For the country's racial healing, break this cycle

Eric Garner, George Floyd and now Daunte Wright, just to name a few ["Police chief: Taser, not gun, was the intention," News, April 13]. The names and circumstances may be different, but the four-part pattern almost always seems the same:

1) A young black man is stopped by the police over a minor infraction.

2) The young man reacts by resisting the police.

3) The police overreact to the man’s actions, and a senseless death occurs.

4) A community is enraged, and the police come under fire.

Somehow, we need to break this cycle to have any chance of racial healing as a nation.

Gary Anderson, Smithtown

Wealthy, not poor, get quick action

I read with incredulity "State to challenge Hamptons wind plan" [LI Business, April 9], reporting on New York’s challenge to the wind farms off Long Island’s coast (Hamptons), where the wealthy and privileged live and play. The residents are apparently disturbed that the turbines will be visible 15 miles offshore, so the state rushes to their aid while residents in Black and Latino communities suffer the deadly effects of pollution every day.

The highest rates of COVID-19 have occurred in lower-income neighborhoods, the sites of major arterial highways, waste transfer facilities, power plants and airports. This is the face of environmental racism and injustice. Rates of asthma and other serious respiratory illnesses are exponentially higher in these communities, yet Albany is quick to respond to relocating wind turbines because they can be seen from 15 miles away?

Where is the urgency to shut down oil and gas plants in low-income neighborhoods of residents who breathe the particulate matter every day? While wealthy New Yorkers left the city in droves to wait out the pandemic in the suburbs of Long Island and Westchester, others remained in harm’s way, vulnerable largely due to poverty and lack of privilege.

Monica Weiss, Jamaica

The East End of Long Island, aka "the Hamptons," is home to one of the largest commercial fishing fleets in the Northeast. These fleets are based in Montauk and the Shinnecock Inlet. The fishing industry provides a large amount of healthy seafood to the metropolitan area’s restaurants and stores, and its fishing grounds should be protected. Many land-based sites throughout New York State, such as the Adirondacks, would provide a better environment for wind turbines. These upstate sites are away from the corrosive saltwater environment found in the Atlantic Ocean. It also would be easier to connect these sites to the power grid.

Ernie Trillo, Hampton Bays

Use federal money to strengthen LI grid

The proposed American Jobs Plan could provide funding to help the Long Island Power Authority update Long Island’s electric grid ["Biden details massive $2T infrastructure plan," News, April 1]. This plan could earmark $100 billion of these funds to make electric grids more resilient to climate disasters.

LIPA should use the monies from this plan to bury parts of the electric grid most vulnerable to storm and weather events. Currently, most of Long Island’s electric transmission and distribution system is aboveground, covering approximately 10,000 miles of overhead wires.

Major storms such as Tropical Storm Isaias, superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Gloria did great harm to our electric grid and caused widespread damage to homes and businesses. Even what may be considered minor storms have been disruptive to several parts of Long Island, knocking out power for several hours to several days.

Burying our power lines would benefit every Long Islander and our economy.

Ed Romaine, Farmingville

Editor’s note: The writer is Brookhaven Town supervisor.

Nursing: A profession, not a trade

I take umbrage to the article "LI community colleges see huge drop in enrollment" [News, April 18]. It says, "The schools also provide a valuable training ground for people seeking employment in trades such as nursing . . . ." I find this characterization insulting.

My license states that I am a registered professional nurse. Nursing is a profession, not a trade. Given all the COVID-19 issues that nurses have had to deal with over the past year, and the praise lavished on them, deservedly so, including by Newsday, the article should have been more respectful to nurses.

Patricia Howlett, West Islip

It’s the days of whine and losers

Can anyone pinpoint the exact moment we became a nation of sore losers? A former president continues to whine about unproven election fraud months after losing (enough to cause an entire state to pass voting restriction legislation). And now a union organization is contesting results because workers handily decided not to join it ["Workers at Amazon’s Alabama warehouse vote not to form union," News, April 10]? What’s next, every losing school board candidate objecting? Or winning high school student government slates being challenged? If you lose, suck it up and move on.

Tom Sena, Merrick