August 16, 2017
Finally, a politician who sounds erudite; speaks artfully; has an apparently large pair of cojones; and, has a rugged looking face atop a seemingly athletic body. I think that the mayor of Charlottesville would make a damn good president!
Because I have promised myself (and my readers) that I won\’t go off on a rant about ol\’ Pumpkinhead, I will attempt to explore racism in this attempt…
The moment you consider yourself a member of a group like the KKK, a generic white supremacist group, or, a neo Nazi group — you are by definition a racist — because you believe that you are superior to people of color or of a different religion; and, that you have the power of life and death over the \”out group.\” Whether or not this belief constitutes \”evil\” is a matter for further debate.
Whenever someone holds power — you dare not typify their actions as, \”evil\” for fear that you will lose your own life (or at least your \’station\’). It is only when the person (or persons) in power lose that power that we begin to characterize them as \”evil.\” Since white supremacists only have power when they are sponsored by someone in power — it is easier to call them \”evil.\” So, pundits are characterizing the Robert E. Lee sympathizers as \”evil\” — even though we have heard that these \”sympathizers\” have \”good\” people among them.
I have already established that the sympathizers are racist: otherwise they wouldn\’t be part of hate groups. But it appears that a third of Americans don\’t find racism \”evil,\” or counterproductive to the American promise; in fact, they appear to have a moral pejorative that justifies their behavior. That\’s allotta racists (and I have been told by scholars of history and politics that you only need 10% of the populous behind you to control a country)!
Now, I am not a Robert E. Lee hater…I actually read a few books about him as grade schooler and came to believe that he was a good general and not a bad fellow. In fact, following the South\’s defeat and his surrender, I gather that he called for a unification of the country.
And when I hear people saying that it could cause uneasiness for an African American to go to a Robert E. Lee H.S. — I get it! I\’m sure a Jew experiences similar consternation when dealing with lingering Nazism. Our racists certainly don\’t view monuments, swastikas and flags as reminders of a tragic past. Rather, they view them as symbols that empower and embolden them to maintain their philosophy of hate.
And herein lies the rub of the Charlottesville Incident: one group was made up of self-professed haters and the other group hated these haters enough to attack them. I wonder if the \”alt-left\” group subscribes to any hate groups in their day jobs; or, do they belong to groups wishing to end discrimination (like Black Lives Matter)?
Who\’s to say whether the alt-lefters at Charlottesville didn\’t prevent another Kristallnacht?
Because the police sure didn\’t. And we all know the 1% the police serve…Super Twits, Hannity and Rush accused Mayor Signer of having the police stand down and thereby facilitating the violence.
I listened to the mayor explain how city governance is set up in Virginia — and that mayors have no jurisdiction over their police forces (except in Richmond): it\’s the police chief\’s call. And if the chief is beholden to someone other than the mayor, that would explain how a policeman could stand around and watch someone being beaten? He was awaiting his orders.
At-any-rate — I\’m hoping that Mayor Michael Signer catalyzed the demise of ol\’ Pumpkinhead by intimating that ol\’ Pumpkinhead has been fueling racism all along, and, that this could be the first of many such episodes — as the country continues to become more-and-more polarized in the absence of moral leadership.
Mayor Michael Signer definitely exhibited fearless leadership qualities that I hope-and-pray eventually take him to the White House.