Like Gov. Paul LePage, I am a Lewiston-born Franco-American and proud Mainer. Like the governor, I have a multiracial family. Unlike the governor, my brain can “catch up with my mouth,” to deliver considerate messages. I do not mean to assert that my mouth does not deliver things that I sometimes wish to take back — we all make mistakes.

I was struck by the governor’s recent “mistake,” claiming drug dealers with names like “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” come to Maine to sell drugs. After hearing this, I thought, how does my governor, with a similar background, make a claim that, at its core, is so racially insensitive? My conclusion: this one “slip-up” shows that, fundamentally, Gov. LePage adheres to oppressive thinking of the past in terms of race, class and gender.

Maine’s drug trafficking problem requires deep thought into the institutional problems surrounding race and class, which are at the root of the issue — problems the governor can help change.

I would ask Gov. LePage to please get his head out of the sand and to challenge himself to fight against the injustices that plague this state, not with weak self-control, but with an enlightened mind.

I extend an invitation to the governor to attend Bates College’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day events on Jan. 18. I would be happy to attend these events with him and have an intellectual, thought-provoking discussion — Mainer to Mainer.

Emma Bilodeau, Auburn