I am writing this letter because I learned something this week that was very disturbing to me.

It is my understanding that a black pre-kindergarten student at John-Johnson Elementary School wore an Obama T-shirt to school, and his teacher made him take it off. As we all know, Mr. Obama is the president-elect of the United States.

My question is, “What was wrong with this child or any child wearing a shirt with the picture of the president on it?” Surely this child, at such an early age, wondered why he had to remove his clothes.

The parents had to carefully explain to him without imposing prejudice into his mind that people think and act differently under certain circumstances. But regardless of how it was explained, this experience has scared this child for life. This teacher is supposed to mold the minds of these children, not destroy their belief in equality, justice and pursuit of happiness.

What kind of messages are we sending to our children?

Is our country still so divided that a black man cannot be accepted as president?

If the child wearing this T-shirt upset the teacher so bad, why is she allowed to teach our black children? Who knows, she may be teaching an upcoming president.

It is my opinion that she should be called in and fired for her actions. If she hates the fact that Obama is our president and the child should not have worn him on his shirt, maybe she wants us to take Washington off of the dollar, Lincoln off of the five, and Benjamin Franklin off of the 100 dollar bill. Or is it that she just cannot accept the fact that a black man is leader of this country.

Her rationale for taking such an action as removing the child’s clothing is unacceptable. This election is over and Obama is president. In any election, somebody is going to win that we might not like, but we live on and support our leaders.

Many people were disturbed when George Bush was re-elected. People all around the world could not understand why he was re-elected, but we made him president and four years later, look at the state of affairs.

Barack Obama is the president-elect of the United States of America, and it is time for us to lay down all of the prejudices and support him as he tries to straighten out our country. We cannot expect him to walk in the White House and make the economy turn around the next day. First, he has to identify the major problems and began making changes. Also, we cannot expect him to make changes by himself.

In our local areas, we must come together and implement change. We are all one people just in many different colors with different values. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had the dream and Barack Obama is the dream. Give him a chance and do what you can to help him.

Respectfully submitted,

Bernice “Honey” McCloud

P.S. I sure you all remember the story of Noah in the Bible. It is time for us to come together as a people because He’s coming back again and there is no where in the Bible that says He’ll be looking for blacks, whites, Jews, Gentiles, Hispanics or other races. He’s going to be looking for the pure in heart.