Today, we have moved beyond

overt racism, classism, and sexism to a more covert form that manifests

itself within "statistics." Instead of having the insight to

see why it is that a majority of people of color is locked away in our

nation's prisons, we make sweeping generalizations that minorities and

low-income residents cause more crime.

There is a distinct difference

between a criminal and a person who is criminalized. There are many laws

that have tendencies to criminalize minorities and low-income residents

rather than bring justice where it is deserved. One example is the crack-cocaine

law.

I am not advocating a process

of excusing crime but rather I am inviting you to question the supposed

statistics that our country has come to believe as the steadfast truth.

And, I am also inviting you to examine the justice in excluding people

from Peachtree City based on their race or income.

Peachtree City is already a

very sheltered and nonrepresentative town, and to continue to keep it

this way and call that responsible development is foolish and close-minded.

I am the first to criticize

the continued expansion of big businesses into every part of our nation,

but the automatic causal relationship that results between business expansion,

minorities, and low-income residents to crime is based on a faulty premise

of logic. This is not a causal relationship, but rather a socially constructed

argument to keep certain individuals out of Peachtree City.

Now, if Mr. Barr and Mr. Thompson

would like to have prospective Peachtree City residents meet specific

racial and class criteria, they should really just come out and state

that.

We live in a dynamic and changing

world. Thus, expansion and inclusion are the only hope we have in making

this world a better place, and the polar opposite of that is what Peachtree

City would become if we resort to so-called "responsible development."

My proposal is that we consider

why certain stereotypes about crime and minorities have been made and

how statistics are formulated to perpetuate those stereotypes. The Band-Aid

measures of exclusion that Barr and Thompson propose do not solve anything,

but rather isolate us from a world that we cannot simply ignore, but rather

as good citizens must actively engage in.

Lakshmi Sridaran

UC-Berkeley student and

Peachtree City resident