Reading the commentary on where Sen. Barack Obama stands on key issues has driven me to suggest that for readers who want to make up their own minds on who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election, the Web site http://www.OnTheIssues.org provides unbiased information on the candidates’ positions on over 20 issues.

The issues include abortion, budget and economy, civil rights, corporations, crime, drugs, education, energy and oil, education, environment, families and children, foreign policy, free trade, government reform, gun control, health care, homeland security, immigration, infrastructure and technology, jobs, principles and values, social security, tax reform, war and peace, and welfare and poverty. The data consist of the voting records of the candidates as well as quotes made by them in full text documented sources.

In addition, I applaud Eugene Robinson for bringing up the topic of the “race card” in his column. Mr. Robinson, a native of Orangeburg, was one of a handful of African-American students who desegrated Orangeburg High School in the 1960s. It must be as discouraging to him as well as to the rest of us who value public education as the cornerstone of American democracy to realize that schools in Orangeburg are almost as segregated today as they were in 1954, the year of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Today, more than 90 percent of the students in public schools in Orangeburg are black and approximately 95 percent of students in private schools are white.

Isn’t it time we began a serious dialogue on building community in Orangeburg? We could start with a conversation about a topic that is hidden in plain view − race.

− Susan Till, Ph.D., Neeses

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