Hate groups' spin by Republican Lamar Alexander
benefits anti-Blacks, anti-Semites and anti-immigrants
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Special to USAfricaonline.com Alexander, former Governor of Tennessee (in pix above), when asked by Matthews what a President should do regarding access to and purchase of machine guns, mega-ammo weapons and the like by members of a hate group, looked Americans in the eye from the Iowa voting arena on Saturday August 14 to ask this ridiculous question: "WHAT'S (my emphasis) a member of a Hate group?... That's a hard definition to make." Hard what, Alexander? And, these self-righteous politicians and fatally-flawed zealots believe they're the divinely appointed gatekeepers on earth to heaven? As someone who shares some conservative values and interests, I will never support Alexander, ex-President George Bush's cabinet official, until he purges himself of his deliberate, animated "ignorance" about not just "Who" but in his choice term "WHAT a member of a hate group" is. We should oppose any candidate, even for a dogcatcher, who claims he does not know that the the dragging death of an African-American in Jasper, Texas, killing and discrimination against many recent African immigrants, bombing of churches, especially Black churches and synagogues, recent assault on the Jewish community center in California, killing of some White folks by others for the simple fact of different ethnicity/racial origins, merchants of death at Columbine and Oklahoma, demonization of Blacks, Asians and other recent immigrants, and numerous other cases amount to hate. Those acts of violence remain raw and fresh in our minds, our communal consciences like garish explosions in a Halloween paint factory- whether they are committed by a Black, White, woman or man, pimp or preacher demanding resolve and moral condemnation rather than some weasel non-answer such as Lamar Alexander's. He was born July 3, 1940 in Nashville, Tennessee, and attended Vanderbilt University where he got a B.A.in 1962; J.D., from New York University in 1965 to become a lawyer. I'll like to state that if, like
Alexander who held so much promise in 1996 in his fight for
his party's nomination against Dole and Forbes, any other
public or private figure prefers to artfully quibble about
"WHAT a member of a hate group" is and such other technical
nonsense, they should be actively defined and seen as
fanciful facilitators and spin artists for the hate groups.
Is it not the king of right wing partisan contortionism Rush
Limbaugh who reminds all of his "ditto-heads" (such as
Alexander) that "words have meaning." Of course, words have
meaning. Accordingly, for me and others who agree with my
views, Alexander's August 14 cowardly spin/words which
sought to deflect the fact that their exists a pattern and
hate group affiliation(s) regarding those terrible acts of
violence which I cited above has unwittingly exposed: 2) Alexander's decades old public life
as a pawn of the influential Gun lobby/NRA and their kind
apparently animated his sleek but ineffective, insensitive
spin of an issue of communal public safety. I believe that the faces and contours of hate and racism do not simply wear tattoos, pierced noses and body parts, rainbow colored hairspray, or the shiny/skin head cold look. |
The methodology of hate, and hate
groups are varied and seldom come in hoods and brown
shirts. Second, amidst the torrent of their hate, the banality of the lives of these hate mongers and their privileged patrons is that they define life and the world in sub-kindergaten terms and tunnel vision. Interestingly, they do so, giddily, claiming "superiority over all races and people." Poor fellows, those! Third, hate groups, hate mongers and their sleek, immoral and well-position spin doctors seem painfully foolish to the fact that the constellation of social and moral forces in the world WILL NEVER allow their once-failed supremacist, fascistic, authoritarian ideologies to impose another unchecked terror against all of us, the so-called descendants of a lesser "God." Never Again means just that! Fourth, hate is not only across color but it's also within the same ethnic stock groups, gender and multifarious differentiations. I have seen and known the faces of ethnocentric hate. I am among the millions of Igbo survivors of the genocidal 1976-1970 Nigeria-Biafra war. Like most of my folks who suffered hate inside Nigeria as kids, discrimination as teenagers when we score higher grades in essay/admission exams, and deprivations as adults, my resolve has since been to do my little part in educating against hatreds of all kinds. (Igbos are in the south eastern Nigeria, wrongly identified as 'Ibo'/Ibos by colonialist Euro-Caucasian chroniclers, Reuters, sometimes by the AP, and other agencies). Hence, when I was honored in 1997 by the Washington D.C-based National Immigration Forum for utilizing my media companies, especially USAfricaonline.com, to fight authoritarianism and dictatorships and for journalistic freedoms inside Africa, and other forms of bigotry here in the U.S, I was thankful to Americans for recognizing our modest effort. Accordingly, I will be failing my conscience and communal duty if we overlooked Lamar Alexander's non-answer cover for hate mongers and hate groups with his "What is a member of a hate group" twist. While you do your part, is it too much to ask "WHAT is Lamar Alexander?" The answer, my folks, is probably blowing in the
wind.... -Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of the Houston-based USAfricaonline.com, USAfrica The Newspaper, The Black Business Journal, BBJonline.com, and NigeriaCentral.com, is the recipient of the Journalism Excellence Award, HABJ 1997. He is writing a book on the experiences of recent African immigrants in the U.S. He also covered U.S President Bill Clinton's visit to parts of Africa, March-April, 1998. HAKEEM OLAJUWON: Beyond Basketball speaks on bigotry, exclusively, to USAfricaonline.com "Because of human nature, there are tribalism, racism, discrimination and other things.... What type of way is that? The only thing that help is the love of God. Islam. That's why when you go to Mecca, you see three million people that come from all over the world. They didn't know each other before coming together and their hearts are together." Community Service Awards bring African-American, American policy and business leaders together with African community at Texas Southern University First continental African admitted into the 100 Black Men Inc. Why Dr. Martin Luther King's vision is valid into the 21st century Martin Luther King's legacy, Jews and Black History Month Was Ron Brown murdered or simply another conspiracy spin? |
iliations/patrons),
I was startled by the weasel words from one of the failed
Republican party's 1999 presidential aspirants, Lamar
Alexander, on the issue of "hate groups" and the shooting at
innocent Jewish kids and unfortunate killing of a U.S.
postal employee at one of California's community Jewish
centers.