The following letter appears in this week’s edition of the Bristol Phoenix. It’s actually the second version I sent to the paper. In the first draft, I name names but the editor was uncomfortable with it. However, astute readers of this blog might be able to guess who one of the perpetrators is.
On October 6th, East Bay Citizens for Peace (EBCP) held a virtual program on white supremacist militia groups and the threat to our democracy. Since then, I’ve noticed several letters to the editor describing Black Lives Matter (BLM) and anti-fascists protesters (Antifa) as movements that promote violence and threaten the American way of life.
It doesn’t surprise me that some people in town would say such things. EBCP witnessed far worse over the years at its many in-person programs at Rogers Free Library, where a pair of Bristol residents would frequently come and harass attendees. Although their attempts to bully and intimidate were largely unsuccessful, they were occasionally effective. An older African-American gentleman was frightened away at the conclusion of an event on Racism & Police Brutality, after being accosted in the parking lot for daring to explain earlier in the night how he’d been racially profiled by police his entire life.
The sentiments expressed in recent letters show how pervasive racism still is in the US, even in overwhelmingly white communities such as ours. Whether it’s from long ago (e.g., playing a role in Native American genocide, the slave trade, and the displacement of the African-American neighborhood of New Goree) or today, the “most patriotic town in America” has much work to do if it wants to stand on the right side of history regarding racial equality.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in Memphis while fighting for Black sanitation workers’ labor rights but, if he were alive today, I believe he’d support BLM. The sanitation workers, who were subjected to inhumane conditions, had a similarly life-affirming message to the people denying them their humanity: “I Am A Man”. Furthermore, in a famous speech, King stated that “riot is the language of the unheard”. Therefore, while he may not have agreed with the violent actions of some in Antifa, he wouldn’t have condemned them as terrorists either.
It’s unfortunate more people weren’t at EBCP’s latest virtual program. They would have learned about the real danger to national security. White supremacists are responsible for slaughtering Black, Muslim and Jewish people in their places of worship and members of a white supremacist militia were recently arrested before they could carry out plans to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. The FBI has identified these groups as terrorist organizations… Not Antifa or BLM.
Why isn’t this being addressed and why is BLM being blamed for the violence, yet there’s no outrage about unchecked police brutality that’s resulted in the murders of innocent Black and Brown people across the country?
Bristol Bull Raker 