An African-American family out in New York's Long Island received an
anonymous racist letter from someone in the Village of Lindenhurst. Darcell Copes received the letter, it reads:
Attn: African-American Family
This is coming from Lindenhurst Community.
Lindenhurst is 84% White Population.
You don't belong here!!!
Please leave Lindenhurst as soon as you can.
It will be better for all of us.
Find the town where there are more people like you.
Sorry if this is rude, but it's the truth.
I wanted to spare you the ALL_CAPS.
"The anger was there, the hurt was there, and then, of course, fear," said Darcell Copes, the letter's recipient.
[...]
Darcell said her daughter first noticed the strange letter in the mail Thursday and frantically called her at work.
The family called police and went to Facebook looking for support and support they got. The Town of Babylon's
Facebook page posted a letter signed by 12 elected officials from both Babylon as well as the Village of Lindenhurst,
condemning the intolerant message.
The Suffolk County Hate Crime Unit is also now involved, and Darcell said the support from others has been overwhelming. A little girl even came by to deliver flowers to the family.
County Executive Steve Bellone responded to the letter in a statement calling the person who wrote the letter to Copes a "coward who committed a hate crime against an innocent family."
Mr. Copes also put a message out to the letter writer:
"Sometimes you have a preconceived idea of how a person is just because you don't know them. You don't know how they live, you don't know what they believe," Copes said. "I'll continue to pray for you and you need to get out and meet people."
