Jun 15, 2009

LEONARD PITTS: There's no expiration date on hate


¨It is jolting to recall that I once thought we were living in the last days of creatures such as this.¨


·"Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me." -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, about President Obama


·"I hate gay people." -- Tim Hardaway, former NBA star


·¨A Third World country." -- Tom Tancredo, former Colorado representative, speaking of Miami


·"She's frightening. And she's racist¨ -- Dennis Baxley, former executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida, speaking of Judge Sonia Sotomayor

·¨Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." -- Glenn Beck, talk show host, to Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a Muslim.


·"Fifty years ago they'd have you hanging upside down with a (expletive) fork up your (expletive)." -- Michael Richards, comedian, to an African-American in his audience.

¨Last week, a man with a rifle walked in and opened fire, fatally wounding security guard Stephen Johns. Other guards shot the intruder.¨


¨Authorities say the shooter, James von Brunn, was an avowed racist and anti-Semite well-known to the pustular netherworld of white supremacy and to those who monitor it. He believed the Holocaust a hoax and America a "Third World racial garbage dump." He believed this, even at 88 years of age. "It's time to kill all the Jews," he wrote in one e-mail. And can you imagine what might have happened had he managed to shoot his way past the guards?¨


¨It is jolting to recall that I once thought we were living in the last days of creatures such as this. My only excuse: It was the 1970s and I was young, raised on civil rights marches and Norman Lear comedies.¨


·Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria and CANA American branch, State of Virginia, outside Washington D.C., pontificates in public that the ¨children of LGBT people are Hooligans¨ and the CANA NIGERIAN House of Bishops endorses anti-human rights legislation to jail, up to five years, LGBT citizens, and their families and friends for gathering in public places·

¨Kids like me felt, with the offhand smugness of youth, that we were harbingers of a new world too enlightened to ever again hate people because they were. We were past all that.¨


¨Or so we thought. Because what a shock it is to wake up 40 years later in a world where the intercultural dialogue we thought we'd mastered has become a shrill circus overrun by haters and opportunists, a world where on any given day one might be assaulted by the casual anti-Semitism and homophobia that afflict so much of the African-American community, or the racist patter of a washed-up TV star who has mistaken freedom of speech for freedom from thought, or the gassy posturing of political and media figures who happily, disingenuously trivialize the rawest wounds of the American experience for ratings and political position.¨


¨We act as if it were all a game, as if it means nothing when people of position and visibility spew garbage, validating and galvanizing the unhinged and the disaffected who need little encouragement to believe all their problems are caused by Them. We act as if we do not toy with fire when people of authority claim white Christians are a victimized minority or Hispanics a threatening and faceless Other.¨

·Maggie Gallagher ¨Defends Marriage¨ from LGBT Citizens·

¨We act as if we were not heirs and witnesses to a blood-soaked history that tells us exactly where this hate some of us so fecklessly stoke will logically, inevitably lead.¨

·¨Focus on Families¨ doesn´t think LGBT ought have families. One wonders where Pastor James Dobson thought beloved LGBT children/adults came from in the first place?·

¨Hate groups standing now at record numbers. One dead. Ten dead. Six million dead.¨


¨I've always liked the Holocaust Museum because it is a stark reminder in an era where too many are in a hurry to forget. And so it was even quiet and locked up tight. Behind yellow tape it sat, scene of a hate crime authored by an old man who thought he was great because his skin was pale. An American flag drooped limply at half-staff -- as if tired of waiting, waiting for the last days of creatures such as this.¨

read it all, click HERE


·May the American flag soon fly with great untainted glory and without the hate/fear generated/mongered smudges and the river of blood stains instigated by bigots, blowhards and crude opportunists·

UPDATED SUNDAY June 21, 2009

I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help feeling as if the murder at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the assassination of the abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., and the slaying of three police officers in Pittsburgh — all of them right-wing, hate-driven attacks — were just the beginning and that worse is to come.¨ read it all, By Bob Herbert, New York Times, click HERE

·Thanks to Leonard Pitts
·Thanks to Miami Herald
·Thanks to Kansas.com/opinions
·Thanks to Tips-Q, at the right side bar
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
·Thanks to Bob Herbert
·Thanks to Daddy B. Strong, at the right side bar

7 comments:

Göran Koch-Swahne said...

Well put!

Preach it brother!

motheramelia said...

Whenever I think the world is putting hate behind it, I'm reminded that it's still there, by hateful actions. Well said, Leonardo.

Lynn said...

That holocaust museum murder was quite a jolt here in D.C. - but it wasn't surprising to hear that he had a hate-blog. Wow.

(Leonardo dear, sent you a non-urgent email. Need some advice on life being "real.")

Bonnie said...

They are junk spewing cowards.

Leonard said...

BONNIE! I´m so happy to see you and your nononse comment!

It´s interesting to me that you think they are ¨cowards¨ too...I´ve always thought they were...all that bigshotism and all that pontificating and massive degrading others...always, with the underlying message of ¨look at me, I´m NOT LIKE THAT!¨

Fools, terrorfilled fools and most don´t have a clue as to how emotionally and spiritually sick they are.

Bonnie said...

Hi Leonardo--Also, I sent you an email in which I basically said that I really didn't have the energy to make comments. But, I think not commenting is probably zapping some of my emotional energy too.

These people are more than spiritually sick. In my humble opinion, they are very mentally ill. Their fear of the world as it is drives them to try to make it a safer place they can relate to.

I realize the Episcopal Church believes they are doing what might bring spiritual wholeness and I am not opposed to that. BUT, their complete lack of recognition of the fact that they cannot fix what is mentally wrong with these folks makes me want to run screaming into the night. They must speak out against these hate-ridden, fear driven, hate spewing, their elevator does not go to the top floor, junk talkers and march on, no matter what-- doing what is spiritually and MENTALLY healthy for the Episcopal Church. Unless and until they do, we are just supporting a very mentally unhealthy organization. "Treat people like dirt, they love it" is just not where most of us want to go.

Leonard said...

I have known for quite some time that emotional stability, for some, depends on their self-deceiving being revalidated and bolstered on a regular basis, it´s a progressive illness...extremist religious beliefs are certainly a brazen indication of a desperation to avoid REALITY...at, least to face life as it really is and not how one demands and/or insists it MUST BE! Facing humanity as it REALLY is doesn´t leave much room for precautionary blaming, shaming and avoiding feardriven views of TRUTH. Conjuring up dirty dust storms and slander (about the individual character of people that one knows nothing about) won´t obscure their innermost view of what´s really bothering them in the end...fratically try as they may, and Lord knows they have/will, they are left with nothing but a diversionary tactic rather than a clear inside view of their own irresponsible behavior.

Sociopaths and worse, some are dangerously aggressive as they preach/instigate crimes of HATE!