Noise violation penalties too strict, no warning given

Dear Editor,

This letter is to discuss how noise violations are handled in the city of Harrisonburg. No longer do the police issue a warning and promise to return with a ticket; now they offer you a citation and a warning that if they have to return, you will be taken to the city lockup.

Where is the justice in treating honest, hard-working citizens like common criminals for playing their music too loud or having a few friends over to relax after a grueling week of work?

Residents of Harrisonburg's noncollegiate apartment complexes should not be penalized for the mere fact that they cannot afford a house with acres of land. I live in an apartment and, like all apartments, the walls, ceiling and floor are not made to be soundproof.

Honestly, the real crime is that decency and kindness for one's neighbors has disappeared. I do not live in college housing and I am not some crazy 20-something who constantly throws raging parties and keeps her neighbors up all times of night. I am a single woman, who just purchased furniture after seven months of struggling and saving. I invited four — not 14 or 24 — friends over to celebrate the end of the week and my new furniture.

Yes, I am sure we were loud, but certainly, I was not loud enough to have my hard-earned money taken away in court costs and fines or loss of time from work to do community service.

I received no warning from the offended party. Since the police no longer will issue warnings on the matter, I believe that people filing the complaints with the police should be required to say when they call whether they first have duly warned the person before the police come to your front door. If they have not warned the accused, it should be recommended that they do so.

I just want fairness in the little things in life. I am just like everyone else; I pay taxes, go to work every day and treat people fairly.

I believe that it is my right and the right of many others to express themselves and speak out when we believe we are wronged. People need to realize that for every story there are truly two sides; in this case, the angry unknown person who was disturbed by the banter of my friends and the hard-working person who has to pay a price that is too high for this infraction. All I ask is for a warning and warnings for others in my situation.

Candace H. Wilborn
Harrisonburg resident

Multiculturalism force that unites American people

Dear Editor,

According to Jonathan Kelly's column titled "United States lacks multiculturalism" in the March 1 issue of The Breeze, Western-based culture "has given us a better society than the societies many other cultures have developed."

As justification, he looks at the AIDS epidemic in Africa to prove we are more open-minded than they are. He wrote that "neither contraception nor abstinence is accepted as part of the culture."

One might say the same of our culture, given the opposition to teaching and distribution of contraception in our schools. Besides, one reason people in Africa might be wary of Western ideas is that they have been brutally oppressed by them.

The AIDS epidemic does not prove that our culture is more open to learning than other cultures. For years in the United States, the epidemic was ignored because it was thought to be a gay issue. Kelly also asserted that in Africa women are treated "as merely second-class birth-givers," but ignored the female deities revered in many African societies.

The treatment of women in the United States has an oppressive history as well, in voting, in equal access to jobs and in equal pay. Let him without sin cast the first stone. Last semester, I studied in Madagascar and was delighted with the people's jubilance of everyday life.

Kelly's article brings up an important question — if the United States lacks multiculturalism, then besides the nationalism exhibited in Kelly's article, what unites us?

Julia Reis
senior, geology/ anthropology