Paul Sutton’s comments in response to John Carlson’s articles about racial misunderstandings regarding Dr. Gates anger about racial profiling were right on. I often appreciate Carlson’s wisdom but, as a white man, he does not and cannot walk in the shoes of a targeted man of color.

Like Sutton, I am also a white man. I was raised in a redneck community of “us” and “others.”

Two of my most provocative experiences: Forty years ago, as a counselor is a small Eastside community I was called upon by the superintendent of schools to counsel with a black couple when the enraged father threatened to “blow up the school” because he thought his daughter was mistreated by a white teacher. Tempers cooled and this incident remained unrevealed and unpublicized. The girl’s father was reacting to personal trauma when he saw a lynching in the rural south as a teenager.

Years later my son, mistaken for a Latino because his mother is Japanese, was tackled and handcuffed by a policeman when my son chased down a robber running from a store. This policeman’s partner tried to correct the offensive officer who refused to believe that a “Mexican looking” youth could actually be catching the crook.

I agree with Sutton and President Obama we do “need to spend more time listening.”

Bob Olson, Bellevue