We all live in the collective hood of America, and either our idea of patriotism is lopsided or ‘we don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care.’ In the 1991 movie Boyz N the Hood, the character Doughboy (better known as Ice Cube) tells Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) —“Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood.”Warnings of white supremacy groups infested with anti-American former military members are not new. In 2009 Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s office issued a report condemning the rise of right-wing extremism in the United States and the recruitment of ex-members of the military.
Secretary Napolitano was clairvoyant; White Supremacy groups have accounted for more violent attacks than any domestic extremist groups since 2018.One expected the right-wing freak-out, but surprisingly even Rep. Bennie Thompson(D-MS), the current chair of the January 6 Committee, issued a letter to Napolitano claiming to be “dumbfounded.” Subsequently, Napolitano double-downed, saying, “right-wing extremism” may include groups opposed to abortion and immigration, as merely one among several threat assessments.” Here we are, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina, targeting elderly black parishioners. Charlottesville, Virginia, is home to a White Supremacy rally that killed Heather Heyer. El Paso, Texas, where a right-wing gunman took literal aim at the Latino community, killing twenty-three.
The pitfalls of recounting the litany of murders by right-wing terrorists are the number of comments you receive from people reminding you of who was left out, like the patrons of the Pulse nightclub that catered to a gay clientele, who suffered fifty murders in a mass shooting in 2016. That takes us back to a portion of the Doughboy speech, ‘…don’t care.’ The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) leader Matt Schlapp told the new hero of the right, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, ‘that forcing people to bear children via an abortion ban would make it harder for immigrants and people of color to “replace” white people in America,’ according to a report from Vice News.
I have loathed falling prey to Godwin’s Law, but the Republican party is dangerously promoting Hitler’s final solution. The mainstreaming of “replacement theory” while at the same time eliminating opposing views, stripping voting rights, subjugating women, targeting the LGBTQ+ community and rising anti-Semitism does not bode well for the future of democracy. “If you’re worried about this quote-unquote replacement, why don’t we start ... with allowing our ‘own people to live?”’Schlapp asked.
Looking to avoid their responsibility in the implicit and explicit promotion of hate and white supremacy, the right-wing media machine cries BLM and Antifa at every turn. Heyward Patterson is the first to be buried after the latest exhibition of racial hatred in America. Mr. Patterson, a deacon at his local church, was often present at the Buffalo, New York Tops food market because he was known to provide rides to people without transportation. A craven murderer took his life because not allowing other people to live seemed quicker than Schlapp’s solution. Mercedes Patterson, identified as a relative of Mr. Patterson, said of him, “An honorable man. A family man. A working man. A community man. An honest man that was at a grocery store in a parking lot.”
Individuals and groups of cowardly weekend warriors don fatigues, smear their faces with homemade warpaint, and gun down the innocent, the weak, and the elderly. Any semblance of honor that may have been gained in service to America has been forfeited, disgracing it.
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