At the recent anniversary gathering on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., the speakers and those gathered to celebrate the civil rights struggle lamented that there is work still to do on racism in America.
Indeed, there is, but I daresay every single one of those gathered on the bridge had their finger pointed in the wrong direction, for racism is not a one-way street.
For more than two generations we white Americans have re-learned how all people should tolerate each other’s differences. Our children and grandchildren have been schooled from a very young age on the evils of discrimination. We have developed our own internal switch of alarm at anything smelling of discriminatory actions and have tried hard to squeeze those vestiges out of our life, even while Affirmative Action programs illogically give racial advantage to some as a means to fight racism.
Our news media twists themselves into pretzels to avoid the banned N-word as if letting it pass their lips would brand them somehow. We are uncomfortable at news reports of any American being assaulted, injured or killed by racial motivation because we know it is wrong.
We also know the mainstream media’s chosen narrative is that blacks are victims, with those stories loudly repeated endlessly in the media echo chamber while white victim stories are ignored in a double standard that smacks of propaganda instead of journalism. We don’t want anyone persecuted for their race, and we are weary of being accused as racists.
When a racially charged incident is reported, most adults seem to know instinctively we are supposed to wait for the facts to unfold before judging, especially before speaking out publicly from a position of power.
Paradoxically, at the highest level of our government where that patience and prudence should be on bold display out of leadership, we have seen instead juvenile displays of leaders pitting one race against another.
Attorney General Eric Holder covered for Black Panther thugs who intimidated white voters at polling places in Pennsylvania in the 2008 election.
When Cambridge, Mass., police arrested a prominent black professor in his home, President Obama rushed to call police actions “stupid,” only to discover later he was wrong, though he never admitted his error.
In the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, President Obama spoke out in favor of the black victim while the fact-finding was just beginning, fanning the flames of racial tension.
Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice cherry-picked a prosecutor in hopes of nailing gunman George Zimmerman, who in my estimation was a jerk but what about fair play? Holder dispatched a herd of investigators to Florida to work the crowd and search for evidence against Zimmerman while he created a public expectation of the outcome of the case, exacerbating the potential for violence.
When the jury acquitted Zimmerman, Holder initiated a civil rights investigation to attempt a different prosecution angle, which also failed. Neither Obama nor Holder admitted their error on the case or how they wrongly intervened.
Now comes Ferguson, Missouri. Our brain-dead media went gullibly along with the “Hands-Up! Don’t shoot!” slogans nationwide that ultimately were proven to be a lie, since victim Michael Brown was proven neither to have been shot in the back nor to have had his hands up in surrender. Brown was proven to have attacked Police Officer Darren Wilson in an attempt to take his gun, shortly after Brown stole from a local merchant.
Obama and Holder once again fanned the flames of racial tension by improperly creating public expectations of grand jury results and were wrong – again. They teamed up with the slimy likes of Al Sharpton to sharpen anti-white knives and throw police officers all over the country under the bus.
And they gave sad encouragement to the rioters in Ferguson who shut down business, committed violent acts, looted and burned. I guess in the value set of the looters, breaking down doors and windows and stealing liquor store shelves empty is their version of justice.
Despite the out-of-bounds meddling with the judicial process, despite sending legions of FBI agents to hunt desperately for evidence against white Police Officer Darren Wilson, and despite a follow-on search for cause to prosecute Wilson on civil rights charges, he was exonerated. Of course there was no apology for over-zealous race-based use of government power.
Finally, a Department of Justice report was issued blasting the Ferguson Police Department for abusing the black population in a number of ways, including targeting blacks for minor infractions to raise revenue.
The problem I have with this and other similar reports is they leave out the extraordinary level of crime police must deal with in those poor black communities, a gross distortion of the situation.
Nevertheless, some aspects of the report are disturbing and it could be true that Ferguson police did abuse the power of their badge. If true, there is no excuse and known cases should be prosecuted.
Do I blame President Obama and Attorney General Holder for recent police shootings? No, not directly. They didn’t pull any triggers. But they did wrongly create a hostile racial setting when their duty was to calm the waters, and they did so with blatant racist attitudes.
It is high time they and the good people in the black community speak out to fellow blacks who have a propensity to violence and knee-jerk finger-pointing to blame whites.
It is long past time they all learned to look into their own heart and recognize racist attitudes toward whites is just as wrong as racism against them.
It is long overdue for the people trapped in cycles of poverty to recognize white America didn’t put them there and has no interest in keeping them there, and that the path to the American dream is a strong family, education, self-reliance, self-discipline and perseverance.
What the civil rights marchers sought on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 was equal opportunity. Their dangerous work ultimately succeeded, as equality of opportunity has been the law of the land for a long time. There is no guarantee of equal results, though, and it is up to every individual to either succeed or fail. Those who don’t try and blame others for their plight have already failed.
No matter how much we progress, there will always be a few small minds that stir up hatred by race, religion, etc., because we can’t legislate what people think of each other.
But given all the time and change since the tear gas and clubs were used on civil rights marchers on that bridge long ago, who would have dreamed that the agitators who incite crowds to violent acts with their racist views would be the President and Attorney General of the United States?
[Terry Garlock of Peachtree City occasionally contributes a column to The Citizen. His email is terry@garlock1.com.]
