On the EDge: If you don’t condemn racism, you condone it

August 14, 2017 Utah Channel 3

OPINION – The issues we face today are complex, filled with nuance and detail that can often be difficult to wrap your arms around.

It’s perfectly understandable and acceptable to waffle a bit when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, tax reform or even how we deal with North Korea.

These are issues of consequence that, quite frankly, demand debate and deliberation. To treat them otherwise would be foolhardy.

However, when it comes to racism and bigotry, there is no room for debate or deliberation.

Either you condemn it in all its ugliness or you condone it.

Period.

You don’t waffle, you don’t appease the hate mongers regardless of how many votes they delivered to your side of the ballot.

And, that is, without question, the greatest failure of this presidency.

Saturday’s tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia was the United States at its worst.

A group of angry, white supremacists, violent white nationalists and alt-right thugs gathered to defend a statue memorializing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that the Charlottesville City Council had decided must be removed.

The statue is a representation of the antebellum South, a romantic ideal with little base in historic accuracy. It was not a time of beauty and grace, as so often depicted, especially for the captive slaves who were torn from their homeland to be beaten, raped and locked into an existence of servitude.

To memorialize that time, that man, that mindset, is to trample on the concept of liberty and justice for all.

We do not honor field marshals of the Third Reich in the United States, just as we do not honor any others who have taken up arms against the nation and its principles. Just as we should not salute flags adorned with swastikas, we should not salute flags representing the Stars and Bars. Robert E. Lee was as much an enemy combatant as Osama bin Laden, with whom he shared the goal of defeating the United States.

Saturday, a group of neo-Nazi, white supremacist, alt-right radicals put together what was billed as a rally to “Unite the Right.”

Clashes broke out between the demonstrators and an opposition group before the event began, forcing Gov. Terry McAuliffe to cancel it in the interest of public safety.

But, it was too late. Anger boiled over, resulting in a 20-year-old man from Ohio taking his car and ramming it into a group of protesters assembled to counter the white supremacists, killing one and critically injuring more than a dozen others.

While it is true that a loosely organized group of radicalized far left wingers who call themselves AntiFa made their presence known, their angry actions did not justify the taking of human life.

In the immediate aftermath the president spoke to the nation in a mumbo-jumbo of soft-pedaled words that danced around the issue of hate groups and racism – saying “many sides” were to blame – and veered into self-aggrandizing as he wondered aloud why anybody in the nation would be upset or angry because of all the good he has done since taking office.

When pressed by a reporter who asked if he condemned white supremacists and their hate groups, the president walked away, leaving the question unanswered.

Except, in his silence, he answered the question.

The effect was picked up immediately.

The hate groups hailed the president’s nonremarks as being supportive of their cause.

“When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room,” wrote Andrew Anglin, the founder of The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. “Really, really good. God bless him.”

An Indianapolis Star photojournalist captured David Duke, who founded the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Louisiana in 1974, a modern-day sect of the KKK, as he addressed the crowd Saturday in Charlottesville.

“This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in,” Duke said, “that’s why we voted for Donald Trump. Because he said he’s going to take our country back. That’s what we gotta do.”

Expressions of outrage exploded from both Republicans and Democrats.

Sens. Orrin Hatch, Marco Rubio, John McCain and Chuck Grassley, significant players in the GOP, were at the forefront of the criticism, leading the president to take a slightly harder edge when he, much later, tweeted: “We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets (sic) come together as one!”

It was too little, too late.

It also gave Duke one more opportunity for the spotlight as he reminded us of this administration’s indebtedness to these groups.

“I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists,” Duke Tweeted in response.

In case there were any remaining doubters, Duke’s Tweet pretty much summed up who owns whom and where allegiances lie.

This is not the end of it.

Organizers promise there will be more “Unite the Right” rallies, that they have unfinished business in Charlottesville, that the alt-right is the new right.

That means there will be more clashes between the two sides and that more people will die as these radical fascists who practice their evil white nationalism continue to ratchet up hate.

Make no mistake, it was a matter of taking the coward’s way out by saying “both sides are to blame.”

No, they are not to blame.

Standing up to oppression has always been a part of the American fabric and, now more than ever, something we should not abandon.

These assaults on freedom and equality are assaults on all of us.

And, that is unacceptable.

No bad days!

Ed Kociela is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: edkociela.mx@gmail.com

Twitter: @STGnews, @EdKociela