Letters: Solomon Jones stirs up trouble with column on stealing from black culture

REGARDING SOLOMON JONES' column about Melania Trump's alleged plagiarism ("Whites have long stolen, benefited from black culture"):

Solomon Jones, are you nuts? What in the world are you thinking? Are we trying to start a race war or trying to keep peace? I swear, you writers only want to keep tension in and around our city. You associate plagiarism with slavery, huh? I don't even think one (plagiarism) existed when the other (slavery) was even around.

It was 51 words out of 1,500, and you call that clear proof of plagiarism. What would you say if I showed you a video speech that has President Obama saying almost the exact same thing as President George W. Bush did years ago - what is that? Does it not matter when it's the other way around? Is it because it's politics?

Your column is deplorable and needs to be retracted; you are trying to reload an obvious already smoking gun. Why are you even feeding into these campaign antics? Why not write an opinion letter on why Michelle Obama made a derogatory remark about our flag? Maybe write about why we really fear her - her words, her actions already prove that she isn't 100 percent American, but that doesn't matter to you, because, going by your column, you too want to divide our country.

Every day, there are articles in the Daily News about school reform and giving our children a better education by getting more funding for the schools, etc., but every day there also is an article by an obviously confused writer who wants only to teach young minds about how to hold on to tension, resentment and negative belief. We reap what we sow.

Just one question, Mr. Jones: What race were the cavemen, or the American Indians? I was taught that we learned most of our everyday survival skills from them. I never knew until just now that I was stealing from then all along, just to survive.

The City of Brotherly Love was once a great place to live. Why in the world you want it to become the city of racially divided people is beyond me.

Andrew J. Dankanich

Philadelphia

The situation with SEPTA has gotten out of hand. Its incompetence led to hiring a company that never should have been chosen to build the Silverliner V rail cars. If SEPTA spent as much time making sure it hired a reliable company to construct safe rail cars as it does making sure the decibel levels in the speakers inside the cars aree high enough to blast the stupid announcements into people's ears throughout the trains, this problem might not have occurred.

It is bad enough that the problem exists. However, SEPTA has managed to destroy the transportation system in Philadelphia and surrounding counties. Trains are habitually late. Not five or 10 or even 15 minutes, but 30 minutes, 60 minutes, and many times more - and that's assuming trains even bother to show up at all.

Despite the fact that it feels like 100 degrees many times, SEPTA refuses to turn on air conditioning in many cars. On many other occasions, SEPTA will close off cars despite the fact people are crammed into trains like farm animals. People are clustered on top of one another and sweating profusely, because SEPTA won't open up available cars and won't turn on air conditioning.

Perhaps if Mayor Kenney and City Council stop thinking of ways to pass idiotic taxes to drive more people out of this city and make citizens' lives more expensive, maybe they could do something about this. Either the city or state should take over SEPTA, because it has shown itself to be grossly incompetent and incapable of running a transit agency.

Todd Cohen

Philadelphia

An African-American merchant at the Cherry Hill Mall was recently ordered to stop selling T-shirts denouncing police brutality, setting off a social media frenzy and a boycott of the mall. Then, mall management suddenly reversed its decision and offered the merchant a public apology. By this time, he had decided to conduct business elsewhere.

For decades, chain retail stores have offered all sorts of distasteful T-shirts for sale, but you've never, ever heard of any being targeted. But when a regular guy comes along selling shirts that denounce police brutality - a serious problem in America - he immediately becomes a target. Unbelievable!

Rob Boyden

Drexel Hill, Pa.