. When “The Star-Spangled Banner” was sung, it didn’t recognize the African-American community. The Electoral College was implemented to diminish our voting power.

As the African-American community began to fight, die for freedom and be recognized as a human and a whole person and able to vote, run for office, own property and become a force to be reckoned with, we were still met with resistance and retaliation simply because we wanted ownership in a country we had been forced to be a part of.

Today, many believe African-Americans don’t deserve to be treated with respect, shouldn’t be given opportunities or even allowed to dream of a better life. Many were raised with this distorted and flawed vision because they have the fallacy to think America is their country and they have this idea that “white privilege” is a reality.

When people like George Floyd are murdered right before our eyes and nothing is done about it until protests and outrage began throughout the world because people are fed up, reality begins to set in. We are watching and taping, speaking out, voting in record numbers and holding people accountable for their bad decisions, murders, lies and deceit because we are human beings with rights and we deserve respect. We deserve to dream. And we deserve to live.

Black lives do matter!

PATRICIA BROWN

North Chesterfield

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I have been silent for as long as I could, but now I need to ask: What’s wrong with some white people?

For centuries you have told us what you believed was wrong with us. So now I ask, what’s wrong with you? Do you value human life? Is human life more valuable than money? How can you remain silent as a wave of domestic terrorism continually sweeps across the country? Why are you more threatened by an unarmed black man walking or running down the street than a fully armed white man carrying assault weapons, dressed for battle and threatening police officers at a state capitol building? How can you talk about the sanctity of life yet remain silent as an epidemic of violence is perpetuated by white people on black people?

We are threatened and the police are called for activities that you perform every day. Yes, I know that you like to counter this discussion by talking about black-on-black crime, but you still won’t acknowledge the fact that the problem is that black people are targeted by white people every day for no reason, except that they are black.

You are proud of your Christian faith, but do not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ in Matthew 25. What kind of faith do you have that allows you to use the Bible to justify intolerance, hate, bigotry and slavery? Even John in the Bible said that you can’t really say that you love God and hate God’s people.

By now you should be angry and upset. Maybe now you can begin to imagine the anger I feel when I see another one of my black brothers and sisters murdered by a white person who believed they had the right to do so without consequences. Maybe now you might imagine how upset I am when I see a video of a black man, woman or child having the police called on them for no reason, or some random white person stopping to question them because they can.

Before you write me off as just some racist, angry black woman, try this: Read this letter again and reverse the races. Insert white every time it says black and insert black when it says white. Now pay attention to how you feel at the end. If your feelings have changed, maybe it’s time to say something.

When you don’t speak up and speak out, your silence gives consent.

WALTENA DOWNS PRIDE

North Chesterfield

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I read in the Richmond Free Press that Mayor Levar M. Stoney and Councilman Michael J. Jones are working on legislation to remove what was described as the “four other Confederate statues” on Monument Avenue.

I suggest we all collectively pump the brakes for a moment. The Matthew Fontaine Maury statue is not a Confederate statue, at least not in the traditional sense.

Mr. Maury’s contribution to science, specific to oceanography, is why there is a statue on Monument Avenue honoring him, not because he was a Confederate naval officer.

When the city wants to do things quickly, oftentimes there is oversight. For example, the name of the street I live on is supposed to honor Richmond native Arthur Ashe Jr., but instead carries his father’s name because “Junior” was omitted.

TONY WELLS

Richmond

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The killing of George Floyd, an African-American, under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer was the equivalent of a 21st century hanging on view for the masses on an electronic device.

Your May 28-30 editorial, “America does not value the lives of black people,” was dead on in laying out five pillars for “swift, determined and sustained action.”

YES for investigating and prosecuting;

YES for Minneapolis and all U.S. police departments to root out/remove bad officers;

YES for having national databases to monitor/track abusive officers;

YES for establishing independent citizen review panels to ensure accountability and transparency; and

YES for voting wisely in November.

Immediately, while not his 95 theses that Martin Luther nailed to the church door in 1517, reading your pillars struck me as such.

The urgency today has been real since 14-year-old Emmett Till’s death in 1955. Yet, a new century has proven no better. The laws and the system need to change now.

We, the U.S.A., cannot afford another one. Press on.

ALDRIC CRAWLEY

Richmond