Silence equals Complicity

It is not okay…NOT OKAY….for Americans wearing armbands adorned with the Nazi swastikas to be parading around the streets of America. Doesn’t this go without saying. I saw a cartoon that proclaimed that truth…and then mentioned…an actual war was fought over this…remember?


And along with the mayor of Charlottesville, I proclaim that a line runs directly from the race riot we witnessed to the White House and Donald Trump. He may not have placed the rifles in the hands of the militias who attended…and he may not have lit their tiki torches…and he may not have slipped the bands with the Nazi Swastika onto the arms of those willing…no proud…to wear them... but his rhetoric, his platform, his agenda and his refusal to denounce these hate groups led to what we saw in Charlottesville this weekend.


He is their enabler. And if he doesn’t want to claim that honor or be associated with their agenda then he needs to speak out loud and clear. Because they are wearing his hats, claim they are fulfilling the Trump agenda and getting a little pissy because of the lukewarm rebuke he did manage to get out.


Others took it as endorsement. The Daily Stormer...yes, that same disgusting website that called Heather Heyer a fat slut...too fat to outrun the car that killed her had this to say:

"He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate ... on both sides! So he implied the antifa [anti-fascists] are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about White Nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him." 

I can't link to the Daily Stormer because, thankfully, Go Daddy refused to host the site any longer and they could not find any other takers (at least at this point)


Yes, I denounce violence on both sides…left or right/black or white/liberal or conservative…but this racist stuff runs deep and to the bone in our country. Sixtyish years ago, Emmett Till's eyes were gouged out and he was lynched for flirting with a white woman (which he didn’t do) or when three men were murdered because they were actively helping blacks register to vote. There were separate bathrooms, separate water fountains, interracial marriage was illegal and many blacks were lynched for being too uppity.


Martin Luther King and his followers marched in my lifetime. I am old enough to remember. It wasn’t all that long ago. And while many of us changed with the times…evolved…embraced the equality of all humans….others stayed rooted in the pre-civil rights days. The hate and prejudice festering in their hearts. To me this is undeniable.

I think Trump covertly courted the white supremacist vote so he does not want to offend them. I think he shares many of their values and beliefs so he does not want to denounce them. Could I be wrong how “all in” he is with white supremacists? Sure. But those who deny that the present administration is not bringing that festering hatred to the surface are just not taking a good clear “look-see.” With its self-proclaimed Alt Right advisers like Steve Bannon and the robotic Steven Miller…and others of that ilk,haters have been emboldened by Trump's presidency. They don’t have to hide their hatefulness or bigotry for fear of the consequences. They are not holding back…and what we saw in Charlottesville this weekend couldn't make it any clearer.