Editor:

You know all of "Humboldt County" is stolen land, right?

This narrative (Mailbox, March 29) by white people about wanting to keep the McKinley statue where it's located, or around town, even at the museum in Ohio, is some racist nonsense. Preference to white supremacy, which McKinley and the colonists who committed all sorts of atrocities here stood for, goes against any idea of equality based on culture or race. Feeling entitled to have a vote about a matter, in a place that the people living there before you were forcefully removed with violence, is a disgusting opinion.

How do we acknowledge that we are only in this place because some crude humans showed up one day claiming rights to the land and continue living our lives here as if that's not true? If we understand now that doing all the things Europeans and early Americans did to Native people is wrong, bad, improper, cruel, etc., then why do we honor or pay tribute to it?

You know Arcata's "plaza" is a way to erase the history of Wiyot people? Does that sit well with you? 

Stanton Wood, Eureka