This is in regards to Michelle Obama’s reference to the slaves who built the White House in her speech at the Democrat National Convention; Frank Ricci misses the point, “It’s Democrats playing the racial cards,” (Aug 15).

Michelle Obama’s omission of a complete racial breakdown of all those who toiled on the White House between 1795 and 1801 was not meant as a slight to the free African Americans, the immigrants, Native Americans, and others who worked alongside slaves on the building. The point is, when the White House was going up, someone like Michelle Obama would most likely have been a slave. (In fact, some of her ancestors were slaves and some were slave owners.)

Two hundred years later, a descendant of slaves serves as First Lady of the United States, and does so, she said, because over the centuries African Americans “kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done.” She was expressing her daily amazement, pride, and gratitude for that fact in a way that every American ought to be able to feel, regardless of race, unless, of course, they are racists.

Bill O’Reilly and others sought to dismiss the power of Mrs. Obama’s words. They failed.

Mary Beth Baker

New London