FIGHTING NOT TO UNDERSTAND AMERICA

Bob Livingston of the Personal Liberty Digest has collected a group of authors one of who happens to be Wayne Allyn Roots, who happens to proclaim himself to be a libertarian. However, as other of the authors featured in this publication, Root narrowly focuses his hateful rhetoric on race and in particular in recent times, President Obama. Serious libertarians, at least the positive ones, espouse the value of minimal government. Rarely do I read or hear where libertarians even mention a racially exclusive—white’s only—government. That changed this week; Root clearly stated he believes there is only one America that is “his America”. In his mind, black or brown people, as he understands minorities, they can never fit into “that” America. Strangely enough, he describes their attributes, not as they are but as he sees them, then claims they cannot fit in because of these attributes.

I’m just a middle-class white guy. I was raised to respect property, respect police, never say “F– the police,” never desecrate the American flag, never burn down stores in my own neighborhood, love my country, believe in the American dream, study hard, get straight A’s, work hard and good things will happen. And funny enough, my life has worked out pretty well.

By what he writes, Wayne Allyn Root clearly demonstrates he does not understand what happened in Ferguson and, for that matter what happened all across America. He seems to be fighting against understanding America. A significant element of Black America does not think they are “sharing in the American dream” because they are not. He ticks off a series of items such as respect police, never burn flags or stores, love “my” country, work hard, and get straight A’s. He is so out of touch with the reality of black or minority America he seems incapable of understanding anything. In his mind, it is cut and dried; Michael Brown was wrong and Officer Daren Wilson was right.

He reminds me of Anne Counter, another right wing simpleton, when she wrote she doesn’t understand why people sleeping on grates in Washington D.C., “don’t get up, work hard, and go to Harvard like she did”. What is there “about all men are created equal” that Republicans do not under stand? Perhaps, if they had to work two jobs of 36-hour weeks at minimum wage and still could not afford health insurance. They might even understand why $50,000 a year college tuition for their children seems insurmountable to them. Perhaps, they would understand people working in minimum wage jobs are not lazy looking for government handouts, or setting in rocking chairs on the porch looking for entitlements, or carrying a rifle in combat in Afghanistan while their families remain in Fort Bragg collecting food stamps to eat. Perhaps, if they were black they would understand how Reverend Jeremiah Wright could say “God Damn America” for the way they are treated.  

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