A Brief History
On August 11, 2017, Neo-Nazi, KKK, and extraneous white supremacists with a properly issued parade permit marched in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the removal of a statue of Virginia state hero General Robert E. Lee. Counter protesters with no such permit showed up en masse and confronted, even attacked, the original protesters and a riot ensued, resulting in 3 deaths and numerous injuries.
Digging Deeper
In the most infamous moment of the weekend, a white supremacist 20 year old man from Kentucky, recently moved to Ohio, drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counter protesters, striking another vehicle and pushing that car and another into the crowd, killing 1 pedestrian and injuring over a dozen others.
Sadly, during the riot, a Virginia State Trooper helicopter also crashed, killing both Troopers aboard.
A shocked and outraged nation watched as helmeted protesters and helmeted counter protesters fought with shields, mace, clubs and bottles. It was obvious both sides had come to the event prepared to fight.
Many politicians across the country climbed aboard their respective soap boxes to denounce the white supremacist hate groups that had protested the removal of the Lee statue, and President Donald Trump addressed the tragic confrontation by saying that he condemns “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence, on many sides.”
Reaction to the President’s statement was swift and savage. Liberals, Democrats, Blacks, Whites, Republicans, and Conservatives alike jumped on the bandwagon to quickly condemn Trump’s failure to single out the Neo-Nazis, KKK, and other white supremacist groups by name. Trump’s apparent inclusion of the counter protesters (liberals and Black Lives Matter groups among others) in his condemnation of haters infuriated many in the media, in politics and in the public.
Obviously, we abhor haters. We disavow racism in any form. Since the counter protesters showed up with an overt intent to create violence (armed and armored) we include these people as part of the problem. All violence, regardless of which side propagates it, is illegal and morally wrong (except blatant self-defense). The inability of the Left to admit that all violence is wrong is hypocritical and undermines the message of the Left. To have the moral upper hand, you have to indeed behave with superior moral conduct, not just words.
Free Speech. The First Amendment to the Constitution. There is a reason this Amendment is the first. The cornerstone of democracy is free speech, and that means free speech by the media, by individuals and by groups. It also means free speech we do not agree with, or even abhor. Picking and choosing only that free speech that we agree with is hypocritical and wrong, inconsistent with American values and laws. The counter protesters at Charlottesville were attempting to violate the free speech of the Hate Groups that were protesting. To refuse to recognize these facts is to be disingenuous and a phony progressive. No one in the US is obligated to celebrate every message, but we should all celebrate the right of other people to express that message, even that message we disagree with. Why is this concept so hard to swallow?
Hate groups. How stupid can Americans be to support any sort of Neo-Nazi movement? Any person of Slavic or Mediterranean origin was considered by Adolf Hitler and his gang of thugs to be sub-human, and yet the ranks of those that cling to the Swastika include White people that are considered fit only for slavery or genocide! Read your history, dudes! Many of you are exactly the people your political ideology is against. Anyone of British or French origin (even partly) should remember the hatred and fury of Hitler and his minions during the Third Reich toward people of those national groups. Do white supremacists of Catholic origin realize the KKK hates you as much as they do Jews and Blacks? Many of the members of such hate groups do not realize how much the real Nazi’s would have hated them!
Slavery and Race. African Americans are about 15-20% Caucasian, as measured by DNA testing. Does that mean African Americans bear a fifth or a sixth of the blame for slavery? Depending on how statistics can be manipulated, going back several generations means a tremendous amount of people had at least one ancestor that owned slaves. Virtually 100% of people of all races and nationalities! Black Africans have owned Black African slaves from thousands of years ago up to and including to this day. White people have owned more White slaves than they ever did own Black slaves, including right here in North America. Native Americans have also been enslaved by other Native Americans and by Whites, and some Native Americans owned Black slaves. After the American Civil War the US population grew by leaps and bounds, mostly due to the arrival of immigrants, White people that never owned African slaves in their lifetime or any part of their ancestry. Today, our American population is about 10 times that of the US population in 1860. Many millions of these people never owned slaves, especially African slaves. The Mexican American population of the US now outnumbers the African American population, and the history of Mexico is such that slavery was abolished in that country long before it was abolished in the US (1829 vs. 1865). Also, virtually all humans today have an ancestor that was once a slave. This means White Europeans as well as Africans and Asians, and Native Americans. Putting the blame for slavery in the United States on living White people that not only had nothing to do with it, but even do not have ancestors that had anything to do with African slavery is wrong. More people are slaves today than at any time in the past history of mankind. While we agree with the vilifying of slavery and abhor it in every way, we believe a certain amount of education and perspective is required instead of some sort of blanket “White Guilt” for something most White Americans had nothing to do with. Plus, virtually every single Black African sold to Europeans was sold by Black Africans. White people were NOT conducting capture expeditions in the jungles of Africa as sometimes wrongly depicted or implied. White people bought Black slaves from Black slavemasters.
Question for students (and subscribers): Do you agree or disagree with the opinions and statements detailed above? Feel free to share your ideas and opinions on these current hot topics, and feel free to include facts, statistics or information relevant to the discussion in the comments section below this article. We encourage all readers with interest in these topics to read up on the history of demographics in the United States and on the history of slavery in the US and elsewhere. Only through informed knowledge can intelligent opinions be derived.
Note: On August 14, 2017, President Trump publicly stated his denouncing of White Supremacists by name, generating even more criticism from the media and the left for saying “too little, too late.” Trump was accused of being disingenuous and lukewarm in his comments. What do you think? Is there anything the President could say that would satisfy his opponents? You tell us! Give us your opinion, were Trump’s comments good enough, or indeed too little, too late?
Note: In the wake of the protest of taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, a movement has swept the South where irate Blacks and White sympathizers are demanding ALL Confederate statues and monuments be taken down and destroyed. Please tell us your stance on this subject. Also, if the Confederate monuments must go, then is it logical to assume that the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, and all money, buildings, statues, paintings, memorials and the like of anyone who had owned slaves or supported slavery must also be done away with??? Eventually, this question must also be answered! Please share your opinions on this topic as well.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Harrison, Bob and Walter D. Kennedy. Myths of American Slavery. Pelican Publishing, 2003.