Be fair to black men

As a long-time user of Jl. Jaksa hostelries, I would like to ask the owners quoted in The Jakarta Post's report about black Africans not being served when the last time there was an incident involving black Africans. Because of the type of place it is, Jaksa tends to attract a certain kind of exuberant behavior from time to time, particularly from young folk, but one does not associate blacks with it. There have been cases where there have been arguments about bills but I'll bet if you go to Kuta Beach, Bali, you could witness more than a few such arguments, and you don't see many Africans down there.

As to drug transactions, I do not know what the statistics for convictions show but I do know that the Post reported the other week in its year-ender that Thais and Nepalese ranked high among those arrested for such crimes. There is little else to prove that the drug trade is dominated by one group or another.

Michael Hailu is right. When you have officials making remarks about black men and Indonesian women it can be inflammatory, and it does smack of that old racist saw: They're taking "our" women!

DAVID JARDINE

Jakarta