The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal.” If this is true, how is it that so much inequality exists in America today?

It’s apparent to me that politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, have created this inequality just to advance their own political ambitions.

I had a dream that the policies of personal destruction of one’s political opponents and the demonizing of America by American politicians when on foreign soil would cease.

My dream included that individuals would be judged by character and by their personal abilities and initiative rather than by the color of their skin; that affirmative action, diversity and quota systems were a thing of the past; that individuals would achieve the American Dream through their own personal qualities and not by governmental handouts.

I dreamed that politicians would no longer refer to the citizens of the United States as IrishAmericans, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans or any other hyphenatedAmerican but instead would refer to all the citizens as Americans of Irish, Mexican or African ancestry.

We would be a nation of unified Americans, and we would enjoy the respect and envy of the entire world.

Politicians would no longer place citizens of the U.S. into ethnic groups and pit one ethnic group against another just to further their own political ambitions.

Politicians often play the “race card” to distract voters from important issues of the day. We see this distraction when the president of the United States recently stated that a white police officer acted stupidly in arresting a black American.

With the world around us falling apart, this distraction received as much if not more media coverage than any of the more important issues of the day. Gus Smyrnos Newbury Park