Readers Write (Dec. 7): Talking about race, sentencing disparities, Indian schools, President Obama, millennials and transit

The world continues to struggle with the issue of "race." I offer up a reasonable place to start dealing with this age-old issue in a meaningful way. We need to stop talking about race and racial differences. We now know that there is only one race and that we all belong to it — the species Homo sapiens and our subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens. It is not race that divides us, but things like color, national origin, ethnicity, religion, culture and probably anything else we can think of that can help us conveniently define something as "other."

Do not think this is any simplistic, naive or superficial idea. Words are important, and "race" has become so emotionally charged it is difficult to get beyond it. We need to change our thinking and get to a place where we all recognize our most basic commonality. From there we can begin to parse and deal with our differences — which are many — and perhaps deal with them in more meaningful ways.

Please stop talking about racial differences and racial issues. Work to be more honest and specific: "I am uncomfortable with the color of your skin." "I don't know much about your country of origin." "Your religious beliefs are mystifying." "I know nothing about the subculture to which you belong." These are the real issues, and the word "race" only obfuscates them. There is nothing wrong with being suspicious or fearful or ignorant. These are all fixable human foibles. But none of us can change our race. And we are all members of the same one.

Judge Morris B. Hoffman's piece, "The intricate truths of sentencing disparities" (Nov. 30), didn't address who is picked up, prosecuted and then locked up for nonviolent crimes and why.

For instance, a black person in the United States is four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, despite similar rates of marijuana use. And in New York from 2002 to 2011, blacks and Hispanics made up 90 percent of those stopped. Why would that be?

Rather than belittling the book "The New Jim Crow," he ought to answer its points. Hoffman might also read "Burning Down the House," by Nell Bernstein, which highlights how racism plays out in the growing business of juvenile prisons, and Bryan Stevenson's book "Just Mercy," about profiling and abuse within the justice system. The points these books make aren't nonsense, as Hoffman claims.

To answer the concerns emphasized by Hoffman, no one is arguing that we shouldn't punish fairly the seriously bad guys and keep them from harming others. He was being disingenuous in suggesting such an approach was being challenged. But between the "prohibition" mentality toward drug use that spawned entire industries on both sides of the law and selective targeting of minority populations, the "intricate truth" isn't all that "intricate." We are targeting minorities for nonviolent offenses and tearing apart their communities and the country as a result.

Our nation is a mix of immigrants, most of whom started here as minorities, whether they be Irish, Polish, Jewish, etc. And our Constitution was specifically written to provide for equality for all of them. The minority with more heritage than all others is the American Indians — the people who welcomed our first settlers. Yet throughout our nation's history, they have been and remain the most neglected minority.

Your editorial made me sad for our nation. Where is our outrage! We provide outreach aid for the world, yet permit this kind of neglect in our own back yard. Our politicians say the right things around election time and when media are present, but for centuries, nothing has happened. So with a little encouragement from all of us, maybe we can make our Sen. Al Franken and President Obama, who are both referred to in the article, follow up with action on their words of encouragement to the Indians when they recently visited their reservations. With the new executive order on immigration, the neglect of "our own" is only accentuated.

It is time to say, "Stop the finger pointing and crying of budget issues," and finally do what is right and just.

We, as Americans, can and must do better for our American Indians!

An Obama-bashing letter writer in the Readers Write section (Nov. 30) took a two-fisted approach. In the letter's first paragraph, the writer described President Obama as "our rogue president" because he disagrees with the administration's recent executive order on U.S. immigration policy. In the second paragraph, the writer referred to a recent story in the Star Tribune about the sorry state of American Indians' schools ("Separate and Unequal") and lambasted the president for having skewed priorities. (Apparently, poor Indian schools = Obama's fault). The letter demonstrates perfectly the "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't" culture of criticism surrounding this president.