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Saturday afternoon, President Trump, in a statement that should taint his family name until human extinction, decried the violence on many sides. He personally did not mention white supremacy specifically until Monday, and then only under fierce pressure from the public and the media. Abruptly but unsurprisingly, on Tuesday afternoon, he doubled back to his original stance and again blamed both sides.

On one side, you see, you have white nationalists and neo-Nazis carrying assault weapons and advocating for a white, Christian, fascist ethno-state in America. On the other side, you have people who would prefer not to be systematically exterminated. Both are equally bad! To put it another way, on one side, you have the guy who law enforcement officials say deliberately ran a woman over with his car and the people who are celebrating her death. On the other, you have the woman who got run over by the car. Both are to blame! (By the way, if you are a good liberal grousing about how some anti-fascists are just as bad as fascists, you are riding Trumps wake on this logical highway.)

During Trumps two-day silence, congressional Republicans smelled a P.R. disaster and responded decisively. Senator Orrin Hatch, of Utah, tweeted: We should call evil by its name. My brother didnt give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home. Senator Marco Rubio, of Florida, described the events in Charlottesville as a terror attack by #whitesupremacists. Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, called it homegrown terrorism. Senator Cory Gardner, of Colorado, wrote, These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.

Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted: The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville are repugnant. Let it only serve to unite Americans against this kind of vile bigotry. And then, White supremacy is a scourge. Senator Jeff Flake, of Arizona, declared: The #WhiteSupremacy in #Charlottesville does not reflect the values of the America I know. Hate and bigotry have no place in this country.

Really? Which America is that? Surely not the America that was stolen from indigenous peoples, that was built by slaves, that interned the Japanese, that has the highest maternal death rate in the developed world, that acquitted George Zimmerman, that has had one black president, zero female presidents, zero Jewish or Muslim presidents, and zero openly gay or trans presidents in its 241-year history. There might be freedom and love and audacity in the weft of our national fabric, but hate and bigotry are in the warp.

The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville have been meticulously seeded and nurtured by the Republican Party for decades. Sure, pre-Trump Republicans traded more in dog-whistles and plausible deniability than overt Nazi sloganeering, but the goal was the same: white men in charge, white women at their elbows. Systematically enforced poverty turning millionaires into billionaires. Bigots may have swapped subtext for the Jumbotron, but what is the substantive difference? David Duke used to have to winkingly pretend to be a little bit less racist?

It is easy to denounce Nazis. Republican lawmakers, if you truly repudiate this march and this violence, then repudiate voter-ID laws. Repudiate gerrymandering. Repudiate police brutality. Repudiate mass incarceration and private prisons. Repudiate the war on drugs. Repudiate the fact that black Americans have still not been compensated for the unpaid forced labor that was foundational to white financial stability. Repudiate gun control obstructionism. Repudiate the Muslim ban. Repudiate the wall. Repudiate anti-abortion legislation. Repudiate abstinence-only education. Repudiate environmental deregulation. Repudiate birtherism. Repudiate homophobia and transphobia. Repudiate your own health care bill, which would have led to the deaths of thousands more people than a Dodge Challenger driven into a crowd. Repudiate your president.

None of that will happen (except maybe the last one, as soon as it becomes politically advantageous), so heres whats actually important: White people, this is all being done in your name. If you dont want it, prove it. Put your body in between fascists and the future. Start now.

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Republicans, This Is Your President - New York Times

Barack Obama had been president for roughly as long as Donald Trump when, on July 16, 2009, the black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates was arrested on his front porch in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by a white police officer who thought he might be a burglar. At a news conference a few days later, Obama said the officer, Sgt. James Crowley, had acted stupidly. Conservatives were furious, saying Obama had sided against a policeman doing his job.

To defuse the tension and set an example of racial reconciliation, Obama hosted the professor and the policeman at the White House for a beer. He also conceded error: I could have calibrated those words differently, Obama said. He called the episode a teachable moment for the nation.

Story Continued Below

In his explosive Tuesday news conference, President Donald Trump seized a far more dramatic moment not so much to teach as to fight. He admitted no fault, calibrated no words, and in the eyes of Republicans and Democrats alike inflamed rather than defused racial tension.

It wasnt just that Trump defended the pro-Confederate sympathies of a group of demonstrators heavily populated by anti-Semitic white supremacists, or that he seemed to draw equivalence between them and what he called a very violent group of alt-left counter-protesters who opposed them.

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Along the way, he castigated Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is fighting brain cancer; refused to endorse the job security of his embattled senior aide Stephen Bannon (or Mr. Bannon, as Trump called him); snapped at the dishonest reporters who questioned him; and turned a question about Charlottesville, a city mourning a 32-year-old resident killed on Saturday, into a plug for the vineyard he owns nearby. (I own actually one of the largest wineries in the United States. Its in Charlottesville.)

It was a Trump familiar to those who followed his wildly unorthodox campaign, but one rarely on display since his election unpredictable and politically incorrect to a degree unseen since his visit to the Central Intelligence Agency a day after he was sworn in, when he raged at the media over reports about the crowd size at his inauguration.

And even by the standards of a politician who has repeatedly shocked his critics and dazzled admirers with his flouting of convention, Trumps performance stood out.

A team of the country's most eminent behavioral psychologists, cultural historians, statesmen and clergy could have been asked to design the worst leader imaginable for this moment and Trump would have exceeded their imaginations, said Mark Salter, a former longtime chief of staff and speechwriter to McCain. (Trump lashed out at McCain for voting against a Republican health care bill last month.)

Leaders of the Republican establishment also scrambled to distance themselves from Trump and his comments his third effort since the violence erupted on Saturday. "We must be clear," House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted. "White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity."

But segments of the pro-Trump right were downright delighted. Potus Comes Roaring Back With Press Smackdown at Trump Tower, cheered one Breitbart News headline. Doubles Down, declared another.

Such headlines raise the question of whether Trump is consciously scandalizing the political mainstream in an effort to re-energize voters who thrilled to his taboo-busting style during the 2016 campaign.

But to Trumps harshest critics, Tuesday was merely a sign that Trump who aides said was not supposed to take questions at a news event meant to promote his infrastructure plans has no self-control or sense of propriety.

I think this guy is deeply ill. I really do, former Democratic Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said on MSNBC shortly after Trump spoke.

Either way, left in the dust was any sense of tradition or continuity with the way past presidents have handled similar moments and the subject of race in America. An empathetic, lip-biting Bill Clinton, whose first term included the racial trauma of the O.J. Simpson trial, kicked off a national dialogue on race, appointing a panel of esteemed race relations experts.

Speaking at the memorial service for five Dallas police officers murdered by a radicalized black man last July, former president George W. Bush cited scripture, spoke of empathy and urged Americans to reject the unity of fear for the unity of hope, affection and high purpose.

Obama repeatedly confronted Americas open racial wounds as president.

Asked to contrast Obamas 2009 beer summit with Trumps response to Charlottesville, Dan Pfeiffer, Obamas former White House communications director, was almost at a loss for words.

It's hard to compare Obama and Trump or Trump and any other sentient human with an ounce of empathy or self-awareness, Pfeiffer said. Obama made a statement when more facts came out and made it clear that first statement was incorrect, he took responsibility. Trump has proven time and time again that he is incapable of such an approach.

That was hardly Obamas only response to racial strife. In July 2015, Obama sang "Amazing Grace at the funeral of a pastor who was one of nine African-Americans massacred by a white gunman in a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

And after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in July 2013 on charges that he murdered the black teenager Trayvon Martin, Obama offered words that echo Tuesdays bipartisan response to Trump.

"Those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, Obama said at the time, "as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions."

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Trump chooses fighting over healing - Politico

In the past few days, much has been made of President Trump not condemning the violence in Charlottesville in strong enough terms. The media and social media are percolating with people claiming that the President should have named names and condemned the KKK and Neo-Nazis as hate-mongering terrorists. Many people are furious with the President and interpret his condemnation via generalities as a tacit endorsement of the acts of the radical groups.

Believe me, I understand their frustration. I know exactly how they feel because it is precisely how I felt during the last few years of President Obamas administration with his refusal to condemn the Black Lives Matter movement. Its an awful feeling isnt it, wishing your President would speak out in no uncertain terms against something that is clearly evil, leaving you wondering why the individual in Americas highest office wont condemn something that clearly contradicts our core American values?

The Black Lives Matter organization is a racist terrorist hate group launched in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tomeki in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman after the killing of Trayvon Martin. Terrorism is defined as the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims, which fits the Black Lives Matter movement perfectly.

This extremist hate group has stoked riots in Ferguson, Baltimore, St. Paul, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Oakland, and other cities that have resulted in violence, the murder of police officers, and massive property destruction complete with signs and chants about killing white people and police officers.

The members of this hate-group vocally advocate violence against white people and the murder of individuals in law enforcement. In an essay on the Black Lives Matter Facebook page, leaders expressed unflinching support and breathless admiration for Fidel Castro, a brutal dictator, along with Michael Finney, Ralph Goodwin, Charles Hill, and Huey Newton. All cop killers.

Toronto Black Lives Matter co-founder Yusra Khogali has argued that whites are subhuman and suffer from genetic defects and has tweeted about killing white people. Then there is Eric Ukuni, a Denver Black Lives Matter acolyte who proclaimed, Three people will die today and proceeded to steal a truck by stabbing the owner in the neck with a screwdriver before intentionally driving into pedestrians, killing an elderly man this time last year. Sound familiar? The examples could go on and on.

Did President Obama condemn the hate-group? No, President Obama embraced it, inviting its leaders and other Ferguson protesters to the White House on more than one occasion and appointing one, Brittany Packnett, to a task force on policing. He defended the slogan Black Lives Matter when asked, Dont all lives matter? and he went out of his way to defend the group at a memorial service for five Dallas policemen murdered by a black sniper at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Be thankful that President Trump hasnt gone that far.

The media, which is now obsessed with the Alt-Right, Nazis, and the KKK, did no better than the President, constantly giving fawning coverage to Black Lives Matter. In 2015, Time named Black Lives Matter a runner-up for its annual Person of the Year. Can you imagine living in a country where the KKK was a runner-up for Person of the Year for a major mainstream publication? You think things are bad under President Trump?

We cannot afford to have selective memories and selective outrage. We cant be against hatred when it suits us. You cant condemn Charlottesville but try to justify Ferguson. You cant decry Neo-Nazis and the KKK and support Black Lives Matter. If you do, you are the worst kind of hypocrite. Hatred is hatred is hatred. Lets stand together against all of it.

Paul Rivers Chattanooga

* * *

Mr. Rivers hit a home run with this post!

The nut cases that riot at a legal protests need to be locked up and the police share some fault in this one taking their time to react (a la Baltimore). No one should disagree that those bent on destroying American values (KKK, BLM etc.) are on the edge BUT the Constitution gives them the right to be as nasty as they wish as long as they don't physically harm another.

I wrote Obama off when he went to play golf as an American's blood was still running into the sand after his head was cut off. I most definitely applaud President Trump for waiting for ALL the information to come in before making statements that could come back on him (remember "the police acted stupidly)?

Face it America, this President absolutely cannot win regardless of what he does/says as far as the media is concerned. I liked what Ms. King had to say today, she too hit a home run.

Sue White

Read the original:
Selective Outrage Is Unacceptable - And Response - The Chattanoogan

In the past few days, much has been made of President Trump not condemning the violence in Charlottesville in strong enough terms. The media and social media are percolating with people claiming that the President should have named names and condemned the KKK and Neo-Nazis as hate-mongering terrorists. Many people are furious with the President and interpret his condemnation via generalities as a tacit endorsement of the acts of the radical groups.

Believe me, I understand their frustration. I know exactly how they feel because it is precisely how I felt during the last few years of President Obamas administration with his refusal to condemn the Black Lives Matter movement. Its an awful feeling isnt it, wishing your President would speak out in no uncertain terms against something that is clearly evil, leaving you wondering why the individual in Americas highest office wont condemn something that clearly contradicts our core American values?

The Black Lives Matter organization is a racist terrorist hate group launched in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tomeki in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman after the killing of Trayvon Martin. Terrorism is defined as the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims, which fits the Black Lives Matter movement perfectly.

This extremist hate group has stoked riots in Ferguson, Baltimore, St. Paul, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Oakland, and other cities that have resulted in violence, the murder of police officers, and massive property destruction complete with signs and chants about killing white people and police officers.

The members of this hate-group vocally advocate violence against white people and the murder of individuals in law enforcement. In an essay on the Black Lives Matter Facebook page, leaders expressed unflinching support and breathless admiration for Fidel Castro, a brutal dictator, along with Michael Finney, Ralph Goodwin, Charles Hill, and Huey Newton. All cop killers.

Toronto Black Lives Matter co-founder Yusra Khogali has argued that whites are subhuman and suffer from genetic defects and has tweeted about killing white people. Then there is Eric Ukuni, a Denver Black Lives Matter acolyte who proclaimed, Three people will die today and proceeded to steal a truck by stabbing the owner in the neck with a screwdriver before intentionally driving into pedestrians, killing an elderly man this time last year. Sound familiar? The examples could go on and on.

Did President Obama condemn the hate-group? No, President Obama embraced it, inviting its leaders and other Ferguson protesters to the White House on more than one occasion and appointing one, Brittany Packnett, to a task force on policing. He defended the slogan Black Lives Matter when asked, Dont all lives matter? and he went out of his way to defend the group at a memorial service for five Dallas policemen murdered by a black sniper at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Be thankful that President Trump hasnt gone that far.

The media, which is now obsessed with the Alt-Right, Nazis, and the KKK, did no better than the President, constantly giving fawning coverage to Black Lives Matter. In 2015, Time named Black Lives Matter a runner-up for its annual Person of the Year. Can you imagine living in a country where the KKK was a runner-up for Person of the Year for a major mainstream publication? You think things are bad under President Trump?

We cannot afford to have selective memories and selective outrage. We cant be against hatred when it suits us. You cant condemn Charlottesville but try to justify Ferguson. You cant decry Neo-Nazis and the KKK and support Black Lives Matter. If you do, you are the worst kind of hypocrite. Hatred is hatred is hatred. Lets stand together against all of it.

Paul Rivers Chattanooga

Originally posted here:
Selective Outrage Is Unacceptable - The Chattanoogan

Photo The words Black Lives Matter could still be faintly read on the base of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va., after workers cleaned it following vandalism in June 2015. Credit Bryan McKenzie/The Daily Progress, via AP Images

Since white nationalists marched Friday in Charlottesville, Va., the quiet college town has seen a nighttime brawl lit up by torches and smartphones, and worse violence that left one person dead and dozens injured.

At the center of the chaos is a statue memorializing Robert E. Lee. It depicts the Confederacys top general, larger than life, astride a horse, both green with oxidation.

The white nationalists were in Charlottesville to protest the citys plan to remove that statue, and counterdemonstrators were there to oppose them. The statue begun by Henry Merwin Shrady, a New York sculptor, and finished after his death by an Italian, Leo Lentelli had stood in the city since 1924. But over the past couple of years some residents and city officials, along with organizations like the N.A.A.C.P., had called for it to come down.

One local official made a similar suggestion as early as 2012 and quickly discovered that emotions surrounding the issue run deep.

It was during the Virginia Festival of the Book, a series of readings and events held every year in Albemarle County, which includes Charlottesville.

At a talk given by the author and historian Edward Ayers, a Charlottesville city councilor, Kristin Szakos, asked about the citys Confederate monuments. She wondered whether the city should discuss removing them.

People around her gasped. You would have thought I had asked if it was O.K. to torture puppies, she recalled during a 2013 conversation on BackStory, a podcast supported by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

The response to her comment was heated, and swift. Ms. Szakos said she received threats via phone and email. I felt like I had put a stick in the ground, and kind of ugly stuff bubbled up from it, she said.

It was a local turning point, helped along by national events. Ms. Szakoss comment came about a month after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17, in Florida. The trial and eventual acquittal of the man who shot him, George Zimmerman, helped fan the flames of the Black Lives Matter protests, which erupted into full force in 2014 following the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

By 2015, debates about Confederate flags and monuments were heating up in Southern states including South Carolina, Texas and Louisiana. Those who favored removal saw the symbols as monuments to white supremacy, but their opponents accused them of trying to erase history.

In Charlottesville that year, someone spray-painted Black Lives Matter on the foundation of the Lee statue. City workers cleaned it quickly, leaving only a faint outline.

By 2016, Wes Bellamy, another Charlottesville city councilor and the citys vice mayor, had become a champion of efforts to remove Confederate monuments. At a news conference in front of the Lee statue in March of that year, he said the City Council would appoint a commission to discuss the issue.

When I see the multitude of people here who are so passionate about correcting something that they feel should have been done a long time ago, I am encouraged, he said to the crowd of residents in front of him. Some clapped. Others shouted, accusing Mr. Bellamy of sowing division.

That same month, Zyahna Bryant, a high school student, petitioned the City Council asking for the Lee statue to be removed. My peers and I feel strongly about the removal of the statue because it makes us feel uncomfortable and it is very offensive, she wrote in the petition, which collected hundreds of signatures.

The City Council established its special commission in May 2016. Later that year, it issued a report suggesting that the city could either relocate the Lee statue or transform it with the inclusion of new accurate historical information.

The addition of historical context might have been welcomed by some defenders of the statues. One group, Friends of CVille Monuments, said on its website that statues could be improved by adding more informative, better detailed explanations of the history of the statues and what they can teach us.

But in February, the City Council voted to remove the statue from the park. Opponents of the move sued in March, arguing that the city did not have the authority to do so under state law.

That court case is continuing, and the statue has remained in place. It was the focal point for a gathering held in May by the white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was among the demonstrators in Charlottesville this weekend. In June, the City Council gave Lee Park a new name Emancipation Park.

The rally that descended into violence Saturday was organized by Jason Kessler, a relative newcomer to the white nationalist scene who is well known in Charlottesville, where he has fought against the citys status as a sanctuary city for immigrants.

A self-described journalist, activist and author, Mr. Kessler also waged a monthslong online media campaign against Mr. Bellamy, whom he depicted as anti-white.

More recently, Mr. Kessler became involved in the fight against renaming Lee Park one reason for the Unite the Right rally this weekend. The rally was by far Mr. Kesslers largest undertaking yet. Last week, he won an injunction in federal court against the city, which had voted to revoke a permit for the rally.

This is my First Amendment right, Mr. Kessler said of the rally during a news conference on Thursday. This is the right of every American to be able to peaceably assemble and speak their mind free of intimidation. Thats why I decided to do it.

With the lawsuit over the Lee statue still unresolved, it remains unclear what will become of it. The violence this weekend was one of the bloodiest fights over the campaigns across the South to remove Confederate monuments, and the statue remains a lightning rod in Charlottesville. Mr. Spencer, for his part, has promised to return.

Alan Feuer contributed reporting.

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The Statue at the Center of Charlottesville's Storm - New York Times