My July 4th column sparked a lot of commentary. Some said this is not about Trump. In part I agree, it’s bigger than that. Some of the additional response made sense until the secret
agenda of conspiracy theories were raised. My father said years ago. “In power and politics if two people know a secret, the secret is only safe if one of them is dead.”

Conspiracies are like getting a rash during a full moon. You are distracted by the light but the rash of is still there. Personally, I have been in the presence of a lot of politicians of different stripes and most to be pretty good people. They are limited by the power we give them. The ballot box is the determining factor and that is controlled by you and I. With this in mind lets explore what is going on.

This didn’t start with Trump though he is of course playing the fear and race cards. What worked before is out of favor now as more people of various backgrounds developed a conscience and a backbone at the same time. This was triggered by a senseless murder on TV. The murder of George Floyd. The truth began to reveal itself.

From there other videos came to light, these acts of murder and misconduct took center stage until more people abandoned fear and adopted righteous anger and a sense of resolve to clean things up. In fact it became a force to end the present ways of undo privilege.

When you think about it, in America it is not appropriate to have statues and monuments to traitors, criminals and notorious rapists. Outrageous some might say but those words are not totally mine. In a New York Times OPED, Caroline Randall Williams wrote a piece entitled ‘My Body is a Confederate Monument’: Slavery, Rape and Reframing the Past. She claims she is black with lighter skin because her white ancestors were, in her words rapists.

If you view it in that light, it is a disgusting tribute to slave owners, traitors and rapists. I get when some suggest things were different then.

That is not an excuse. These people were traitors and sexual predators. Compare their actions to today. I can’t think of anyone who would want to put up a statue to honor Ted Bundy, The Hillside Strangler,  Jeffrey Epstein or even Charlie Manson. Those who live with ongoing racism see the Confederate monuments as obscene graffiti on the landscape.

I hope I am not leaping to conclusions, but if it is being suggested there is a push to reshape the society from societal norms to economics and people first, yes there is.

Also consider this, when all is said and done and the rhetoric is spent, things equal out with a measure of reason. This time however, those who let the candle of privilege burn to long had best understand, within a decade America will look drastically different.

When people refer to equality it will be more than words. For those with glassy eyed dreams of preserving white supremacy in America that ship has sailed.

Fred Steele