90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, June 5, 2020

Givin' The Dog A Bone...

Celebrate, Celebrate, Dance To The Music!

QUIZ: Who Said It: Activist or Journalist?

For some time now, the commentary from political journalists has been increasingly hard to distinguish from the commentary from political activists. Think you can tell the difference? Read the quotes. Take the quiz. Watch the video to find the answers.

1) "The president seems to think that dominating black people, dominating peaceful protesters is law and order. It's not."

2) "American history is one in which white Americans, by and large, have been taught to have indifference or even contempt for black life. We have defined the country as a white nation where people of color are here on a guest pass."

3) "Let's be clear: Donald Trump wants to divide and conquer America so he can loot us all."

4) "It is for the folks that he knows will stick with him no matter what. It is for, he thinks, dumb faith leaders who will fall for this stunt…. We're seeing the depths and the darkness of those culture wars and where he is willing to go in a moment like this."

5) "Please, show me where it says that protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful. Because I can show you that outraged citizens are the ones who have made America what she is."

6) "What is happening in America is that white nationalism ideology is running wild, and the reason why buildings are burning is because this city, this state, would prefer preserving that white nationalism and that white supremacist mindset over arresting, charging, and helping to convict four officers who killed a black man."

7) "Yes, it is disturbing to see property being destroyed, it is disturbing to see people taking property from stores, but these are things…. Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence."

8) "Racism is not just against black people, it is against democracy itself."

9) "Open your eyes, America. Open your eyes. We are teetering on a dictatorship. This is chaos…. Is the president declaring war on Americans? What is happening here?"

10) "You can’t curfew the truth. It will find a way out. Truth crushed to earth shall rise again."

ANSWERS:

A silent majority? Black Americans reject violence, looting in neighborhoods after Floyd death

The rioters are 'reflective of a small subset of black America that is jobless, lawless, wild, and capable of the brutality we saw,' said Rob Smith, a black conservative activist and decorated Iraq War veteran, but 'the silent majority will always stay on the side of law and order.'

Black Americans across the ideological spectrum are speaking in support of peaceful protest — but rejecting the violence, looting, and destruction of black neighborhoods after the gruesome death of George Floyd, an African-American man, at the hands of Minneapolis police.

"Black America, like broader America, they're sympathizing with the fact that the murder that triggered all of this was a horrible thing, and I think all reasonable people are appalled by it and protested," said Shelby Steele, well-known author, documentary maker and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "After that, things become more murky. There's a certainly a segment of black America — Black Lives Matter and so forth — that want to sort of use this tragedy as a means to power, as a means to dominance in American life. Saying blacks are victims, and we have to take care of them in that sense to them, and appease them."

While acknowledging there is "a segment of black America — Black Lives Matter and so forth — that want to sort of use this tragedy as a means to power, as a means to dominance in American life," Steele says, "There's a growing number of blacks in America, who take the opposite point of view: That we've never been freer, and opportunity is sort of waiting for us to take advantage of it, and that we need to be busy with that, rather than getting sidetracked here, pretending that racial progress has never been made and that blacks are still victims. We're not. We're free. And no one sanctions that kind of murder that occurred. Nobody, certainly no one I've ever seen, not one single person is supportive of that. So I think that's...