Dear Editor:
I am writing in response to Andriy Semotiuk’s opinion piece about the Black Lives Matter movement (June 28-July 5). I find it truly amazing that Mr. Semotiuk attempts to establish a case for Ukrainian Americans/Canadians to rally behind that movement based on a parallel history. It is clear that Mr. Semotiuk either has no understanding of Ukrainian history or is simply ignoring one of the most crucial aspects of our Ukrainian history.
This article presents an extremely one-sided view of Black history in America juxtaposed against a summation of Ukrainian history. What it does not present is specific mention of the Black Lives Matter movement. This group is attempting to fool and strong arm the public into believing that its main focus is to obtain social justice for Blacks. As a Marxist-Anarchist group, its main focus is to destroy the structure of Western civilization in the name of Black social justice, and replace it with a Communist state, not unlike the one we, as Ukrainian Americans and Ukrainian Canadians, are quite familiar with from our tortured relationship with the USSR, and Russia.
Mr. Semotiuk should be embarrassed to mention Dr. Martin Luther King, as Dr. King really did have a dream to improve the lives of Black people within the West. The aims of Black Lives Matter are truly the opposite and would do nothing to improve this situation.
There is nothing that any upstanding Ukrainian can or should do to fund a violent, disruptive and very dangerous group like Black Lives Matter.
Dr. Michael Karol
Danbury, Conn.