In another short-sighted move, the president signed an executive order yesterday suspending certain temporary work visas through the end of the year. While he used the coronavirus as cover, the move is consistent with the administration’s ongoing assault on legal immigration, asylum, and guest-worker programs. The H-1B visa suspension is particularly incomprehensible right now, as it will bar skilled workers who fill important niches in key areas like tech and research that American workers alone cannot. At a time when our economy is deep in recovery mode, depriving the nation of workers who can provide needed expertise that drives American business doesn’t help us—it helps our competitors. —Mindy Finn

As a white child, I was exposed to anti-black racism in the late 1940s and early 1950s: learning limericks and "eeny meeny miney mo"; watching black contractors doing outside work while not allowed in our home; visiting family with a grocery store who wouldn't allow black staff into their home in the back of the store; seeing separate black and white drinking fountains, and black passengers having to sit in the back of public transportation; my father changing the channel or turning off the TV if Sammy Davis, Jr., or Nat King Cole performed. Now in my 80s and, at last, finally understanding, from those experiences of people's prejudice over the years, the truth in today's strong effort to have all Americans truly equal in life.

The second-hand stories of random violence against black citizens and my personal experiences in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in my job and in the Navy, of the rampant discrimination, should have been unacceptable to me but was, instead, ignored. To accept that learned discrimination from my childhood and how it has affected my life over the years is, to me now, an error in my judgment which I take responsibility for today. I strongly support the movement to have all people of color accepted and treated equally, as all of our citizens, by law as Americans under our Constitution, are "created equally." —Kerry S., California

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