By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published on August 4, 2019
Yesterday, America re-entered the twilight zone of deadly racial hatred. As a nation, we have been here before in the 1910, 20s and 30s. We drifted back again in 2017 and 2018.
We are back in this twilight zone, again. The incident in El Paso, Texas took us there.
A 21-year-old-white shooter, who said he was leading the fight to reclaim his country from destruction, targeted and killed twenty Hispanic-Americans. His shooting spree injured another twenty-six victims.
Yesterday's mass murder of twenty Walmart shoppers in El Paso, Texas has left me numb. It was a hate crime, plain and simple.
The shooter posted a manifesto titled, "The Inconvenient Truth," on an extremist website shortly before his killing spree to explain why it is necessary to murder innocent Hispanic-Americans. He views himself as some sort of patriot for summarily executing these victims with an AK47 assault rifle.
I have reprinted the killer’s manifesto so you can read it for yourself and decide whether it echoes the messages of hatred that are gushing out of today's toxic political fountain in Washington. Sadly, I believe there are plenty of misguided Americans who think just like this killer and who will likely follow in his footsteps.
As a nation, we have learned nothing from Adolf Hitler’s demonization of German Jews, Black Germans, Gays, and Gypsies. The “good” Germans tacitly supported Hitler’s reign of terror largely because he (a) made the trains run on time, (b) ran an efficient national government, and (c) grew the German economy. These "good" German citizens conveniently looked the other way while the Nazi's slaughtered six million fellow human beings in an effort to "purify" Germany.
When George Wallace ran for governor of Alabama in 1958, he said, “I want to tell the good people of this state as a judge of the 3rd Judicial Circuit, if I didn’t have what it took to treat a man fair regardless of his color, then I don’t have what it takes to be the governor of your great state.” Wallace was soundly defeated in the election by segregationist John Patterson. After his defeat, Wallace said, “I was out-niggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be out-niggered again.”
Wallace made good on his promise. He ran for governor again in 1962, and won. Wallace's campaign was dripping with overt racial themes. During his reign as governor, innocent children were murdered while worshipping in church, civil rights activist were killed while engaging in non-violent demonstrations, and thousands of protesters were senselessly beaten in Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma, Anniston and elsewhere in Alabama for simply asking to be treated with dignity and respect as human beings.
Today, the reckless political rhetoric in Washington in the immigration debate has unleashed a bottled-up racial hatred that surpasses anything George Wallace ever fermented during the 1960s. There is a new apostle of hatred and divisiveness in America, and he sits in the White House. Because of the national stature of his public office and his complete lack of character, this man is far more dangerous than George Wallace. Like Wallace, this braggadocious and narcissistic hater revels in the adoration of the dangerous extremist groups who support him.
I fear that those of us who are minorities in American are hopelessly trapped in a twilight zone of hatred that far exceeds anything I ever witnessed or experienced during George Wallace’s heyday of church bombings, the murder of civil rights activists, and the widespread beatings of non-violent protestors by Ku Klux Klan members and police officers alike.
This zone of hatred was recently evidenced in 2017 when fascism was on full display in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was confirmed on October 27, 2018 by the massacre of Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh that killed eleven people and injured seven more. This synagogue massacre was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States. Yesterday, this zone of hatred became a tragic fact of life for minorities in El Paso.
For the first time in the history of America, minority groups appear to be truly alone, unprotected, and under attack by the political rhetoric coming out of Washington and the violence of white extremists.
As a nation, we are in deep trouble. Mass murders committed by white nationalist will likely continue and increase in numbers. The domestic jihad waged by homegrown terrorists who target and kill minorities is spiraling out of controlled. We do not have national leadership that is committed to stopping this violence.
PHOTOS: Mass murderer Patrick Crusius' Manifesto, posted on August 3, 2019.
