I have opined more than once about the whitewashing of this nation’s history, the attempts to say that slavery was merely giving shelter to immigrants, that racism isn’t a part of our past, and more recently that January 6th was just another tourist day. But our friend Keith summarizes these attempts better than I can and warns of the dangers ahead if we continue to hide our history. Thank you, Keith, for this very timely post!
When history does not support a narrative, we have folks who will get out their paint brush and paint over bad or questionable things. A good example is to white wash the heinous insurrection on January 6, implying insurrectionists were just tourists. Last time I checked, tourists don’t plead guilty for seditious actions. Maybe they missed the memo to act like they are sightseeing when they storm the Capitol.
Today, we have folks who want to defund the FBI and IRS, because they are picking on Donald J. Trump for one of many alleged crimes or mischievous actions. Of course, the CFO for the Trump organization just pled guilty to tax fraud, so maybe he is another tourist. Or, maybe the former president took classified documents to plan for a tourist trip abroad.
Of course, these folks must have a large supply of white paint, especially since so much has…
I might have skipped my music post today, for I am behind on almost everything and not feeling quite up to snuff, but yesterday afternoon my friend Jerry texted me and said he had a music suggestion for me. With some trepidation, for Jerry and I rarely like the same music, I read on and much to my surprise he was recommending this song … one of my all-time favourites, which … on further thought, Jerry should know … hmmmmm … maybe he sensed I needed some of my man, Stevie Wonder at the moment, eh? Sneaky, Jerry … very sneaky! Anyway, yes it’s a redux, but it’s still a damn fine song, and I haven’t played it since 2020!
Paul McCartney wrote this song, saying that the message was “that people of all types could live together.” He liked the piano analogy, since you can play using just the white keys or just the black keys, but to make great music, you have to combine them. So true.
McCartney started recording this as a solo effort, but then got the idea to do it as a duet with Stevie Wonder. A demo made its way to Wonder, and he agreed to record it, standing wholeheartedly behind the message in the song. It was issued as a single and appeared on McCartney’s 1982 album Tug Of War.
This was Stevie Wonder’s first #1 single in the UK. His only other was I Just Called To Say I Love You in 1984.
Listen to the words, feel the camaraderie between these two men, feel the love … share the love, spread the love. Love knows no colour boundaries, and neither should we.
Ebony & Ivory Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
We all know
That people are the same wherever you go
There is good and bad in everyone
When we learn to live, we learn to give each other
What we need to survive
Together alive
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
We all know
That people are the same wherever you go
There is good and bad, mmm, in everyone
We learn to live when we learn to give each other
What we need to survive
Together alive
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
As I so often say, and as many with better minds than mine have long said before me, if we fail to learn the lessons of history, then we are destined to repeat our mistakes. In an article in The Guardian, Steve Philips writes about the lessons we need to have learned from the post-Civil War era and what our future holds if we fail to heed those lessons …
If America fails to punish its insurrectionists, it could see a wave of domestic terror
Steve Phillips
We must not repeat the mistakes of the years after the 1860s war for white supremacy that we call the civil war
The last time the United States failed to properly punish insurrectionists, they went on to form the Ku Klux Klan, unleash a reign of murderous domestic terrorism, and re-establish formal white supremacy in much of the country for more than 100 years. As the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack begins televised hearings this week, the lessons from the post-civil war period offer an ominous warning for this moment and where we go from here.
It is often difficult to sustain the requisite sense of urgency about past events, however dramatic and shocking they may have been at the time. Memories fade, new challenges arise and the temptation to put it all behind us and move on is strong. On top of all that, Republicans quickly and disingenuously called for “unity”, mere days after failing to block the peaceful transfer of power. If we want to preserve our fragile democracy, however, Congress and the president must learn from history and not make the same mistakes their predecessors did in the years after the 1860s war for white supremacy that we call the civil war.
In 1860, many people believed that America should be a white nation where Black people could be bought and sold and held in slavery. The civil war began when many of the people who held that view refused to accept the results of that year’s presidential election. They first plotted to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln (five years later, they would succeed). Then they seceded from the Union, and shortly thereafter started shooting and killing people who disagreed with them. By the end of the war, 2% of the entire country’s population had been killed, the equivalent of 7 million people being killed based on today’s US population.
Despite the rampant treason and extraordinary carnage of the war, the country’s political leaders had little appetite for punishing their white counterparts who had done their level best to destroy the United States of America. After Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth successfully assassinated Lincoln in 1865, Andrew Johnson ascended to the highest office in the land. Johnson, a southerner who “openly espoused white supremacy”, “handed out pardons indiscriminately” to Confederate leaders and removed from the south the federal troops protecting newly freed African Americans.
The historian Lerone Bennett Jr captured the tragedy of the moment in his book Black Power USA: The Human Side of Reconstruction, 1867-1877, writing: “Most Confederate leaders expected imprisonment, confiscation, perhaps even banishment. Expecting the worst, they were willing to give up many things in order to keep some. If there was ever a moment for imposing a lasting solution to the American racial problem, this was it. But the North dawdled and the moment passed. When the Confederates realized that the North was divided and unsure, hope returned. And with hope came a revival of the spirit of rebellion … this was one of the greatest political blunders in American history.”
With that revival of white supremacist hope came ropes and robes and widespread domestic terrorism. Mere months after the ostensible end of the civil war in April 1865, half a dozen southern young white Confederate war veterans gathered in Pulaski, Tennessee, in December 1865 to discuss what to do with their lives, and they decided to form a new organization called the Ku Klux Klan. The first Grand Wizard of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, was a Confederate general who had been pardoned by Johnson. In less than one year, Forrest would go on to orchestrate “336 cases of murder or assault with intent to kill on freedmen across the state [of Georgia] from January 1 through November 15 of 1868”.
The effectiveness of the domestic terrorism in crushing the country’s nascent multiracial democracy was unsurprising and undeniable. In Columbia county, Georgia, 1,222 votes had been cast for the anti-slavery party in April 1868, and after the reign of terror that year, the party received just one vote in November .
Lest we think this was all a long time ago, the House committee hearings are about to remind us all that we had an insurrection just last year. Not only did a violent mob attack the country’s elected leaders and attempt to block the peaceful transfer of power, but even after the assault was repelled, 147 Republicans – the majority of the Republican members in Congress – refused to accept the votes of the American people and attempted to overthrow the elected government of the United States of America.
And far from being chastened, the enemies of democracy in the Republican party have only become emboldened, like their Confederate counterparts of the last century. Just as happened in the years after the civil war when the prospect of large-scale Black voting threatened white power and privilege, the defenders of white nationalism have engaged in a legislative orgy of passing pro-white public policies – from trying to erase evidence of racism and white supremacy from public school instruction to laws making it increasingly difficult for people of color to cast ballots. As journalist Ron Brownstein has warned, “The two-pronged fight captures how aggressively Republicans are moving to entrench their current advantages in red states, even as many areas grow significantly more racially and culturally diverse. Voting laws are intended to reconfigure the composition of today’s electorate; the teaching bans aim to shape the attitudes of tomorrow’s.”
All of this is happening because the insurrectionists have not and believe they will not be punished. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Democrats control Congress and the White House, and they can take strong and decisive action to ensure appropriate consequences for people who seek to undermine democracy. The House of Representatives impeached Donald Trump in 2021 for incitement of insurrection, and Congress can still invoke the 14th amendment’s provision banning from office any person who has “engaged in insurrection”. All those who aided and abetted Trump’s insurrection should face the full force of the laws that are designed to protect the multiracial democracy that the majority of Americans want. The fate of democracy in America is quite literally at stake.
On September 14th, Californians will cast their vote to either keep current Governor Gavin Newsom or replace him with one of a number of other candidates vying for his job. The leading contender appears to be Larry Elder, who I have mentioned before here on Filosofa’s Word. Elder is NOT a man under whose governance I would wish to live! Clay Jones over at Claytoonz has done a fantastic job of showing us who Elder is … read on!
Over the weekend, a speaker at a rally for California governor Gavin Newsome said his Republican opponent, Larry Elder, is a “black face on white supremacy.” Larry Elder is a controversial right-wing Trump-supporting conspiracy-spreading whack job with a radio show who also happens to be black. But black people can be conservative lunatics too, right? Is it fair to accuse one of them, like Larry Elder, of being a “black face on white supremacy?” After all, Larry Elder is totally 100 percent in favor of reparations for slavery.
Of course, it’s not descendants of slaves Larry wants reparations for. No, Larry believe slave OWNERS should be rewarded reparations.
Ya’ see, Larry was talking to fellow black conservative lunatic, Candace Owens (which helps defend him from the charges of racism because she can be his prop for a black friend), and he argued since slavery was legal, slave owners were robbed…
This is a post I originally wrote and published in August 2017, and it is one that I think bears repeating today. Racist incidents, white supremacy and white nationalist groups, have been on the rise of late, fueled by a racist president and religious groups who somehow think their god prefers pale-skinned people. Episodes of white police murdering unarmed Black people, for no reason, and getting away with it have become frequent events. It seems to me we are moving in the wrong direction, my friends. But one man is doing his part to try to bridge the racial divide, to help people understand that we are all the same, that skin colour does not make a person better or worse than any other. I have added a few things to the original post, including a Ted-x Talks video that I think you’ll find interesting.
This is the post that I originally wrote for this week’s Good People post, but then I had second thoughts. I had quite an internal debate with myself about whether or not this man actually fit the profile. In past posts to the category, I have highlighted people who gave of their time or money to help people in a more direct sort of way than this person is doing. I have also tried to avoid conflict, controversy and politics in my ‘good people’ posts. This is where my debate came into play. I nearly scuttled this post altogether, but it kept nagging at me, and an inner voice told me I needed to write it. Mr. Daryl Davis has not adopted special needs kids, he has not set up foundations to help feed the poor, he has not built homes for people in need. What he has done that qualifies him for the designation ‘good people’ is quite different than the norm, yet I find it timely, in light of recent events. So, I let my instincts lead the way, and while I have not included him in the ‘good people’ category, I definitely DO consider him to be a good people, and as such, I want to share with you what Mr. Davis has done and is doing. So, please allow me to introduce to you R&B and blues musician, author, actor and bandleader, Mr. Daryl Davis!
Daryl Davis is a talented blues pianist who has played with the likes of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Percy Sledge and many others of Rock ‘n Roll, Jazz, Blues, and even Country music fame. While it isn’t his music that is the focus of this post, it was music that opened the door for what he has done. But first, let us go back just a bit to when Daryl was ten years old.
At age 10, Daryl joined a boy scout troop in Belmont, Massachusetts. He was the only black child in the troop, but that didn’t matter to the other kids, for they had not yet begun to see the world in terms of colour. One day, young Daryl was proudly carrying the flag, with his troop, in a statewide parade to commemorate the ride of Paul Revere when the crowd began throwing rocks and bottles at him. His first thought was that perhaps the crowd did not like boy scouts. But then he realized he was the only boy being targeted, and he soon found out that it was the colour of his skin that people did not like. This was Daryl’s introduction to racism, and it sparked a lifetime of curiosity about those attitudes, a curiosity that drove Daryl to do what he did, what he does. And what, you ask, does he do?
The headline for the article in NPR reads:
How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes
For the past 30 years, Davis, a black man, has spent time befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. He says once the friendship blossoms, the Klansmen realize that their hate may be misguided. Since Davis started talking with these members, he says 200 Klansmen have given up their robes.
How did it start? I shall let Mr. Davis explain in his own words:
“I was playing music — it was my first time playing in this particular bar called the Silver Dollar Lounge and this white gentleman approached me and he says, “I really enjoy you all’s music.” I thanked him, shook his hand and he says, “You know this is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.” I was kind of surprised that he did not know the origin of that kind of music and I said, “Well, where do you think Jerry Lee Lewis learned how to play that kind of style?” He’s like, “Well, I don’t know.” I said, “He learned it from the same place I did. Black, blues, and boogie-woogie piano players.” That’s what that rockabilly, rock ‘n roll style came from.” He said, “Oh, no! Jerry Lee invented that. I ain’t ever heard no black man except for you play like that.” So I’m thinking this guy has never heard Fats Domino or Little Richard and then he says, “You know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man?”
Well, now I’m getting curious. I’m trying to figure out, now how is it that in my 25 years on the face of this earth that I have sat down, literally, with thousands of white people, had a beverage, a meal, a conversation or anybody else, and this guy is 15 to 20 years older than me and he’s never sat down with a black guy before and had a drink. I said, “How is that? Why?” At first, he didn’t answer me and he had a friend sitting next to him and he elbowed him and said, “Tell him, tell him, tell him,” and he finally said, “I’m a member of the Ku Klux Klan.”
I just burst out laughing because I really did not believe him. I thought he was pulling my leg. As I was laughing, he pulled out his wallet, flipped through his credit cards and pictures and produced his Klan card and handed it to me. Immediately, I stopped laughing. I recognized the logo on there, the Klan symbol and I realized this was for real, this guy wasn’t joking. And now I’m wondering, why am I sitting by a Klansman?
But he was very friendly, it was the music that brought us together. He wanted me to call him and let him know anytime I was to return to this bar with this band. The fact that a Klansman and black person could sit down at the same table and enjoy the same music, that was a seed planted. So what do you do when you plant a seed? You nourish it. That was the impetus for me to write a book. I decided to go around the country and sit down with Klan leaders and Klan members to find out: How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”
That encounter happened in 1983, and since then Davis has made it his life’s mission to promote understanding, because as he says, “when two enemies are talking, they’re not fighting”. What he does may not seem like much to some, but in my mind, he is doing his part to change the attitudes of the bigots and haters, one person at a time, using words, music and intellect rather than rocks, bottles, guns and cars as weapons. Think about it for a minute … what if every one of us who believe people should not be judged by the colour of their skin were able to sit down with just one member of a white supremacist group and, through open, honest dialog, help that person to understand that we are all a part of the human race?
In 1998, Mr. Davis wrote a book, Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan, where he recounts some of his experiences. For example, the time when one Klansman told Davis that “All black people have a gene in them that makes them violent.” Davis recalls …
“After a time I said, ‘You know, it’s a fact that all white people have within them a gene that makes them serial killers. Name me three black serial killers.’ He could not do it. I said ‘you have the gene. It’s just latent.’ He said, ‘Well that’s stupid.’ I said, ‘It’s just as stupid as what you said to me.’ He was very quiet after that and I know it was sinking in.”
Before you say what I know you are thinking, no, I am not wearing rose-coloured glasses, am not a Pollyanna. I realize that the majority of bigots will not be swayed by conversation alone, but I DO think some will. Often hate and bigotry are based on a lack of understanding, a fear of that which is different. Mr. Davis has set out to show that people, all people, are really not so different when you get down to the basics. I DO applaud Mr. Davis for the courage to do what he has done, and continues to do. His approach is the very antithesis of what we see coming out of our own federal government and many of the evangelical churches today.
Mr. Davis was the guest speaker at a Ted-x Talk in 2018, and I’ve included the video here. Granted, it is a bit lengthy at just over 18 minutes, but I think it is well worth watching … at least please watch the first few minutes.
My initial reason for thinking of Daryl Davis as a good person doing good things still stands … he is doing his part to remove hate from our society, one person at a time. This is a man whose hand I would like to shake someday.
There is a right way and a wrong way to make a point … our friend Keith writes of a young woman who made her point the right way … take a look! Thanks, Keith!
Peaceful protests are happening in huge numbers around the country regarding Black Lives Matter. There is danger from both the COVID-19 virus as well as counter protestors. From what I have seen, most of the protestors are wearing masks and they are outside, but they still need to be very careful.
As for the other risk of counter protestors, here is what one young black woman named Samantha Francine did. Her actions are captured in an article written by Asta Bowen in the Jackson Hole News and Guide on June 10 called “Looking hate in the eye in Whitefish.” Here are few paragraphs. A link to the article is below.
“What happened here was much less dramatic. On a fine afternoon in the pretty ski town of Whitefish, a group was gathered to raise signs of support for Black Lives Matter. One large, angry man descended on the scene, cursing…
I am in a mood to end all moods tonight. Not having slept much for the past three nights, and then being slapped in the face with the horrors that are happening all over this nation that I’m forced to remain in, I really want to bash some heads in. I even yelled at the kitties! In this mood, there are only a few songs that will soothe the savage beast within me, and this is my top pick.
Paul McCartney wrote this song, saying that the message was “that people of all types could live together.” He liked the piano analogy, since you can play using just the white keys or just the black keys, but to make great music, you have to combine them. So true.
McCartney started recording this as a solo effort, but then got the idea to do it as a duet with Stevie Wonder. A demo made its way to Wonder, and he agreed to record it, standing wholeheartedly behind the message in the song. It was issued as a single and appeared on McCartney’s 1982 album Tug Of War.
This was Stevie Wonder’s first #1 single in the UK. His only other was I Just Called To Say I Love You in 1984.
Listen to the words, feel the camaraderie between these two men, feel the love … share the love, spread the love. Love knows no colour boundaries, and neither should we.
Ebony & Ivory Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
We all know
That people are the same wherever you go
There is good and bad in everyone
When we learn to live, we learn to give each other
What we need to survive
Together alive
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
We all know
That people are the same wherever you go
There is good and bad, mmm, in everyone
We learn to live when we learn to give each other
What we need to survive
Together alive
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
Jerry over at On the Fence Voters has put some things into perspective for us today, like “the good ol’ days”. I think you’ll find his analogies to be quite apt. Thanks, Jerry!
When my sons entered their teen years, we had “the talk.” No, not that one. Well, we did have that talk, too. But the talk I refer to now is the one about expensive products generally, and about cars in particular. This was my mantra-like advice to them: “Repairs are cheaper than replacement, and maintenance is cheaper than repairs.”
Fiscal Prudence Pays
My advice to them continued along these lines: “If you properly maintain a car—and pay for the occasional necessary repairs—you can expect it to get you where you need to go for at least 200,000 miles. And that means that if you drive the average number of miles Americans drive per year—13,500—you can expect to get nearly 15 years out of your car. Then, if your auto loan was for six years, that means you will have nearly nine years of payment-free driving. If you are fiscally responsible…
I could have sworn I had played this one sometime last year, but no matter for I was determined to play it again anyway.
In the past week, I have written several posts pertaining to the pure hate in this country … a newspaper editor calling for the KKK to kill democrats, a Coast Guard Lieutenant plotting to kill “almost everyone in the world”, a child arrested for refusing to stand for the pledge of ‘allegiance’, to name a few. It takes a toll on a person’s psyche, and frankly my psyche has had about all it can take of this society. There are two songs that come to mind right off the bat that make us feel better about things, that give us hope in knowing that at least some people are out to make the world a better place. One is John Lennon’s Imagine, which I have played a couple of times in the last year, and the other is a song called Ebony and Ivory, done brilliantly by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.
Listen to the words, feel the camaraderie between these two men, feel the love.
Ebony & Ivory Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
We all know
That people are the same wherever you go
There is good and bad in everyone
When we learn to live, we learn to give each other
What we need to survive
Together alive
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
We all know
That people are the same wherever you go
There is good and bad, mmm, in everyone
We learn to live when we learn to give each other
What we need to survive
Together alive
Ebony and ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Oh Lord, why don’t we?
I was working on an environmental post when this headline crossed my radar … TWICE!
Editor of Alabama newspaper calls for the Ku Klux Klan to ‘night ride again’
Say WHAT??? And then again …
Alabama newspaper editor calls on KKK to lynch Democrats
Deep breathes … in … out … in … out …
WHAT the Sam HELL is wrong with these damn people???The editor is Goodloe Sutton and the newspaper is the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama. He said Democrats were going to raise taxes and that the KKK should hang them and raid Washington DC. This, my friends, is the depth to which this nation has sunk.
“Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again. Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama… This socialist-communist ideology sounds good to the ignorant, the uneducated, and the simple-minded people. Seems like the Klan would be welcome to raid the gated communities up there.”
Asked to elaborate what he meant by “cleaning up D.C.,” Sutton suggested lynching.
“We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them.”
When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position.
“… It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?”
When asked if he recognized the KKK as a racist and violent organization, Sutton disagreed, comparing the Klan to the NAACP.
“A violent organization? Well, they didn’t kill but a few people. The Klan wasn’t violent until they needed to be.”
Say WHAT??? What planet does this man hail from??? Sutton is 79-years-old and surely remembers the dark days before the Civil Rights movement? But wait … he said they “didn’t kill but a few people” … perhaps he doesn’t consider African-Americans to be ‘people’?
Sutton and his paper haven’t always been on the wrong side …
Sutton and the newspaper received national acclaim in the 1990s for their reporting on a corrupt local sheriff. Sutton and his wife, Jane, reported a series of stories of misused funds and abuse of power.
The New York Times in 1998 reported Sutton and the Democrat-Reporter lost advertising dollars and subscribers over their reporting.
In 2007, Sutton was inducted into the University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Communication Hall of Fame for the couple’s anti-corruption articles and editorials.
After his aforementioned editorial, the University of Southern Mississippi appropriately removed him from the Hall of Fame, saying …
“Within the last few hours, the School of Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi learned of Mr. Goodloe Sutton’s call for violence and the return of the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Sutton’s subsequent rebuttals and attempts at clarification only reaffirm the misguided and dangerous nature of his comments. The School of Communication strongly condemns Mr. Sutton’s remarks as they are antithetical to all that we value as scholars of journalism, the media, and human communication. Our University’s values of social responsibility and citizenship, inclusion and diversity, and integrity and civility are the foundation upon which we have built our School and its programs.”
A bit late, I think. A few of the paper’s past headlines …
Homosexuals take black spotlight
Slavery was a good lesson for Jews
Selma black thugs murder Demopolite Saturday night
Some days I wonder if perhaps we should have just let the South secede?
But to the point …
My friends … this is what is happening today in our nation. Now, some people will say that the United States, or ‘America’, was once the greatest nation on earth. Not so, but still, it was pretty good. We overcame many of our stumbling blocks, we were learning to be kind, to be tolerant, to accept people for what they were, the good the bad and the ugly, so to speak.
I could go back to the origins of the hate and divisiveness we see today, but I’ve said it all before and what’s the point? Better, I think, to look ahead and discuss the damage that is being done today by the likes of Goodloe Sutton, David Duke, Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer, and ask ourselves how we fix this. How do we put paid to this “Us” vs “Them” mentality? Quite honestly, the combination of this hatred and the open gun culture in this nation is lethal.
Daryl Davis (left) with Klansman
A few people have made inroads, most notably Daryl Davis, the man I wrote about in August 2017 who for the past 30 years has spent time befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan, forming friendships and listening as well as talking. He had, as of my original post, convinced some 200 klansmen to give up their robes. Two hundred out of approximately 248 million adults in the U.S. may not sound like much, but it’s a start.
Remember back in May/June of last year, when I tried a project involving Lisa Jensen of The Snarky Activist, where we shared opinions, ideas, and tried to find common ground? It went well for a bit, but then Lisa had some personal issues, needed some time, and it just sort of fizzled. I think I will get in touch with her this week and see if she has any interest in picking it up again. And then there was my friend Brian who was willing to participate for a time, but last time I sent him a message, he didn’t respond. Perhaps I will try again.
We cannot legislate kindness and understanding, so I think it is up to us, the average citizen both republican and democrat, religious and non-religious, black and white, to start the conversation, for the only answer I can see begins with two things: communication and kindness, being a role model. I have a short fuse these days, as I’m sure many of you do, but perhaps we need to tamp down our tempers and act more kindly toward other humans, share more smiles, give more hugs.
And with that, I put the ball in your court, dear readers. Does anybody have any ideas how we can begin to make a difference in our own little corners of the world? Does anybody have a friend who might be interested in participating in another series of ‘give-and-take’ posts? February 17th was National Acts of Random Kindness Day. Maybe the answer starts with making every day a day in which we do a random act of kindness. I don’t know the answer, but we simply must combat the sort of hate that allows a newspaper editor to call for a resurgence of the KKK night riders to murder democrats! This cannot go unnoticed or be ignored!
About an hour after I thought I had finished this post, breaking news crossed my radar about a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant and white supremacist, Christopher Paul Hasson, who was found with a cache of weapons and ammunition and documents stating …
“I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth.”
Paul McCartney wrote this song, saying that the message was “that people of all types could live together.” He liked the piano analogy, since you can play using just the white keys or just the black keys, but to make great music, you have to combine them. So true.
The editor is Goodloe Sutton and the newspaper is the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama. He said Democrats were going to raise taxes and that the KKK should hang them and raid Washington DC. This, my friends, is the depth to which this nation has sunk.
Filosofa's Word 