An old German adage says that “fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.” Applying that to today’s happenings shows how true that is. The Ku Klux Klan has been around longer than I have, but I’ve never seen it treated like a serious issue needing to be dealt with.
I have the feeling society saw the group as a dying breed of cockroaches we simply had to wait for time to snuff out; a once vicious dog, now decrepit and missing teeth, unable to bite or do any more real damage.
They are clearly horrible and I would probably be a little scared if I was born anything besides a blond-haired blue-eyed baby, but we know it’s a relic of a less enlightened time that will only get smaller.
When I first heard about the wavers of Nazi and Confederate flags in Charlottesville chanting unsavory things about people different than themselves, I similarly rolled my eyes at the idiot parade showing the worst of the worst our nation has to offer.
It’s a showcase of the scum at the bottom of the barrel that would be filtered out of our news cycle in a few weeks, grabbing our attention just long enough to remind us how evil hatred is and that we can be better.
I don’t know why the topic seems to be sticking around. I feel like people are treating this event like it’s representative of a growing epidemic instead of a outliers reminding us we still have hateful dummies hanging about.
I have to wonder if treating this like a serious problem might exacerbate things. If these racists feel like they’re making a difference for their cause, like society is treating them seriously, it may embolden them in their beliefs. This may slow down the inevitable fizzling out of their specific flavor of crazy. Seeing this in the news and hearing it talked about like it’s a legitimate threat might set the mood. It might make people feel like they live in a social climate where this isn’t something baffling. We have to remember that this isn’t the norm.
We can’t judge a room by the dumbest person in it.
Students responded when asked for their views on racism today.“I think the best solution to racism is reaching out to others and trying to understand their point of view,” said Bereket Getachew.
“If we can’t see where they stand, how can we change their opinion?” said JéRod Buenaventura.
A president who seems reluctant to take the hard stance that Nazis are bad probably doesn’t help things but like I said: dumbest person in the room.
The vast majority of people saw what I saw, a bunch of crazies with torches.
It would have been silly if it wasn’t so evil.
Know that this kind of behavior is reprehensible, but don’t worry about this kind of thinking dimming our bright future.
These people should be lumped in with The Flat Earth Society not The Legion of Doom.
You don’t have to fear a cockroach to be disgusted by the way it crawls.