FEATURE
Duke, the Alt-Right, and other white supremacists when they claimed he spoke for them or represented similar values. Additionally, when white supremacists sparked violence at a Charlottesville, Va. rally, he defended them by characterizing them and counter protesters as “some very fine people on both sides.” This, however, was not the first time the White House has embraced or played apologist for white supremacists or their ideals. In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson’s White House hosted a premiere of D.W. Griffith’s silent epic drama, Birth of A Nation in which the Ku Klux Klan was hailed as heroes at the end of the Reconstruction era when some 2,000 African Americans held local, state and even federal public office. Wilson said the film was “like writing history with lightening.” Now, the Jim Crow laws and Poll Taxes of old have also now been replaced by voter identification laws, felony disenfranchisement laws, and gerrymandering. Even worse, the National Rifle Association and American Legislative Exchange Council’s lobbying efforts between 2005 and 2011 to successfully push for Stand Your Ground legislation in 22 states has also provided a virtual ‘hunting’ license, for average white citizens to kill
Hate crime and dragging victim, James Byrd, Jr.
African Americans with minimal to no consequences. In a previous NRA statement, they characterized the legislation as “self-defense laws” and “a natural right” that empowered “lawful people to defend themselves, and deters would-be murderers, rapists and robbers.” Interestingly, the perception the NRA and the legislation promotes is that those who pull and use their guns are lawabiding and those others are automatically criminals regardless of the circumstances, especially when the shooting victim is Black. The acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin also supports that contention. Zimmerman
From Left to Right: Convicted killers Lawrence Russell Brewer, Shawn Berry, and John William King
WINTER 2018
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