The headline "We have learned nothing" in Susan Reimer's column ("Baltimore takes center stage over Freddie Gray," April 30) says it all. Many of her insights about the cycle of poverty and violence are depressingly accurate — some of the incidents of looting and burning were on the exact same streets as those affected in the Baltimore riots of 1968. The same streets. In 50 years we can't come together to rebuild and move forward?
One line however missed the point entirely. Ms. Reimer talks about her lack of hope that the cycle can be broken, writing "What happened in Baltimore was utterly predictable. There was no way that the dignified protest would not deteriorate into recreational looting." Really? Thousands of public protests over the last five decades, here and elsewhere, did not devolve into such chaos. Equating protest outcomes to criminal activity just fuels misconceptions and undermines public outcry over the questions raised by Freddie Gray's death. Such a low opinion of our city fosters no hope of change at all. We can't just "shake our heads." We must put them together. Otherwise we have truly learned nothing indeed.
J.C. Simpson, Baltimore