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The Need to Show Up as a Voter or a Candidate
Is deadly violence the only kind of social engagement we will support?
I ask this after my nation celebrated the holiday season with another shooting during church services in Texas and a machete attack on a Hanukkah celebration in New York. The former struck me close because I live in Texas and the latter struck me close because it happened while a Hanukkah celebration was going on in my home.
Typing that last sentence gave me a “gay rights moment,” something that faced every straight person who spoke up about violence against gay people or their second class treatment by the law. Should I follow up by stating that I’m not gay? Now, should I follow up by stating that I’m not Jewish?
If I fail to make the statement, my anti-bigotry stance may be disregarded as naked self-interest by a “faggot” or a “kike.” Nobody would stand up for those people, goes the hard core position.
If I make the statement, I feel like a coward grasping for the chance to talk the talk with no danger I will ever have to walk the walk.
During the mainstream civil rights movement, terrorism was rampant, but nobody would mistake most white people for black people. Throwing down with the black community was a choice and some white people gave their lives for that choice. In those days, the thugs who expressed their cowardice by wearing pillow slips on their heads had a list, and there came a time when there were more people on the terrorist hit list than there were terrorists.
When the Southern Poverty Law Center successfully sued domestic terrorist organizations that did public fundraising and owned real estate, the terrorist activities died down and the various organizations that sprang from the ashes of the ones taken down kept a very low profile.
The fires were tended by men who cleaned up enough and learned enough grammar to get speaking gigs on campuses. While they claimed to be defending the “white race,” they skipped over both explaining who these “children of the sun” are and why they needed defending.
Everything changed in 2016. Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke tweeted:
Make no mistake about it, our people…
