Story by LeRon L. Barton
I found this article this morning and thought it was well worth sharing. It is most thought provoking and speaks to the ongoing effort to rid our nation of Racism. I have heard many people say “Why can’t we forget color” or “Why can’t we all get along.” I think a deeper understanding of Racism in the USA brings more depth to such questions. We have examples of race hatred and hatred for others all over the world that has gone on for centuries.
Sometimes this hatred is based on race and sometimes on religion, gender or ideology. At the core of most hatred is a lack of understanding. A lack of compassion for those with different skins or thoughts. A feeling that our IDEAS and our SKIN COLOR makes us better than others. I think this article helps us all think about racism more deeply and what we can each do in our lives to eradicate this curse from humanity.
I Lost White Friends When I Finally Spoke Out Story by LeRon L. Barton
The original article by Mr. Baron is followed by hundreds of comments. Many agree with Mr. Barton and many disagree. I have selected two comments that represent both sides of the disagreement. What do you think?
From reading this article, I truly believe that the author reached a turning point in his life. He finally realized who his real friends were. If individuals of different backgrounds loved, respected, and valued you as an individual, they would try to understand life from your perspective. In a world where a majority of the population despises Black people, it is important to instill Black pride in Black people. At times I feel like the world is governed by policies and beliefs that are designed to keep certain individuals oppressed. Sometimes it feels like when your views don’t match the majority, you are considered a “danger” or “militant”. It’s unfortunate. #TMC
“I believe that Black people live in a country that constantly tries to strangle every bit of self-respect, pride, individuality, love, and life out of them. It is an everyday challenge for us to maintain our mental health.” Patently false. Too many Black people have made it in all walks of life, professional and blue collar. We twice elected a Black president. Years of affirmative action and DEI have made it easier to succeed. This article, while well intended, is just another in a long line of articles showing an increasing racism villainizing white people.
Doing my morning run today, this is what I see in a neighbors yard. He lives four houses down from me. Do you suppose he served in the Civil War? His next door neighbor is a good friend of mine who is African American. I have often asked my friend how he deals with this. How do you think any Black person in this country deals with this? How would you deal with this?
The “Good Old Boys” of modern country music started in the seventies telling us that rural people were good people. That real life took place in rural areas. Cities were evil. Rural people were God fearing and patriotic. City people were heathens and atheists.
Donald Trump’s anthem was a song by Lee Greenwood called “God Bless the USA.” Under more normal circumstances, I would applaud this song. Greenwood won the Country Music Association’s award for Male Vocalist of the Year in 1983 and 1984, and his “God Bless the USA” had been awarded the CMA’s Song of the Year honors in 1985. However, when welded by Trump and his supporters it evokes overtones of racism and xenophobia. What else can you think when you see people marching around with Swastikas and Confederate Flags singing “God Bless the USA?”
“This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend public happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errors and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble, who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion.” — The Patriot, by S. Johnson, 1774.
It’s not about racism or privilege but everyone should have a right to say who they have to live with and go to school with or church with. I am all for equal rights for everyone and that includes my right to stick to my own kind. Does that make me a racist because I like one group of people more than another? We all have our baseball and football team preferences. That is what makes sports so much fun. I don’t have to like your team and you don’t have to like my team. Teams stick together and play with their own kind. You don’t see football players playing against baseball players or lacrosse players playing against rugby players.
That is why I am not a racist because I believe in the beauty of all colors. I don’t think one color is more beautiful than another. I prefer blue while I think my wife likes pink or green more. I just think you don’t want to mix the colors too much or you lose the beauty. It is also easier to clean a paint brush when you just use it for the same colors. Have you ever tried to clean a paint brush that has been used on too many different colors?
Now I suppose some of you will still say that I am a racist or prejudiced and that nothing I can say will change your minds. But I don’t dislike those kind of people, I just want to live with my kind of people and those kind of people can live with their own kind of people.
The abyss It is so big that there is no bridging it. None of the sides can see the other side. None of the sides has any common ground with the other side. None of the sides understands the language that the other side speaks. We might as well be earthlings talking to Martians. There is no lingua franca. Many of the “well-meaning” experts exhort both sides to try harder to bridge the gap or to work more diligently to listen to the other side. It seems to be assumed that all it will take to jump the gulf is good intentions. I cry bullshit on this. As the old aphorism goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It will take more than good intentions to heal the wound that infests our country.
The wants advertised on the TV and in the media are never fulfilling. We have a nation of brainwashed consumers who mistakenly think that more toys, bigger houses, more guns, and luxury cars will make them happy. We are a nation on a never-ending treadmill of consumer materialism where like rats we keep spinning the wheel and hoping to find happiness, but happiness never comes, and drugs take its place. 
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the tensions in society grow ever more divisive. We see more road rage, more senseless shootings, more violence between men and women, less loyalty between employers and employees. The underpinning of society that should be based on human integrity and morality is replaced with an opportunism based on an amoral value system. Whatever we can get as long as we break no laws is considered to be moral. We see most politicians that have no commitment to anything except to collect more money so that they can stay in office. Their highest goal is to help the rich get richer, which of course includes themselves. 
I am not talking about the devil here or about spirituality. I am talking about a kind of insidious propaganda that has been spread by many groups and individuals. In this propaganda, one side of America is labeled as moral, ethical, righteous, and just. The other side is the opposite. The other side is everything negative. The other side is a composite of all the demons and evils that Americans believe in. The other side are communists, fascists, atheists, anti-democratic, anti-patriotic and un-American. One side is good. The other side is evil incarnate. You cannot talk to evil. You cannot discuss with the devil why he wants your soul. You cannot debate with Satan over the values that he has. Heaven and hell do not have weekly discussion groups. The language heard today, and what the media publishes drips with hate, innuendo, and disdain. The language fosters violence. I doubt the Founding Fathers ever conceived that the First Amendment would protect such speech. There are three elements that contribute to a hate speech culture that demonizes the other side: 
Malicious labeling is the name calling that goes on between both sides today wherein each side is labeled. You can hear it on almost every talk show program in America today. Name calling and name labeling. Commie pinko leftists! Intellectual elites! Radical socialists! Racist rednecks! Fascist dictators! Politicians, commentators, newscasters, and radio talk show hosts all use malicious labels to insult and demean those they disagree with. What have we let this country become when we allow such name calling? This kind of hyperbole demonizes the other side and creates a divide that cannot be overcome by rational conversation.
I do not think that the Founding Fathers of our nation believed that Government was evil. Certainly, they felt that there could be too much government intrusion on the rights of the populace. They invoked certain safeguards to protect both human rights and states rights. Nevertheless, they did not demonize government and not a single one of the Fathers ever referred to government as evil. Edmund Burke, the famous English conservative said, “The government that governs best is the government that governs least.” He never said, “government was evil.” It has become common place to hear refrains denigrating the role and necessity of government. This steady drumbeat of antigovernmental rhetoric has created a group of people that have no value for government and who support the idea that government should be abolished.
A few years ago I began to wonder why groups like the KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, Antifa, The Proud Boys and many other such groups advocating violence against the government were not labeled as Terrorist Organizations. I asked a lawyer this question and he replied, “it is all politics.” I found that almost all the groups listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “hate groups” were designated as “extremist groups.” This means that they are not illegal, and they have the right to organize, march, rally and basically spread their hate across America. In 2019, The SPLC listed 940 hate groups across the USA. If any of these groups was labeled as a “Terrorist Group,” they would be on the same list as the Taliban, Boko Haram, The Mafia, Mexican Cartels and Al Qaeda. What is the difference between an extremist group and a terrorist group? It might surprise you to learn that a terrorist organization is defined as follows:
If this definition does not apply to the groups that tried to storm the US Capital on January 6th, 2021, I do not know what does. Just yesterday the Canadian government labeled the Proud Boys as a Terrorist Organization. This delegitimizes the group and takes their rights away. For Canada, it is a start. I am wondering when we are going to get started in the USA on such an effort. The First Amendment was never construed to allow hate speech and the advocating of violent actions to overthrow the government. Why do we not have the political will to outlaw these groups? We seem to have little compunction in penalizing Black groups like the Black Lives Matter Movement or the Black Panthers. We have a different standard when it comes to White Supremacy groups. 
The newspapers, TV and the Internet are today the major carriers for the hate and vituperation that has spread across America. On one side of the divide, we find the NY Times, the Washington Post and CNN News. On the other side, we find the NY Post, the Washington Examiner and Fox News. There are countless other purveyors of extreme and fanatical views. Each side reeks of headlines supporting nonobjective views and biased reporting. If objective reporting ever existed in the USA, it has been murdered and buried by the most pervasive media to ever exist. The media carries the hate and violence that is created by politicians, pundits, radio commentators and hate groups and ensures that it gets widely disseminated. Without the media, much of the divide would never have occurred. Hate needs a platform to be spread and the media is more than happy to host anything that it believes will sell itself and its advertising. 
`I mean, what IS an un-birthday present?’
Do you see? If everyday is a possible un-birthday except your birthday, you may celebrate an un-birthday every day and get presents every day in addition to your birthday. Anything that is not “American” which I will assume includes: Mom, God, and Apple Pie, can be construed as “Un-American.” If you are out to condemn or harass people, it becomes an open-ended warrant to attack anyone who exhibits traits other than a belief in Mom, God, and Apple Pie. You have a 365-day open house to attack anyone in the USA who exhibits a philosophy contrary to what might be termed “Patriotic.” I find this rather scary since I don’ believe in God. I don’t like apple pie and I thought my mother’s cooking was terrible. My list of “Un-American” traits would take up several pages but I suppose I would be condemned simply on the basis of rejecting these wonderful characteristics of Americanism. By the way, I don’t like baseball, golf, football, basketball, or bowling.
Aging Capriciously 