Dear Editor:
The suggestion to ban the St. Patrick’s Day Parade from Hoboken is an utterly absurd gesture. This parade celebrates the traditions and pride of the Irish American people. Punishing any group, whatever race, creed, religion, sex or national origin is against all American principles
There are absolutely no evidences linking the founders of the parade or their ethnicity, which makes them guilty of initiating or condoning these outlandish accusations of immoral public behavior, which would justify the parade’s demise. This unacceptable behavior is being used as a tool to escalate unjustified bias, prejudice and fear, relating their mitigating baseless agenda.
Do the citizens of Hoboken, who are against the parade, actually think this will cease or reduce the celebration? Do they actually think that abolishing this event will eliminate individuals, who are intoxicated, urinating and performing immoral sexual acts in public, loitering and littering by miraculously spreading a magic carpet of morality?
I am not of Irish descent nor a resident of Hoboken but I feel compelled to offer my protest and outcry of a situation unfairly geared on pointing fingers based and filled with empty assumptions and no substance.
Remember the immortal words of Pastor Martin Niemöller who wrote,
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out
William P. Frasca
Jersey City