Tag Archives: hate speech

national news

Trump emboldens racists, bigots?

“The president uses language often that’s very similar to the language used by these bigots and racists.”

That statement comes from someone who’s got a bone or two to pick with Donald Trump. His name is Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democratic U.S. senator who got beat running with Hillary Rodham Clinton on the 2016 presidential ticket. Kaine was Clinton’s VP running mate, so you can expect him to think little of the guy who defeated them.

Except that he is correct. Kaine’s comment comes in this period immediately after the massacre of 50 people who were worshiping in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I am not going to “blame” the president directly for the carnage that erupted in New Zealand. It is instructive to acknowledge that Trump’s language has emboldened individuals and groups around the world. These would be the white nationalists, white supremacists, racists, bigots and haters.

We must not ignore the statements of people such as former Ku Klux Klan lizard/wizard David Duke who famously said that he considered Trump’s election as president to be a blessing.

The Charlottesville, Va., riot in 2017 that erupted when KKK members, Nazis and white nationalists protested the taking down of a Confederate statue provides another example. The demonstration produced a counter protest and a women was killed in the ensuing riot when a white nationalist allegedly ran her down with his car.

Trump’s response was to say there were “fine people . . . on both sides!” Yes, on “both sides.” He placed the haters on the same moral plain as those who were protesting them. Disgusting.

One of the gunmen who allegedly opened fire in Christchurch is a white supremacist who reportedly drew inspiration from the rhetoric he has heard from Trump and others in this country and around the world.

To blame Donald Trump directly for causing the tragedy that was unleashed Down Under would suggest that Trump makes his angry statements intending to create such misery. I do not believe that’s the case.

It is not a stretch to suggest that the president needs to acknowledge that his rhetoric has contributed to the toxicity that exists around the world.

national news

Waiting for president to perform unwritten task

Presidents of the United States inherit an array of constitutional duties and, yes, unwritten and unspoken roles they must perform.

We expect it of them when the moment arrives. It almost always does so without warning.

A space shuttle explodes 73 seconds after liftoff and President Reagan consoles the nation in utter shock; another shuttle disintegrates on re-entry and President Bush performs the same duty; a bomber destroys a federal court building in Oklahoma City, and President Clinton steps up to soothe our anxiety; a madman slaughters 20 children and six teachers at a Connecticut elementary school and President Obama wipes away tears of anguish while honoring the victims.

Then, of course, there was 9/11 and President Bush called on the nation to mourn as one and to fight as one.

Someone mailed pipe bombs to Democratic political figures and a major cable news outlet. What do we get from the current president? We hear him fling blame at Democrats, at the “fake news” media, at his foes.

Donald Trump can recite the correct words. He has done so with regard to the pipe bombs that were mailed to his adversaries. He did so again in response to the massacre at the Pittsburgh synagogue this weekend.

I watch him and wonder whether he feels it. I cannot read his mind or plumb his heart and soul. It’s just a sense I get that he doesn’t embrace this role he agreed to play when he took the oath as president of the United States.

Donald Trump hears the calls for civility in our debate. He then accepts campaign rally crowds’ chants of “CNN sucks!” and doesn’t stop them. He doesn’t tamp down the rage among his supporters. He doesn’t tell them to quell the mob conduct.

Members of the administration have condemned the hatred demonstrated in recent days. The president has joined them in condemning the acts of hate crimes against religious groups … only to crack a joke about canceling an event because of a “bad hair day.”

I wish I could hope the president can learn how to perform this task. I cannot. I have lost that hope.

It saddens me beyond measure.

national news

‘Free’ speech gets drowned out … good!

They called themselves the “Free Speech Movement.” They planned to stage a big rally in Boston, but got drowned out by others who were having none of what this movement had to say.

The “Free Speech” folks said they disavowed the hate speech that’s become the talk of the nation. But thousands of counter protesters showed up to swallow up the “Free Speech” crowd.

It appears that advance knowledge of some of the speakers slated to talk alarmed community residents, which triggered the big counter protest. They were concerned about what they considered to be “veiled bigotry.” One big difference between this gathering and the one that erupted in Charlottesville this past weekend is that no one got hurt; there was no riot.

This all sounds familiar to yours truly.

In 2006, the Ku Klux Klan came to Amarillo to have a rally in front of City Hall. The city granted the KKK the permit they needed. The police came out in force. Amarillo PD deployed many officers, as did the Potter County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety. The police set up an effective barrier that kept the crowd of onlookers away from the Klansmen.

At the moment the Klan leaders were set to start addressing the gathering in front of City Hall, a parade of counter protesters came marching onto the parking lot. They were loud, man! They were banging cymbals, blowing horns, beating drums, yelling at the top of their lungs.

I don’t recall, 11 years later, what the Klan’s message was on that warm summer day. The haters couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

I couldn’t have been prouder of the way our community reacted to the Klan’s presence in our midst.

The most fascinating encounter I witnessed occurred right next to me. It involved then-Amarillo Police Chief Jerry Neal and a Klan member. Neal was there in full cop regalia: dress blues and all the hardware that beat cops wear when they’re on patrol … if you get my drift. The Klansman asked the chief, “Can I ask you something?”

Neal’s response was brusque and right to the point: “No. You can’t. Now, get away from me.”

What happened today in Boston had plenty of precedent. It should continue for as long as hate groups — or those aligned with them — believe they have license to spread their bigoted message.

legal news, national news

KKK spews same old hate message

3 Comments

Hold on a second! I thought I read a time or two that the Ku Klux Klan was seeking to remake its image, that it was going to a sort of “kinder, gentler” hate group.

I must have dreamt it. The KKK is reverting to form.

A Mississippi Klan chapter has issued what it said is a “call to arms” to protest a decision to allow same-sex marriages to occur next door in Alabama.

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/14/kkk_issues_call_to_arms_over_alabama_same_sex_marriage_ruling_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Where I come from, a “call to arms” means what it says: that you are going to take up arms and fight someone — in this case, presumably the federal government. Also, where I come from, that sounds like sedition, which means to plot against the government, to mount an armed rebellion. And isn’t that an act of treason, punishable by, um, death?

A Ku Klux Klan grand dragon/serpent — a guy named Brent Waller — said this on a website post: “We as White Christians intend to see that no outside agitators bully or intimidate the White Christian majority in the State of Alabama. We salute those like the chief justice (Roy Moore) for standing against the Immoral, Ungodly and activist Federal Judges.”

How will they do that? Are they going to shoot someone?

Holy hate speech, Batman!

This nimrod needs to know that the federal judges who are ruling against statewide bans on same-sex marriage are acting totally within the law. The Constitution gives them authority to interpret the nation’s government framework, which they’re doing by declaring the 14th Amendment to the Constitution protects all Americans’ right to “equal protection” under the law. I will restate right here that all Americans means everyone, no matter their sexual orientation.

History has demonstrated time and again — for more than a century — that the Klan doesn’t believe in the Constitution.