Race Baiting in America - The Lingering Cottage Industry

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

What a shame that in a nation of laws and equality one can find race baiting as a sport reaching new highs or lows depending on your perspective.

 

The Zimmerman trial in Florida in which a jury dismissed all charges against the defendant, George Zimmerman, ruling self-defense, has demonstrated once again how some American traditions transcend politics, time and truth.
 

“I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

Race baiting, that age old practice of proving people are inherently prejudiced even when they are not, is alive and well.

You notice, I trust, that I did not mention discrimination or equal opportunity because while I believe we have made great progress in our history, we are far from a society when there is only one race, mankind.

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
 

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you have cottage industries whose purpose seems to be more oriented toward prolonging race hatred, and inciting repressed fears, than helping society as a whole work to eliminate racism against everyone, you still have a problem.

"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away, and that in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty."
 

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

Here in America there are two distinct groups who never hesitate to use race baiting for their own purposes.  There are the so called advocates of an issue, those self-appointed mouth pieces for the invisible oppressed and repressed Americans.

These are the parasites who feed off parasites, grasping at any straw in the wind, no matter how remote from the truth it may be, in order to prolong their own interests like foundations, fund raising, consulting fees, kickbacks and the other benefits of the great American machine of capitalism.

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

Did I forget to mention the chauffeured limousines available to them, private jets on loan, significant tax deductible donations to their favorite charity?  What about the thousands of dollars in honorarium fees for speaking and the seven course gourmet dinner parties to help the super rich learn about the hatred and fear they missed in their finishing schools?
 

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

These people have often taken extremely worthwhile causes and hijacked them for their own purposes.  The pioneers of the American Civil Rights movement, people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave their lives to help wipe out racism and hatred.  Today's so called leaders use racism and fear to turn people against people.  They bring shame to the memory and work of such martyrs.

 

As for the parasites the parasites feed off of, they are the media, whether mainstream, main street, network, cable, Internet, wire service virtual, blogs or just plain stupid.
 

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

Back in the 1960's when Civil Rights had a cause and purpose, the most radical advocates for and against the civil rights movement were known as hate mongers and even bomb throwers.  But they did throw bullets and bombs.

 

Today's mouthpieces, whether from the special interests out to protect their special interest or the lawyers who created all the victim's non-profit funds that seem to pay huge salaries to lawyers to watch over the money to the media.

"Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else?  The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."
                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ah the media.  The only parasite class to give up all pretense of hiding the truth behind some sanctimonious purpose of serving the higher good.  No more lies about being "objective", "unbiased" or "truthful".

Today the media serves many masters and the truth is not one of them.  First and foremost in the media mind is corporate profits and profits only come from ratings in television and lies on the Internet.
 

It is in the best interest of the media ratings that all things good fail, all laws are subject to ridicule, any old storm must be transformed into a major natural disaster in the making, and sex sells. 

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 

The more the public is upset the higher the ratings and the more opportunity to exploit hapless victims and their families and the more victims trust funds can be created.
 

Of course thanks to the media packaging of trials and the public response to jury and court rulings, the on camera reporters are so lame, apparently, that they need all kinds of bogus "experts" beside them to help hype the lies being spun to gain more viewers, higher ratings, and more advertising revenue.

Why have the very institutions whose people helped bring well deserved recognition to Dr. King now employed people and tactics that have sold out the very principles Dr. King stood for in the name of racial equality?

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.
 

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fear and hatred empower racism and no one advocates fear and hatred more than the parasites who use human capital to make money.  They share the Greed Masters Hall of Infamy in American culture.

Did you know that the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights movement, has named 31 people as martyrs in the civil rights history of America.  Of the 31 there were 8, or 25%, who were white ranging from housewives to ministers to college students to plain old people.

Here is a sampling of the martyrs who gave their lives for others.
 

Southern Poverty Law Center

Civil Rights Martyrs

 

May 7, 1955 · Belzoni, Mississippi
Rev. George Lee, one of the first black people registered to vote in Humphreys County, used his pulpit and his printing press to urge others to vote. White officials offered Lee protection on the condition he end his voter registration efforts, but Lee refused and was murdered.

September 30, 1962 · Oxford, Mississippi
Paul Guihard, a reporter for a French news service, was killed by gunfire from a white mob during protests over the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi.

April 23, 1963 · Attalla, AlabamaWilliam Lewis Moore, a postman from Baltimore, was shot and killed during a one-man march against segregation. Moore had planned to deliver a letter to the governor of Mississippi urging an end to tolerance.

 

June 12, 1963 · Jackson, Mississippi

Medgar Evers, who directed NAACP operations in Mississippi, was leading a campaign for integration in Jackson when he was shot and killed by a sniper at his home.

 

 

September 15, 1963 · Birmingham, Alabama

Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley were getting ready for church services when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing all four of the school-age girls. The church had been a center for civil rights meetings and marches.

April 7, 1964 · Cleveland, OhioRev. Bruce Klunder was among civil rights activists who protested the building of a segregated school by placing their bodies in the way of construction equipment. Klunder was crushed to death when a bulldozer backed over him.

 

June 21, 1964 · Philadelphia, Mississippi
James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Henry Schwerner, young civil rights workers, were arrested by a deputy sheriff and then released into the hands of Klansmen who had plotted their murders. They were shot, and their bodies were buried in an earthen dam.

 

 

March 11, 1965 · Selma, Alabama

Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from Boston, was among many white clergymen who joined the Selma marchers after the attack by state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Reeb was beaten to death by white men while he walked down a Selma street.

March 25, 1965 · Selma Highway, Alabama

Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a housewife and mother from Detroit, drove alone to Alabama to help with the Selma march after seeing televised reports of the attack at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. She was driving marchers back to Selma from Montgomery when she was shot and killed by a Klansmen in a passing car.

June 10, 1966 · Natchez, Mississippi

Ben Chester White, who had worked most of his life as a caretaker on a plantation, had no involvement in civil rights work. He was murdered by Klansmen who thought they could divert attention from a civil rights march by killing a black person.

February 8, 1968 · Orangeburg, South Carolina
Samuel Ephesians Hammond Jr., Delano Herman Middleton and Henry Ezekial Smith were shot and killed by police who fired on student demonstrators at the South Carolina State College campus.

 

April 4, 1968 · Memphis, Tennessee

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister, was a major architect of the Civil Rights Movement. He led and inspired major non-violent desegregation campaigns, including those in Montgomery and Birmingham. He won the Nobel peace prize. He was assassinated as he prepared to lead a demonstration in Memphis.

 

Viola Liuzzo family

 

"I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law."
 

                                                Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Definition of COTTAGE INDUSTRY

 

1.  an industry whose labor force consists of family units or individuals working at home with their own equipment

 

2.  a small and often informally organized industry

 

3.  a limited but enthusiastically pursued activity or subject cottage industry for feminist academics — Wendy Kaminer

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