To the Editor:

The statements made in today’s Selma Times Journal by the author of the letter “Police Officers Did Nothing Wrong” remind me why I don’t live in Selma anymore.

The racial bigotry I experienced growing up there appears not to have abated much.

In 1978 I vividly remember visiting a black friend in the hospital who had been beaten by police for “running a red light and resisting arrest.”

His real crime: Driving after dark through a white neighborhood.

I take special offense at the not-so-subtle code language “animals'”used to describe criminals in a case as racially charged as this one is.

Honestly, there will always be paleolithic bigots like the author of this letter, but The Selma Times has a duty not to print inflammatory garbage like that in its pages.

Finally, let me give some advice that will warm the hearts of every racist reading your paper: Life for African Americans is a whole lot easier on the West Coast.

I encourage any sane, self-respecting black person reading this to get out of Selma a.s.a.p.

Brenda Watkin