Letter: Why can’t we treat all people with dignity and respect?

Saturday, Aug. 23, 1997 | 3:29 a.m.

People in different industries used different languages. Doctors, miners, sailors, machinists all used terminology based on other languages. Lawyers used a dialect - familiar terms that mean one thing in common use, but are entirely abstract in a legal usage.

A lot of the same people that Pearl Zanetti in her letter despises and ridicules are here to have an opportunity to live better, be treated better and earn from their sweat a better and more humane existence. Yet there are those who would deny that another human being be judged as human and capable of many of the same feelings as the rest of us. These same "subcitizens" are those that pick our fruit and vegetables, clean hotel rooms and wait tables, dig holes and pour concrete and stucco houses all day long - cold weather or hot, bake and boil in laundries through Las Vegas. These are menial jobs that don't pay much, jobs that most regular "citizens" wouldn't perform for five times the money. Yet all these "subcitizens" get are insults, ridicule, prejudice and isolation.

For a "Christian nation," our conduct toward others not like us isn't very Christian-like at all.

Our life is determined by what we do right now. How things once were, or how we want them to be, has no bearing on what we have to do today. No more can we go back to our home in 1966 than we can go ahead to 2026. Not a year ago, not a day ago, nor three days from now, we can fight each other or we can work together. We can tear each other down or together we can build! We simply cannot work together unless we share knowledge, ideas and techniques using a few understandable words in each language.

Is it too much to ask that we humanely treat one another with dignity, respect and comprehension? Do we really have to hate our neighbor? Or despise them because they have customs and mannerisms somewhat different from our own?

Aaron Lester