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This Month's Scripture Verse:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5

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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Reflections On Charlottesville

Since there was a blog break here during the Charlottesville protest, these comments will be a bit late. But hopefully they will add to the conversation.

President Trump's Comments
President Trump's reactions to the protests in Charlottesville was a mixed bag. Some of what he said was true while most of his problems lie in what he didn't say. Trump was right to blame both sides for the violence. My fellow Leftists who faulted Trump for practicing 'moral equivalency' are ironically following the example of U.S. military hawks in how they defend American interventions in foreign nations.

There are synonyms for the term 'moral equivalency' when it is used to protest the blaming of all who employ unprovoked violence. Those terms include 'absolute values' and 'universal principles.' The antonym for moral equivalency is moral relativity. Thus, those who derisively use the term 'moral equivalency' to protest the blaming of a favorite group for the unprovoked violence they practiced are really embracing a tribalistic moral relativity. That is because what they are saying is that what's right and wrong depends on who does what to whom.

So what did Trump leave out that was so important? While he quickly pronounced that all who engaged in unprovoked violence were wrong, he neglected to say whether the violence of any particular group was also understandable. For example, was the violence practiced by Blacks who have and still suffer greatly from what is sometimes violent racism and police abuse more understandable than the violence and threat of violence exercised by KKK and Nazi participants at the protests? In other words, did one group came to the protest with the most legitimate anger? We could also make the comparison between those from participants from BLM with those from antifa and ask the same question.

Saying that it was more understandable for some groups to act violently than for other groups to does not justify the violence. Unprovoked violence cannot be tolerated and those who exercise it must face legal consequences. However, saying that exercising unprovoked violence is more understandable for some than others simply acknowledges that the contexts from which different groups acted during the protest are different.

In addition, Trump failed to adequately compare the nonviolent protesters from the different sides. Trump said that there were 'good people' on both sides. Here, Trump is wrong. How can we say that the nonviolent participants in the protest, that is nonviolent white supremacists and nazis, are as good as the nonviolent participants in the counterprotest? Weren't the protesters protesting in support of racism while the counterprotesters were opposing?

Also, Trump claimed that not all of the protesters were white supremacists. That is false. All of them were white supremacists. Those who claim to either be white nationalists or hold to white identity merely represent different shades and levels of white supremacy than those who call themselves white supremacists. Even the maintenance of white privilege represents a different shade of white supremacy. Why? It is because white supremacy is involved with implementing white nationalism, white identity, or even white privilege.


Charlottesville's Government
My 12 years of activism experience tells me that the Charlottesville government took a passive-aggressive approach to monitoring and controlling the protest and counterprotests that day. I have protested in NYC, West Point, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Allentown. And, in each of those cities, whenever there was any anticipation of trouble with a protest, police presence was in abundance even prior to the protests. From what I saw on the news and read from the different accounts, this was not the case in Charlottesville.

The police presence at protests accomplish at least 2 tasks. One of those tasks is to define the legitimate area of a given protest. The other one is to prevent altercations between protesters and counterprotesters. So when Charlottesville's police do not show an adequate presence before the protest or fail to immediately respond to ongoing violence, then we have strong evidence that Charlottesville government was going to use the violence that occurred for some purpose. And when we read that Charlottesville government was forced to allow the protest by a judge, it strongly suggests that Charlottesville government allowed enough violence to occur before the protest so that it had a legitimate excuse to cancel the protest before it occurred. Thus not only are some of the participants among the protesters and counterprotesters to blame for the violence that was practiced, the Charlottesville government also bears some partial responsibility too.


The Rest Of Us
 Having witnessed what I did on the news, having read a number of commentaries on the Charlottesville protest on the internet, and after my own reflection on what occurred it seems to me that we Americans are at risk for two problematic reactions. The first of these problematic reactions is to conclude that the white supremacist and nazi protesters define what racism is. Such a reaction can make us feel comfortable with ourselves because we certainly aren't like those KKKers and nazis who talk so abusively and freely engage in violence to get their points across. Therefore we conclude that we are not racists.

However, there is a problem with such thinking. That problem is that racism occurs on a continuum. Not all racism is loud and explicit. A lot of racism can be subtle so that it is undetectable to the racist. But it can easily be observed by the target of the racism.

There are clear indicators that reveal our racism. For example, if one doesn't believe that some police officers have been abusive and unnecessarily violent until a white woman from Australia is shot by a non-white police officer, then there is evidence that one is a racist. Why? Simply because of the number of deaths of unarmed Blacks from all ages, including those who reside in cribs, is just too high to explain police violence in any other way than to say that some police officers have been abusive and unnecessarily violent. In addition, one only needs to talk to a number of Blacks to understand how they have often been the victims of racial profiling.

Another indicator to show that one could be a racist is to not believe that we have a problem with racism in this nation until a white woman is killed at a demonstration revolving around racism.

We need to realize that many of have varying degrees of racism inside of us. And it is for us, and those around us, to identify that racism but not so that one can outed for punishment. Rather, we need to be aware of our racism so we can start changing to becoming less racist.


The second problematic reaction to Charlottesville that many of us are vulnerable to is to desire limits on the free speech rights of certain groups because we find their views to be too vile. This is what antifa wants to do. Antifa wants to act as judge and jury of the nazis and thus feel justified in taking away the rights to assemble and to speak freely of the protesters at Charlottesville. And as extremely deplorable as the idea of white supremacy and nazi ideologies are, as long as they are expressing their views nonviolently and legally, they should have the right to assemble and to speak freely. Of course, not only do the rest of us have the right to speak freely to them, we also have the right to ignore their hateful words and ideas.

In addition, the violent responses of some of the counterprotesters illustrated a continued divergence of the Left from what was taught by Martin Luther King Jr. This is unfortunate because the fighting between the protesters and the counterprotesters displayed nothing more than a gang mentality: that is what is right and wrong depends solely on who does what to whom. But we are all beneficiaries of King's meeting violence with nonviolence and even love. Why not resort to what he led others to practice during the Civil Rights Movement?

The Appropriate Response To The White Supremacists and Nazis
I inadvertently discovered a very appropriate response to white supremacists and nazis while on vacation in D.C. The wife scheduled trips to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture and to the National Holocaust Museum. The point here being that history trumps ideology. 

The ideology of white supremacists and nazis is one where reality is deductively arrived at. Their ideology tells them what is needed to accomplish some desired state. But, as with many ideologies, their ideology does not account for the facts on the ground whether those facts come from the past or present.

The bottom 3 floors of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture shows historical accounts of slavery and violent racism, pictures of African-American men, women, and children, and instruments of imprisonment and torture. White supremacists and nazis should read the accounts, stare at the faces of those who suffered so much, and look at and, if possible, physically experience those instruments of confinement and torture. Then they should tell us face to face why the past results of their ideology were fair, just, and humane to those in the pictures. And if they can't do that, then they must tell us why do they follow the same ideology that produced such past atrocities.

Similarly, white supremacists and nazis should walk through the National Holocaust museum and, again, read the historical accounts of demeaning and violent anti-Semitism, look at the faces of those who suffered which are in the pictures, and see and, if possible, physically experience the instruments of confinement and torture. Then they should tell us face to face why the past results  of their ideology were fair, just, and humane to the people in the pictures. And if they can't do that,then they must tell us why do they follow the same ideology that produced such past atrocities.

Certainly, such a approach will not convert or even give reason for pause to all white supremacists and nazis. But it might accomplish that for some of them and such a response to white supremacists and nazis reflects a far superior way of thinking and behaving than exercising the unprovoked violence that antifa and some other counterprotesters practiced in Charlottesville. For Martin Luther King Jr. told us that we cannot defeat hate with hate.









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