Letters from our readers.
March 20 1998 3:30 AM

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Dentists Don't Need Welfare

Regarding Stephen Chapman's "Geeks Don't Need Welfare":

The same thing happened in dentistry in the late 1960s and 1970s. With increased government funding for training dentists, the nation got more dentists just in time for the full effect of fluoridated water to kick in. The result: thousands of unemployed or underemployed dentists through the late 1970s and early 1980s.

--Mike Rethman, D.D.S., M.S.

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Words, Words, Words

I just had to comment on the commentary in "Today's Papers" (March 13th) on the "N word." I am an African-American with many black friends and family members. No one I associate with uses the term "nigger" to describe each other or any other black person for that matter. I question what research and/or actual experience was used to determine that "since it has become a common phrase of salutation and even endearment among blacks, a high proportion of its current usage is in fact as a synonym for 'black person.' "

While that comment sounds like amusing irony, it is in reality a dangerous assumption based on very little (if any) actual experience with people who have had the offensive term used to describe them. It is a propagation of the myth that if black people would just respect themselves, they would receive respect from other races in America. You may never understand how offensive that word is to a black person--but trust me, as a black person in America, it in no way meets my approval as an appropriate word to use to describe a human being.

--Janet Richards

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