Dear Editor:

I have just finished listening (Thursday, Oct. 10) to Maine Public Radio’s program, Maine Calling, whose topic was the new March on Poverty. The program made no mention whatever about the endemic racism that prevails in rural Maine. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was just as viral here as in the deep South.  Even now, I have relatives who sound exactly like neighbors I've had in Miami and Houston. Chilling, just how offhand, taken for granted, are these obnoxious sentiments and language. 

My relatives (and I, myself) are not exactly poor, but we're none of us prosperous. The white rural working poor are the ones who need to be energized.

Therefore, why are the March organizers having tonight's rally in wealthy, relatively cosmopolitan Portland, when they ought to have it in Lewiston/Auburn, Orono or Skowhegan, or any center in northwestern Maine, where the poverty largely is? Also, First People communities need to be reached.

 I grind my teeth when I see so much “good will” being wasted on the choir.

Joanna Cameron

Edgecomb