This was not my letter

Dear Editor,

I would be grateful if you would publish this letter to make it clear to all and sundry that I am not the author of the letter captioned “Caste is almost absent from the consciousness of Indians in Guyana” signed R. Williams. Although this might appear to be insignificant to some, since the number of people with Christian names beginning with R and surnames of Williams in Guyana are innumerable, I believe that it is important that readers of your newspaper be provided with the necessary information in order to sort out who is who and who said what. Unfortunately there is an observable trend in writers appending their letters with names that denote a certain ethnicity in order to lend credence to whatever position they might be advancing.

I sign my letters with names that are mine and by which I am known because it is my conviction that transparency and openness are key elements of honesty and integrity.

This does not mean that I believe that everything that appears in public under a pseudonym is trash. It just means that I happen to abide by these particular standards.

Yours faithfully,

Keith (Robin) Williams