To the editor:

I’m writing to support the two women cowardly targeted by bigots here in Plattsburgh and Saranac Lake.

A book published in 1914 titled “Lake Placid Club of the Adirondack Lakes” was an advertisement to lure wealthy city patrons to visit their Lake Placid Club and the surrounding area.

On page 2 of the membership rules, it clearly states “no one will be received as a member or a guest against whom there is any reasonable, physical, moral, social or race objections or who would be unwelcome by even a small minority.”

These rules reveal the wealthy owners’ and patrons’ belief in white superiority. This denied membership to Blacks, Asians, Jews and other faiths.

In addition to this “exclusion” statement, patrons are pictured with wives and children dressed as Indians, having tribal meetings, and 100-foot-high bonfires for days (pic No. 2).

The acts of random racism here in Plattsburgh and Saranac Lake 106 years after wealthy adults played Indian and got away with racism must be seen as a lamppost to illuminate just how little we have changed.

Just like the present virus, if 95% of us resist racist ideology it is the non-compliant 5% who reinfect others and continue to terrorize and kill people of color.

Robert Jewell

Morrisonville