Tag Archives: hate groups

local news

Time of My Life, Part 60: Covering the worst among us

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My career in print journalism exposed me to many fine public officials, people with servants hearts and those who listen to their better angels.

It also enabled me to see up close the very worst in our society.

I attended two Ku Klux Klan rallies during my years working for daily newspapers. The first of them took place in Orange County, Texas, just a bit east of where my family and I lived in Beaumont. The second rally occurred in Amarillo, in front of City Hall; the Amarillo rally in 2006 ended up being shouted down by counter protesters who marched onto the public parking lot blaring horns and beating drums.

The Orange County KKK rally took place around 1990. It’s worth mentioning today because contemporary society is talking more openly now about hate against minorities and about how the federal government for the past four years was turning its back on that hatred.

The event that triggered the KKK rally in Orange County involved a formerly all-white public housing complex that became home to an African-American man. The Klan didn’t like that the complex was integrating itself. So it decided to stage a rally to protest.

To be fair, it wasn’t a violent event. There were no counter protesters that I could see. The KKK honchos spoke what passes for their minds. They got cheers from the crowd.

The legendary newsman Dan Rather, a native Texan, has called Klan rallies a frightening thing to witness. To be honest, the Orange County KKK rally didn’t frighten me. I was appalled at the rhetoric I heard. I also was even more appalled at the reaction I overheard an audience member give to a media representative.

The media rep, from a local TV station, asked a woman why she supported the Klan. She said, and I remember this statement quite vividly: “Because I don’t want my fu**ing kids associating with those people.” 

Roll that one around for a moment or two. Who in the name of all that is holy would refer to their own children using such a profoundly reprehensible adjective?

We know the answer. It is the low-life who follows the hate-filled rhetoric of those who belong to an organization that used to lynch Americans whose only “sin” was to be born with black skin.

I was able to report on what I saw and heard that day. I wasn’t proud of what I witnessed. However, I came away vowing never to let those individuals out of my sight. It is better to keep them in front you rather than allowing them to skulk around in secrecy.

national news

Trump vs. Biden: Battle of ‘Both Sides’

Joe Biden has fired a salvo at Donald Trump and Trump has responded by doubling down on arguably his most disgraceful moment as president of the United States.

The former vice president entered the 2020 presidential contest Thursday with a video in which he says the president’s comment on the Charlottesville, Va., riot demonstrates the depths he has taken the country. Trump said in 2017 that there were “fine people on both sides” of the riot; one of those “sides” featured KKK members and Nazis. Biden said the president attached “moral equivalence” between those who spread hate and those who fight them.

Well, Trump responded today by taking Biden’s bait. He said his “both sides” comment was the “perfect response.” Trump said he was referring to those who were protesting the takedown of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who he described as a “great general.”

I’m trying to recall any mention of Gen. Lee in the moment when Trump made that “both sides” remark. I can’t discern any of it. He might have intended to make that reference — except that he didn’t.

Instead, he spoke about the alleged violent intent of those who counter-protested the hate groups’ march against the statue removal.

I believe VP Biden has punched Trump squarely in the biggest hot button he could find.

How do I know that? I don’t, exactly. However, the president’s response to the Charlottesville criticism illustrates how easily he can be rattled into making patently ridiculous assertions.

I must wonder: Will it matter that Donald Trump is a blundering buffoon who cannot be trusted to tell us the truth?

national news

Trump scraps domestic terror effort

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Does it surprise you to learn that Donald J. Trump plans to toss out an Obama-era program to finance an effort to root out the causes of domestic terrorism?

Yeah, me neither.

That’s the plan, though, as the president reportedly is going to discontinue a grant program created by the Barack Obama administration that was supposed to be funded yearly. But no! The Trump administration said it’s a one-time-only grant. So the Department of Homeland Security won’t keep it going.

The timing of this announcement is stunning as well.

It comes a week after Cesar Sayoc was arrested on charges that he sent pipe bombs to opponents of Donald Trump, as well as to a major media outlet. They’re all Democrats, either politicians or Democratic political figures. Did I mention that two of the intended targets were former presidents of the United States and one of them is a former vice president? There. I just did.

So the president doesn’t want to keep this effort going.

Why is that? Oh, it’s no doubt going to be argued by some — and I can buy their argument — that Trump wants to get rid of it because it originated during Barack Obama’s time as president.

The Countering Violent Extremism Grant spends $10 million annually on efforts to examine the causes of domestic violence and terrorism. Yes, it’s a scourge in this country. Hate groups have gotten more brazen in recent years. The slaughter of 11 congregants at the Pittsburgh synagogue symbolizes what I’m talking about; a suspect has been arrested and charged with 29 hate-crime-related felonies.

But the president wants to discontinue a valuable grant aimed at rooting out domestic terrorism?

Sickening.

national news

White supremacists get outshouted in D.C.

If you can’t stand what someone has to say, well, then just outshout ’em.

How’s that for a remedy? It showed itself this weekend in Washington, D.C., where white supremacists and other goons wanted to commemorate the Charlottesville, Va., riot a year ago that resulted in the death of a counter protester.

Given that the president of the United States would offer only sterile, tepid remarks condemning “all types of racism,” those opposed to the haters decided to show up in massive numbers. They outshouted the haters.

Hey, I believe in the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and expression. It was on full display as the counter protesters were heard over the white supremacists.

It reminds me of an event I witnessed in 2006 in Amarillo. The Ku Klux Klan wanted to launch a protest. Just as the KKK was getting ready to speak its peace, some counter protesters marched onto the City Hall parking lot banging cymbals, blowing on horns, shouting at the top of their lungs.

Leading the “charge” was the late Stanley Marsh 3, Amarillo’s most notable “eccentric.”

Ah, yes, the First Amendment. Ain’t it just grand?

Donald Trump

POTUS condemns ‘all types of racism’

The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!

There it is. Right there is Donald J. Trump’s statement condemning racism in the United States.

OK. What do we make of this? Is the statement going to be the president’s final word on the subject? It came, of course, via Twitter. He flashed it out there from his vacation home in New Jersey.

I so want to believe this is enough. I want to feel assured that Donald Trump won’t ever utter another insensitive statement, such as ridiculing foes who happen to be African-American by denigrating their intelligence. To black Americans, that represents the “mother of all dog whistles,” given that racists too often question the intelligence of African-Americans.

There, of course, is so much more the president can say about racism. He can fill in many blanks, telling us how we should deal with hate groups, those who commit hate crimes, those who afflict victims solely because of their race.

Moreover, he could say these things on live television. He could speak to us from the Oval Office. He could look us in the eye, enabling us to judge the sincerity by watching how he spells out he intends to “condemn all types of racism.”

This weekend we’re going to commemorate the year since the Charlottesville, Va., riot that killed a young counter protester. Klansmen, Nazis and other white supremacists marched to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

He spoke of “very fine people … on both sides” of that tragic disturbance.

Just maybe the president could find it within himself to acknowledge that he made a grievous error by lifting the hate groups to the same moral standing of those who protested against them.

That would tell me a great deal more about his commitment to battling racism than a sterile tweet.

national news

Swastika: most offensive symbol of all

America is going to look back a year ago this weekend as it marks the time a riot broke out in Charlottesville, Va. It started when neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists marched to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

It got real ugly when counter protesters showed up. One of the counter protesters died. One of the neo-Nazis is accused of murder.

I want to call specific attention to one of the hate groups’ symbols: the swastika.

The Confederate Stars and Bars offends me, too. The swastika, though, takes me to another level of disgust and revulsion. It symbolizes a European regime that started World War II with the aim of conquering the world.

Adolf Hitler’s tyrannical regime flew flags with that symbol while it eradicated 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. It sought to subjugate nations under that tyranny.

More to the personal point about why the swastika is so revolting. Men who fought for the Nazi regime in Europe while wearing that emblem sought to kill my favorite U.S. veteran: my father.

Dad served in the U.S. Navy from early 1942 until late 1945. He saw the bulk of his combat in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. He endured more than three consecutive months of daily aerial bombardment by German and Italian warplanes.

He damn near was killed by men flying with that swastika painted on the wings of their aircraft.

The swastika has become the symbol to this day, along with that Confederate flag, of the Ku Klux Klan; the neo-Nazis, of course, salute the swastika in the manner that it was saluted during those dark days of World War II.

How any American to this day can swear fealty to such an ideology to my mind surrenders his right to be called an American.

But … I know we live in a society that protects political speech no matter how vile it is. The swastika is as vile as it gets.

Donald Trump

Here’s your chance to step up, Mr. POTUS

It’s been a year since an event produced one of the many dark moments that have shrouded the presidency of Donald John Trump.

Some white supremacists/Klansmen/Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the taking down of a Confederate general’s statue from a public park. A riot ensued. A young female counterprotester was run down and killed.

Then the president said there were “good people — on both sides!” of the dispute. Yep, he elevated the haters to a level of moral equivalence to those who protested against them.

There’s going to be a white supremacist rally this weekend in front of the White House to commemorate the one year that passed since the Charlottesville tragedy. There well might be counterprotesters present to speak against them. The first family won’t be there; they’re vacationing in New Jersey.

Hmm. Let me think. What can possibly go wrong?

Here’s the chance for the president of the United States to say something he has continually declined to do during his still-brief career in politics: denounce and condemn the hatred espoused by race-baiters and the hate groups that have compiled an unmistakable history of killing Americans only because they were born with different skin color.

Donald J. Trump needs to step up. He needs to express himself in terms that we all can understand. He needs to speak to those of us who do not comprise his “base.”

Has he been totally silent? No, but when the president has spoken to this issue, he looks for all the world — at least to many Americans — as if he’s doing so under some measure of duress. The criticism of these groups does not come naturally to this individual.

He now is faced with the chance to say what he has needed to say all along. The president needs to show leadership that demonstrates that the elected leader of this great nation will not tolerate hatred … period!

Do I expect it from him? Hah!

national news

Trump has riled a grieving mother

My memory at times lets me down, but I am pretty sure that in my lifetime I haven’t heard of anything quite like this.

The mother of a young victim of racial violence has declared her intention to refuse a call from the president of the United States of America when he gets around to making it.

Susan Bro’s daughter, Heather Heyer, was mowed down by someone driving a car into a crowd of counter protesters this past weekend in Charlottesville, Va. Heyer was among those protesting a demonstration by hate groups — Ku Klux Klansmen, neo-Nazis and white supremacists; the haters were protesting the taking down of a Confederate statue.

The young man arrested and charged with killing Heyer is known to have pro-Nazi, white supremacists views. Donald John Trump then took the floor at Trump Tower to say that “both sides” were equally to blame for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville.

That was too much for Bro. “I have not, and now I will not,” Bro said Friday when asked whether she had spoken with Trump. “You can’t wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying I’m sorry. I’m not forgiving for that.”

Amazing, yes?

There was more to Trump’s statement that enraged Bro. The president said there were “many fine people … on both sides” taking part in the demonstration. Fine people? Did he actually mean to suggest that those who march with neo-bleeping-Nazis are “fine people”?

The president has messed with a grieving mother. He once again exhibited his utter cluelessness about the weight of his words.

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?