There is a bitter controversy spreading across America like a viral pandemic. The nation’s past is being held to greater scrutiny as a result of repeated incidents of unarmed black Americans being murdered by the police. This evidence of systemic racism has boiled over into a much needed dialog on what values our country ought to be preserving and encouraging.
Citizens have been pouring into the streets to express their anger and their refusal to tolerate the prejudice that presents itself in the form of “historical” statues. These monuments were intended to pay tribute to leaders of the treasonous Confederacy. In some cases these statues have been ripped from their pedestals or otherwise defaced. Donald Trump has taken the side of the traitors (while accusing others of treason) and is calling for the arrests and harsh punishment of the protesters. On Friday morning he even tweeted “Wanted” posters. He is doing far more to persecute these demonstrators than he has ever done to hold actual racist murderers accountable for their crimes.
Those making arguments in favor of maintaining these statues barely disguise their racist motives. They assert that it’s a matter of preserving history. But we do not erect statues of traitors and criminals as historical markers. If we did there would be statues of Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray. Statues are honorific, not history lessons. And removing them doesn’t erase any historical data. The South’s rebellion to preserve slavery is still recorded in history books and documentaries, as it should be.
Cut to Fox News (the network that is literally killing people). On Friday’s edition of Fox and Friends, the now social distancing “Curvy Couch” potatoes invited South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham to discuss these issues. Co-host Brian Kilmeade led off with this wholehearted embrace of what Trump once called the “very fine people on both sides” of the racial hatred debate. “These people were right,” Kilmeade began, and “Those people were wrong. But it doesn’t mean they were terrible people. They were people of their times.”
Brian Kilmeade on fighting for freedom vs. fighting for chattel slavery: "These people were right. Those people were wrong. But it doesn't mean they were terrible people, they were people of their times." pic.twitter.com/clY0XGCMUl
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) June 26, 2020
Really? Kilmeade is defending the slave holders who were wonderful folks who just liked to own and brutalize other human beings as if they were cattle. What’s so terrible about that? As “people of their times,” how could they be faulted? How are they any different than the Nazis who were people of the 1940s in Germany? How are they any different than the KKK and the white nationalists in America today who are merely people of these times?
Here’s a creative way some Bulgarian artists dealt with the Russian oppressors of their times:
Gotta love this ?
"An unidentified street artist struck last weekend … transform[ing] the monument's Red Army soldiers into a tableau of storybook characters. The artist's caption spray-painted on the statue read: 'In step with the times.'"https://t.co/dHEmvqYTbF
— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) June 26, 2020
The fact that Kilmeade considers that a valid argument is precisely what’s wrong with Fox News and those who align themselves with their heinous political ideology (including Trump and his Deplorables). When it was Sen. Graham’s turn to contribute to this dialog, he didn’t bother to renounce what had been said so far. In fact, he elaborated by attacking the protesters in even more loathsome terms (video below):
“The people doing this hate our country. They hate the way we were founded. They hate capitalism. They have no respect for religion. They have no respect for diversity of thought. These people are the most radical people known to America. We’re at war with them politically. They want to destroy America as we know it. They hate America and every symbol of our country from the flag to the statues.
They hate. They want to turn us into a socialist nation. They want to destroy the family unit as we know it. And I tell you what, to the listeners out there. You may not believe you’re in a war, but you are, politically, and you need to take sides, and you need to help this president.”
Sound familiar? This is the dehumanizing rhetoric of the Old South that regarded people as animals and property. In Graham’s view, they have no rights, no decency, no family values. They represent everything that is unholy and against the country as seen by Graham and his ilk. And the only solution, according to Graham and his Fox News cohorts, is (civil) war.
Make no mistake, Graham and Fox News speak for Trump. Not that anyone outside of their bubble believes them, or that Trump needs their help. He’s been saying the very same things himself. This is the diseased mindset of people who still haven’t accepted that the South lost. They still want the statues that honor traitors. They still want to fly the Confederate flag. They still want to oppress African-Americans and others they regard as non-white deviants. And they are terrified that they are losing the battle to retain their delusions of superiority. Which, thankfully, they are.
How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.
GOP Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC tells conservative Fox News viewers: "To the listeners out there: You may not believe you're in a war but you are, politically, and you need to take sides and you need to help this president." pic.twitter.com/nzAuZlfE57
— American Journal News (@AmerIndependent) June 26, 2020
Racism goes both ways. There are many racist white folks – redneck types – they are loud & cese
Racism goes both ways & both are wrong!
None of us alive today had slaves nor do we want some now. (Super rich like idea of poor folks working for free for rich owners. Black, white, yellow, brown… The color that matters most to them is GREEN! Mega-rich like to hoard their excess money. Not share it & can’t even buy more stuff…they have it all now. And gobs of billions$$$ more jumped into their lap. What can they buy with that money that they don’t have to save, nor spend. They’re rolling naked around in the bills!
What I don’t see is these super filthy rich bitches donating large dums of money to things like FOOD BANKS! Alot of need is out there– pick 1 or 2. More if you are super elite & can give more to hungry & hurting people all around ya’. Don’t judge them for whining, being hungry , like every other day, hungry & scared.
When you stand up & do or say something to help the homeless, poor & hungry…it matters! Speak out when something is wrong! Speak out loud! Say it is wrong everytime you see or hear people acting like it’s ok & normal. It is not!!!
Being racist bigots is just plain WRONG! Black or white — both are dead wrong! Can’t judge all people with a skin color to all be the same people — some are very nice. Some are mean & nasty. And all the in between moods & attitudes are in there too.
A person’s morals, kindness, personality, character, good guy/bad guy, friendly or mean? Do they lie & steal? Or share & care? Fun, funny, cruel, bully — all these things matter, but NOT 1 OF THEM can you find it in their skin color! Have to look deeper than skin! It’s inside.
That truth is SO EZ to grasp that 4 & 5yr old children know it already. They are smarter than alot of grown-ups! Hatred & racism must be taught to children ~ they do not come that way! I find it stupid & beyond disgusting that adults would teach their kids to hate people they don’t even know! No matter what color you are it is the same ugly shade of wrong!
In Stockton, CA, reverse racism is everywhere! Even in the PD ~ tho they hate the homeless more – any color. I have always thought it’s stupid & mean to despise anyone just cuz’ color of skin! What does my skin, or theirs have to do with who I am; who they are, inside??! Never until I got to Stockton, had I encountered racism in reverse.
Old bumper sticker on my car says, “Good people come in all colors.” So true! But I am adding small one below it that says, “So do assholes.” Also true!
There is a difference between people that were “products of their time” that may have owned slaves/supported the institution of slavery when it was legal during the history of the US, and people that fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The latter participated in an armed insurrection against their country. They fought to achieve the destruction of the United States of America, just as much as the Axis did in WW2. They were traitors, by the Constitutional definition thereof. And the objective of their treason, if one but bothers to read the Confederacy’s founding documents, was to preserve the institution of slavery. One hopes that mankind has progressed from times past, when slavery and other pernicious practices were common. But not all who had slaves took up arms against the USA and attempted to destroy their country — that was the purview of the Confederacy. If Graham and his ilk can support monuments to Lee and Jackson, logically they should have no objection to a monument to Benedict Arnold.
Agree wholeheartedly! (with AnnieLaurie)
It would have been interesting to get a candid opinion from Rupert Murdock and Roger Ailes as to whom they considered “terrible people”.
It’s one thing for the Fux News “personalities” to spout obnoxious bullshit, they’re merely professional TV assholes.
But it’s another thing for Lindsey Graham to spout even worse bullshit, he’s an elected member of Congress. But hopefully, not for long …
Yes…it seems our elected members of Congress under Trump have become nothing more than corroded creeps, no better than those at FuxNews!
Graham, McConnell & many more GOP in Congress & elsewhere have been poisoned & are no longer able, nor fit, to serve this Country & its people! They need to be sent home & dhould forever hang their heads in shame at what they have done ~ to this Country & to any self-respect they once had!
it’s kind of weird to see the U.S. debating the merits of slavery 150 years after the civil war.
Lady G (aka Lindsey Graham) is only spouting this nonsense because his opponent this fall is black, and he’s sending dog whistles to the white trash.
That’s a very valid point. Happily, the dog whistle goes both ways: by spouting such racist crap, he’s making clear to moderates & liberals (of all colors) that he’s unworthy of public office & should be sent packing this Fall.