Normally I do not respond to comments to my blog entries. And I do not edit them except when you put something in it that promotes your business, blog, or something that may be for your personal benefit.

But I would like to address a few things. Here is the link to the original blog entry and comments.

The basic fact that applies to this is that the young man violated a legal trespass order. You and I have the right to protect our property and with the people we willingly choose to share it. If someone comes to your property and you don't want them there we (you and I) have the right to call the Sheriff and have them removed. That is what the Mall did, pure and simple. I would expect the Mall to do the same thing for anyone, regardless of nationality or race.

My entry only makes a note about the young man's nationality when it applied to willfully disobeying a legal court order and then assaulting a Sheriff's Deputy and comparing his treatment for this act here versus what may have happened in his native country. There was nothing about this comment that was racially motivated or based.

Now, I understand it is interesting how one's personal background affects their view of a set of facts. Their perception is their reality. However my perception is my reality as well and I do not believe I wrote anything that is racist. I merely made a comment on how people are treated differently by the police in two different countries.

That being said, my comments on teenagers were inclusive of all of them ... it doesn't matter if they are white, black, yellow, blue or green. Just how they dress and act as teenagers. And yes, I am including my teenage daughter in this as well.

My great-grandparents emigrated from Italy. When they came here they worked in the coal mines in a company town. If you don't think this type of economic system was discriminatory, click here. This is an experience from our past that few people today have to endure.

Both of my grandfathers worked in those same coal mines ... at an age when today's teens are more concerned with iPods, computers, text messaging and what new clothes they can get from Abercrombie & Fitch.

And my great-grandparents insisted my grandparents learn both Italian and English. I wish this tradition passed on to my dad and then on to me so I could pass it on as well. Learning a second language now is much harder than I anticipated. I do respect and feel proud of American society when people living in this country speak two or more languages.

When they emigrated, my great-grandparents were poor, dirt poor. All they wanted was to try and make the lives of their children better than theirs. Discrimination against Italians in the early 1900's was pervasive. So too for the Irish and every other immigrant community that came to America during the 1800's and early 1900's.

In many places, it continues on today ... usually in a different guise. Look how people treat Mitt Romney simply because they do not understand his religion. Is that fair? Or even American? I'm not a Romney supporter, but I do respect him for standing up for what he believes is right.

My comments were based on something simple ... a "fashion" trend that is present today, with which many people do not feel comfortable, caused a young man to be asked to leave someone's property and told not to come back or he would be arrested for trespassing.

His right to wear that form of fashion ends where someone else's eyeballs begin. Especially if they find it offensive.

You may wish to base this argument, and its unfortunate results, on race, but race has absolutely nothing to do with it.

He was asked not to return. He chose to come back. He knew the outcome. Then he chose to resist and a deputy was struck. The buck stops with him.

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