March 16, 2014
Armed Angry White Males; the New Domestic Terrorists
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III
NEWS ANALYSIS
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them….And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Senator Barack Obama April 6, 2008
While out on the presidential campaign trail in 2008, Senator Obama made this statement and was castigated by both Democrats and Republicans. Hillary Clinton responded by saying, "Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families." Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said through his spokesman Steve Schmidt. "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking…It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."
Eventually, instead of standing behind his very astute assessment of the fear that plagues rural White America, Senator Obama backed away from his remarks with an apology, "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that."
I wish Senator Obama had held his ground.
To put Sen. Obama’s comments in historical perspective one can look to Federalist #10 in which James Madison wrote, ”Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”
When viewed from our country’s racial context, these “factions” have reared their ugly heads time after time. In their book A Festival of Violence, Tolnay and Beck “identified 2,805 victims of lynch mobs killed between 1882 and 1930 in ten southern states. Although mobs murdered almost 300 white men and women, the vast majority-almost 2,500-of lynch victims were African-American. The scale of this carnage means that, on average, a black man, woman, or child was murdered nearly once a week, every week, between 1882 and 1930 by a hate driven white mob.”
As African-American soldiers returned from fighting in WWI and keeping the world safe for democracy, they attempted to exercise their social, political, and economic rights here at home. They were met by riots and lynching’s led by White mobs throughout Black communities in 15 states and 27 cities across America from April to November, 1919. According to Cameron McWhirter’s book Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America the NAACP’s James Weldon Johnson called it the “Red Summer” because it was so bloody. In total, millions of Americans had their lives disrupted. Hundreds of people most of them Black, were killed.
On June 1, 1921 a White mob in Tulsa, OK burned and bombed 34 square blocks of Tulsa’s Black Greenwood Community to the ground. According to Tim Madigan’s The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the
The lynching’s documented by Tolnay and Beck, the Red Summer of 1919, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 are historic examples of American domestic terrorism.
More recently, on June 7, 1998, James
Today, lynch mobs have been replaced by “Zimmerman’s” and “Dunn’s” that feel empowered by “Stand Your Ground”, believing that juries of their peers will exonerate them of their use of deadly force when Black youths are involved.
Unfortunately, all too often these events and so many others do not get discussed or analyzed in that context.
Not only were Senator Obama’s comments astute in terms of their historical accuracy, as we look at the George Zimmerman’s and Michael Dunn’s of the world, his comments could be considered prophetic.
It is my contention that the recent “murders” of Treyvon Martin and Jordan Davis should not be viewed as isolated incidents. They did not occur in a vacuum. They are part of a larger murderous American historical continuum. At the heart of this murderous continuum are race and xenophobia (a fear of others) and a violent reaction to it. To many in the dominant culture “their”
Conceal Carry permits, “Stand Your Ground” laws and inept prosecutors are creating a climate that provides the Zimmerman’s and Dunn’s of the world with a license to kill as well as juries that are predisposed to letting them to do so.
As the American economy continues to contract and full-time well-paying jobs become harder to find, the face of poverty in
According to the Christian Science Monitor, “Suburbs are increasingly becoming the address of
Senator Obama’s assessment in 2008 was historically accurate and more prophetic than pundits and commentators have been willing to give him credit for. Armed angry White males like George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn have been operating in our midst for centuries. Their actions are not new; the lack of analysis of them in the context of terrorism is not surprising. The narrative has to change and we must engage in a broader discussion of them as the new domestic terrorists.
Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the Sirius/XM Satellite radio channel 110 call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr.