Steven JP Dionne: Littlefield preaches tolerance but acts against it in policy

To The Daily Sun,

What should be more frightening than some basement dweller’s racial epitaphs scrawled on a picnic table is a politician expressing his indignation over the events, as if it where some isolated occurrence within our community.

Outright racism identifies itself by verbiage or action. Far less discernable, even more destructive, is covert racism. The legislative disenfranchising of segments of our community, noninclusion, bullying, censorship, infringement of civil rights, violation of personal freedoms — all ingredients in our socio-political caldron.

Richard Littlefield’s writing suggests the cure to racism lay in the education of our children: "We can show our children through every action how easy it is to be tolerant of people with different lifestyle preferences and different skin colors." Truly a political fraud. This is coming from a representative who supports censorship in education, prohibiting the teaching of the truth of racism in America History. He is the co-author HB 1431, a so-called "Parent’s Bill of Rights." A proposal when peeled to its legislative core amounts to nothing more than a school system being forced to out a student who may be gay, thusly promoting an atmosphere of non-inclusion, social ostracizing and mistrust.

A representative who continues to defend his attack on women’s rights through the support of an irrational and archaic abortion law. A politician who fails to realize stealing $22 million from public schools to offer 3% of NH kids private education, thus driving the disadvantaged further behind, is discriminatory.

The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks six hate groups in NH, such as the Proud Boys and the American Nazi Party. Littlefield’s soliloquy asks what can we do about these groups. He responds, "From a free-will standpoint, absolutely nothing" (BS). Exercising one’s "free-will" doesn’t legitimize the promotion of racism and hatred within any interpretation of constitutional law.

Steven JP Dionne

Laconia