OPINION: Editor's view of history too narrow

As a journalist and consumer of many varied periodicals to feed my thirst for news, I respect the idea of learning from a great array of editorial opinions.

But I find myself continually stunned by the voice in charge of the Daily Inter Lake. Editor Frank Miele’s one-sided view of the world is one thing, but his wildly ill-informed perspective spreads a dangerous message to any reader who uses Miele’s opinions to form their own.

Take last Sunday’s column on Miele lamenting the world as he turns age 60. He longs for the days between 1955 to 1965, when, for example, in kindergarten he and his classmates said their Christian prayers aloud. Frank, I’m not sure my kid’s Jewish and Muslim classmates would agree those were the good ol’ days. In fact, my kid’s black friends and their parents who are my friends would find those years a tad worse than the “evil” you say America has wrought in 2015 by creating a “protected class” of blacks dependent on a welfare state. They’d also be insulted that you lump all blacks in that category.

 Back to your glory decade of 1955 to 1965, they’d probably find the police water cannons used on their ancestors and the separate water fountains, bus seats, restaurant and hotels a little more evil than today. So was their lack of voting rights, only changed by the last year of your big decade, 1965.

Mr. Miele, you say “everything in America today is upside down.” And all that I just mentioned wasn’t? Seriously? What world do you live in? Wait, I know the answer. You don’t live in the world of a black man who gets stopped by police, daily, in America today for driving while black.

THAT, my newspaper editor friend, is what’s still upside down today in the country. Not the food stamps that are used 99 percent of the time for food by statistically poor people, as conservative columnist David Brooks found through his own investigation.

You often preach from high atop a gorgeous Montana mountaintop about how this country should be run. Yet you’ve never walked in the shoes of a black, brown or any person who isn’t the majority. Widen your lens, Frank. You’ll be a better journalist for it. —Mark Suppelsa, Bigfork and Chicago