Tag Archives: bigotry

International news

World tries to digest the New Zealand massacre

As the worldwide shock starts to sink in regarding the slaughter of 49 worshipers at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques, many of us are wondering: How does this kind of thing happen in a country known to be one of the more peaceful places on Earth?

Who’s to blame? I guess the early nod goes to the Internet, the purveyor of all kinds of emotional messaging. And that includes hate of the most evil variety, hate that manifests itself in unspeakable violance.

One of the suspects charge with the massacre of Muslims is a known white nationalist from Australia. He had channeled some of the rhetoric — allegedly — that he heard from Americans. He reportedly is fervently anti-immigrant.

So what does he do? He travels to New Zealand and along with two accomplices takes his rage out on people who were praying to God.

Terrorists collect ammo to fuel their hatred from all manner of sources. It appears the Internet has been available to the individuals responsible for this hideous spasm of violence.

I am not going to say we should eliminate the Internet. Nor am I going to suggest that everyone on Earth boycott it.

I merely am expressing one individual’s sense of agony at the plethora of hatred that travels like lightning around the world and ends up infecting what passes for the hearts of individuals like those who perpetrated this monstrous act.

Donald Trump said today he doesn’t believe the world is witnessing an increase in white nationalism/supremacy. The president is mistaken. Or he is deliberately misconstruing what the evidence is producing.

I believe reports that suggest a 17 percent spike in hate crimes over the past couple of years. As we have witnessed in the past 24 hours, the Internet — that worldwide communication platform — is potentially able to poison all communities.

Even those known to be peaceful places.

International news

Not a ‘small group,’ Mr. President

“I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.” 

So said Donald Trump today in response to a reporter’s question about white nationalism and whether it’s a worldwide problem.

Mr. President, it is not merely a “small group” of people. It is a growing crisis around the world. The New Zealand massacre at the two mosques in Christchurch presents a symptom of what we’re witnessing.

White supremacists are getting bolder in Europe. We see more of it in Latin America. Make no mistake, there has been a serious increase of white nationalist attacks in the United States of America.

I won’t belabor the reason for the increase in this country. We’ve trod down that path before in this forum and elsewhere. I just have to challenge the president’s assertion that it is not a “rising problem,” that the surge in such terror attacks are the work of a “small group of people” with “serious problems.”

Trump is correct to call it a “terrible thing, a terrible thing.”

Yes it is, Mr. President.

The crisis, though, is worse than you would have us believe. As the leader of the United States, the president needs to step up and lead the chorus against the scourge of race- and faith-based hatred.

national news

Reparations for slave descendants? No

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Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro — a candidate for president of the United States — has opened up a wide-ranging debate topic that needs a full airing.

However, the Democratic candidate, has to go a huge distance to persuade me of the need to pay reparations for the descendants of slaves.

I oppose such reparations understanding how it might look to those who favor them. I want to be crystal clear on a couple of key points.

First, slavery is the greatest sin this government has ever committed against Americans. I totally understand the pain it caused those who lived under human bondage. They were treated as property. They were considered to be three-fifths of a human being. They were bought and sold the way people buy and sell, oh, livestock.

They were “emancipated” in 1863, during the height of the Civil War, which was being fought over the issue of slavery. Slaves were set free more than 150 years ago.

Generations of African-Americans have come along since then. Yes, many of them have endured hatred, indignity, violence, outright discrimination on the basis of their race. However, this country has legislated equality for all Americans. I understand full well that those laws haven’t erased bigotry from all Americans’ hearts.

My concern over the issue of reparations deals with the time that has passed and the many generations that have come and gone since those terrible days when we enslaved fellow human beings.

Are there “direct descendants” of slaves? Sure. Have those descendants suffered directly from the enslavement of their great-great-great grandparents? Well, that is a highly debatable point.

It’s the timing of this proposal that Julian Castro has pitched.

Yes, our government has paid reparations to Japanese-Americans over their internment during World War II. But that atrocity occurred not quite 80 years ago. There are former internees still living to this day. Their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been given some remuneration over what President Roosevelt decreed after the United States entered World War II; FDR feared Japanese-Americans would be more loyal to their ancestors than to the country of their birth, so he rounded ’em up along the Pacific Coast and sent them packing to concentration camps inland.

This idea of paying reparations for those descended from long-deceased slaves, though, gives me serious pause.

Do we stop working toward a “more perfect Union”? Of course not! Such a task involves eradicating bigotry and race-based hatred whenever and wherever we see it.

Reparations? That’s a bridge too far.

national news

Rep. King has some serious issues to ponder

I cannot pretend to know what ticks inside the (so-called) heart of a rural Iowa congressman known for his big mouth far more than for any legislative accomplishments.

All any of us can do is to weigh the man’s words and wonder: Does he really believe this stuff? If he does, then the nation’s legislative body has a monster in its midst.

Republican Rep. Steve King told The New York Times that he doesn’t know how the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” have been cast as “offensive” language. I already have addressed that issue in this blog, noting that those terms are associated with hate groups that have exacted violence for far too long against non-white, non-Christian American citizens.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2019/01/why-is-white-nationalist-a-negative-term/

Now we have the House of Representatives and whether it must take action against one of its 435 members. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the body will “consider” some form of punishment against King.

GOP members fire back at King

What troubles me about this individual is his history of what borders on hate speech. He was among the cabal of cretins in public life who continually questioned the birth credentials of the 44th president of the United States, who happens to be African-American; he has spoken of migrants “with calves the size of cantaloupes” smuggling drugs across the southern border from Latin America; his record of public commentary is full of similarly offensive remarks that barely hide his seeming contempt for racial and ethnic minorities.

Yet he remains in office, taking an active role in enacting legislation that affects all Americans. Sure, he gets sent back to Congress every two years, meaning that he has the endorsement of his constituents back home. That is their call to make.

Once he’s in office, though, his conduct becomes everyone’s business. Yours and mine.

Thus, it’s fair for me to say I do not want this man occupying one of those legislative offices responsible for the enactment of laws that govern all 330 million Americans.

Steve King is a disgrace to the U.S. Congress and given the reputation the legislative body has these days among Americans, that’s really saying something.

national news

Alt-right = white supremacists

This well might be the final time I’ll refer to the term “alt-right” in a manner other than to quote someone else’s statement about it.

You may count me, therefore, as one who wants to cease euphemizing what I believe the term really means: white supremacists, racist, bigots.

It has emerged in recent years as a term to define those on the far-right fringe of the political/ideological spectrum. As the events in Charlottesville, Va. — not to mention other communities that have been victimized by spasms of race-related violence — have shown us, the term “alt-right” has focused on a specific brand of political protest.

It has come to represent the views of those who support racist, bigoted ideologies. The term “far right” has taken on an ugly, evil identity. Perhaps it’s because what we used to know as the “conservative movement” has itself moved far past the midway point. To be called a conservative these days seems to mean something different than it did during the day of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Donald J. Trump used the term “alt-right” to turn on what he called the “alt-left,” the counter protesters who clashed in Charlottesville with the neo-Nazis and KKK members who gathered to protest the taking down of that statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Here again, we saw the president seek to place the hate groups on equal footing with those who protested against them.

As for the term “alt-right,” consider me to be among those who no longer prefers to see it used other than to make sure we know what it represents.

It represents hatred and bigotry.

There. I’m done with that word.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/11/alt-right-becomes-euphemism-for-something-ugly/

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.

International news, national news

This is how we remember traitors?

I want to discuss briefly a subject that makes me a bit uncomfortable: Confederate memorials and statues.

It’s been in the news of late. Communities across the land are pondering whether to remove statues commemorating leaders of the movement that ignited the Civil War, tearing the nation in half, killing roughly 600,000 Americans on both sides of that terrible struggle.

And for what purpose? The Confederate states wanted to continue to enslave human beings.

It’s news these days, of course, because of what transpired this weekend in Charlottesville (which has become a form of shorthand for “racism,” “bigotry” and “intolerance”).

I join others who are asking: What other country “honors” those who betray their nation, secede from it and then start the bloodiest war in that nation’s history? Slavery is undoubtedly this nation’s most visible scar. We cannot hide it, push it aside, ignore it. It’s part of our past.

In that context, Confederate descendants say that individuals such as Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Jefferson Davis and a whole host of others also are part of our nation’s history. Oh, sure they are. Do we honor them? Do we revere their memory or their legacy? I think not.

My wife and I visited Germany this past September. We stayed with friends in Nuremberg, which has a special place in world history: It was the city where Nazi leaders were put on trial for their crimes against humanity.

One of our friends, a journalist and a highly educated man, told us that Germany has come to grips with Nazis’ role in plunging the world into the bloodiest conflict in its history. There’s a place called the Documentation Center in Nuremberg. It tells the story of the Holocaust and the unthinkable misery that the Nazis brought to Europe and sought to inflict on the rest of the world.

“We don’t hide from it,” our friend said. “We are ashamed of that time.”

But the Germans damn sure don’t honor anyone associated with that period of their nation’s otherwise glorious past. One doesn’t see statues of Hitler, Goebbels, Goering or Himmler in public places.

Perhaps we ought to ponder whether these Confederate “heroes” deserve the same level of scorn.

national news

Presidents make powerful statement, but it needs more

There you go. A powerful statement from the two most recent Republican presidents of the United States, father and son, George H.W. and George W. Bush.

Their reaction to the Charlottesville riot and the tragic death of Heather Heyer speaks volumes about their decency and compassion.

However …

There’s an element missing from this statement. What is missing is a specific condemnation of their successor, Donald John Trump.

It’s the kind of rebuke and denunciation that must come from members of the president’s own party. They must condemn not just the acts of hate that transpired in Charlottesville, but also the president who — in a stunning display of ignorance and arrogance on Tuesday — equated the hate merchants with those who oppose them.

Indeed, the silence from the GOP political high command has been deafening in its own right. House and Senate leaders have spoken eloquently about their loathing of intolerance, bigotry and racism. Good for them!

But the rest of the condemnation also must single out the president of the United States who tossed aside the proverbial “dog whistle” he has used to incite his political base and replaced it with a bullhorn. We all heard what he meant when he said “both sides” are to blame for the tragedy that unfolded in Charlottesville.

No, Mr. President. There is no “both sides do it” moral equivalence here. The riot was provoked by the presence of white supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazis who protested the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee. They marched under the lights of tiki torches, which symbolize the terror tactics used by the Klan and, yes, by the Nazis in Europe prior to World War II.

And yet the president drew a moral equivalence between the hate groups and the counter protesters. It was disgraceful in the extreme for Trump to do such a thing.

I’m glad the two former presidents have spoken out. They both have been quiet since leaving the presidency in 1993 and 2009.

I just wish they would have taken the final step and called out Donald Trump by name. Maybe that moment will arrive in due course. Let us hope.

national news

Call out the president by name, GOP leaders

We’ve heard a lot of chatter about the responsibility of leaders to name their adversaries by name, to call out those who act irresponsibly or reprehensibly.

Republicans implored Democratic President Barack Obama to label international terrorists as “radical Muslims.” Obama declined during his time in the White House, saying we must not suggest the terrorists are associated with a great religion.

Just recently, we heard others say that a Republican president must call out the instigators in the Charlottesville riot by their names: white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen. Donald Trump at first declined to do so, then he did.

Today, though, he reverted back to his initial response to the violence in Virginia, blaming it on “both sides.” He sought to attach some sort of moral equivalency between the racists who were protesting the removal of a Confederate statue with the counter protesters.

The president put on a shameful display today at Trump Tower.

So it now falls on Republicans across the land to call out the president — a fellow Republican — by name. There’s been a lot of social media chatter from GOP leaders about how we must not tolerate hate groups, racists, bigotry, anti-Semitism. It’s no longer enough to denounce these hideous groups. It’s time to denounce the president who today demonstrated what he truly believes about these hate mongers.

They now need to take the next step. These Republican leaders — including members of Congress — need to say: Donald Trump, you are consorting with hate groups and we will not tolerate such disgraceful behavior from the president of the United States.

I mean, c’mon. Are they going to seriously tolerate a word of good cheer for the president’s performance today from David Duke … of all people?

national news

Trump finally says what he should’ve said the first time

That wasn’t so painful, was it, Mr. President?

Donald J. Trump returned to the White House — aka “a real dump” — to sign an executive order and then deliver some remarks about the “criminals and thugs” who instigated the deadly race riot in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. He had been facing immense pressure from, um, “many sides” as a result of his initial response to the violence.

The president said what he needed to say at the outset. The Klan, neo-Nazis and assorted white supremacist groups provoked a riot while protesting the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. It went bad bigly.

Trump has condemned racism and bigotry and called out the white supremacists and Nazis as “criminals and thugs.” He called them what they are. Trump said “racism is evil” and said hate groups such as neo-Nazis and white supremacists “are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

How far will his remarks go in healing the damage that already has been done by his initial remarks in which he blamed “many sides” for the violence that erupted? Time will tell.

If he had asked for my opinion, I would have preferred that the president atone more directly for his error of omission. He should have acknowledged publicly in the White House that he erred in failing to respond appropriately.

Moreover, he could have said categorically that he does not welcome the overt political support of individuals such as one-time Ku Klux Klan grand dragon/lizard David Duke, who over the weekend invoked Trump’s name. Duke said he wants to “take our country back” and said “that’s why we voted for Donald Trump.”

He didn’t do those things. The president did say the right words — today! I still have to ask: Did they come from his heart, his soul?

Please demonstrate that they did, Mr. President.