The outraged reaction to a Sheriff “calling it as he sees it” is enough to make you wonder how long before the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” will be added to the banned list. Wouldn’t want someone reading it to actually think people have a right to speak their mind now, would we?
It was only a matter of time before the pendulum began swinging the other way. How long could the double-standard continue?
So the Sheriff did the unthinkable. He spoke out. Worse — he started poking sacred cows, in the most unforgivable sort of way.
He compared one of the Social Justice Warrior darlings to that ultimate enemy of Black Americans. (No, not the Democratic Party, despite all their sins… that other one… the one they created… the KKK. Yes, you read that correctly, but don’t take my word for it, click the link.)
Yes, Sheriff Chuck Wright of Spartanberg, S.C., saw a parallel between the KKK and *gasp* the NAACP. Not only did he see it, but he said it out loud.
Minorities are sometimes “the most racist people in America right now.”
While it is too early to tell whether his statements will trigger any rioting, burning or looting, the man running against him for sheriff wasted no time in pandering — sorry, denouncing — Sheriff Wright’s statement. Because, you know, white people must not say such things. Or something.
First the statement itself. It makes a difference if he stated it in term of “all” or “some”. It would be asinine to suggest that all minorities — black or otherwise — are racist. He never said “all”.
It also matters what he based the comparison on. Specific people (themselves black) have chosen not to associate with NAACP for a specific reason. He was speaking about this with a close friend and co-worker, a chaplain. And, yes, he’s black, for anyone still so backward they prefer to elevate melanin over logic or reason.
Wright says this about the chaplain: He doesn’t buy into that mess. A bunch of his friends don’t either. They don’t do the NAACP because I feel like that is a racist group as well as the KKK. I don’t care about them either. [Wright goes on to say] … he does not want people to associate with a group “that’s got something to do just because of your color” because he doesn’t feel they are “right.”
Change only one detail, and revisit the story. Imagine the headlines tomorrow if a new organization were announced. “The National Association for the Advancement of White People.”
Would it be celebrated or condemned? Even before they took time to describe their policy, purpose, or platform? Try to keep a straight face while telling me that immediate comparisons to the KKK would not IMMEDIATELY be invoked… proof or no proof.
Even if it were an innocent, and well-intentioned institution, there’d be outrage. Suppose even the most harmless of intentions, say a ham-handed, misguided attempt to encourage — I don’t know, maybe the idea of community among people that have become increasingly fragmented, and isolated in a digital age. Suppose they wanted to rekindle interest in Oktoberfest, or Highland Games, or Baroque music?
None of that would matter. Because they are interested in the advancement of ONE group of people. Only one. And that would be enough to damn them as racist.
And that’s without the group having any history of wrongdoing at all. It’s entirely perception.
Because the name said “White” instead of “Colored”.
I’m not saying we need any such group. I think it would be stupid. People are better served by coming together around ideas, activities or interests. People are so wonderful and complicated that skin has got to be the most petty and superficial of any possible common cause to rally around. There are so many better reasons.
But we DO have such a group. They represent, in their own words, “Colored People”. They are a group dedicated to fighting for things. Righting wrongs — real or otherwise. Fighting a crusade appropriate to their political niche.
Here’s the problem. When you have someone perpetually fighting for a group that is ethnically homogeneous, the group or groups you clash with become “the enemy”. Lines blur between the cause you are trying to fight for, and the enemy you are trying to fight against.
Guess what happens next? You begin to demonize a group. You start applying negative labels to innocent people with whom you have no axe to grind. But they get labelled simply because they are “one of them”.
Doesn’t that perfectly describe the bitterness and hate we see on the rise in anti-white sentiment? Just this week a female black student was convicted and sentenced for creating a fake race scare — including a bomb threat — at her university. Some fictional white person was supposedly going to kill black students at the university.
People were scared. Angry. And why? Because this misguided young woman wanted others to be just as angry at “the enemy” as she was. She wanted it so badly, that she was willing to invent a crisis to do it. Congrats. That earned you a criminal record.
How is such behaviour really any different from the KKK?
When “your” side is ALWAYS the good guy, and “their” side is always a malevolent evil, we aren’t seeing people at all. We are seeing only tribes and stereotypes.
I’m glad the Sheriff raised this issue. Citizens have both a right and a duty to have open and honest conversations about the things that divide us. Ignoring them will lead to the sorts of division that we now see boiling over. Silencing them? That’s even worse.
At least — now that he has said it — we have an opportunity to clear the air and speak honestly about what really divides us.
