Editor,

In regard to the mayor’s recent letter to the editor about racial profiling: I found his response to be inconsistent with an actual response to the cases that were alleged. The rally the mayor referred to took place on the courthouse steps. It was sanctioned by the NAACP and highlighted young black males and their experiences with alleged police profiling.

Profiling is the act of suspecting or targeting a person solely on the basis of observed racial characteristics or behavior. Police profiling of black people are synonymous with the Jim Crow laws that separated blacks and whites at the turn of 20th century.

Black males were particularly targeted when driving, pulled over, sometimes charged with an offense, sometimes allowed to leave, but always harassed. Verbal and physical assaults were considered customary and, unfortunately, sometime fatal.

This is the 21st century, and the racial climate has calmed tremendously since the days of Jim Crow. We have become a country, state and city focused on progressive principles with the primary hub being education for the masses. We’ve gone from being a country that once profited from buying, selling and trading human cargo, to a country that has taken the likeness of that same human cargo and voted him into the highest position in this country. That clearly exemplifies the progressive principles of our evolving country.

Going from a state where "cotton was king and slavery was the thing," to currently having black mayors in the former capital city of Savannah, and the now-capital, Atlanta, again illustrates how progressive principles focusing on education continue to show how our state has evolved. In celebration of the historic election of Mayor Jim Thomas, who I firmly supported, Hinesville has shown signs of how we have evolved as a city.

In light of the recent allegations of racial profiling, which sparked the rally held by the NAACP during which front-lining young men and their parents protested the alleged mistreatment suffered at the hands of the Hinesville Police Department, I couldn’t help but to think how far we have come to get to this point.

This point being, of course, the mayor’s decision to write a letter to the local newspaper detailing the "high ethical standards and conduct" of his police department.

Unfortunately, the letter did not answer the questions or concerns of the populace that brought on the allegations of police profiling. Not once did he reflect on the actual persons involved in the particular cases that were discussed during the rally. It almost seems like he inferred that there are no cases being investigated currently.

I find this disheartening, to have such cases being alleged and no direct response to them after the history of such a show of intimidation being perpetrated on particular people, without any real reasoning, except to harass and evoke fear.

Surely, America, Georgia and specifically Hinesville have progressed beyond the point of a mere "overshadowing" of such strong historically negative and divisive allegations, with just a tutorial on police ethical standards and conduct.