The face of American racism has been changing --- just not fast enough for those threatened.
Police killings of black Americans every year that get “prosecuted” and just condemned in public is grossly unacceptable. But this is an improvement over the common multiple lynching of blacks, to community acclaim, that weren’t even prosecuted last century. Look up the old blues song entitled “Strange Fruit.”
The racism denying citizenship rights and human respect to Alaska Natives before statehood looks grotesque to us now. Yet this was an improvement over the irrational killing of Indians in the 18th century under the slogan, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Look up the story of the massacre of Indians at Sand Creek in 1864.
Groups such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter lose credibility because they don’t embrace attacking all racism in their protests and alliances. They are also allowing irrational adherents to use coercion, violence and criminality for media attention. The non-violent and humane methods of successful crusaders against racism aren’t being used enough. Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, and more ordinary people like Elizabeth Peratrovitch of Alaska, Rosa Parks, and Muhammad Ali all have set good examples. Read Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and work out how to be anti-racist yourself.
Stuart Thompson
Wasilla
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