I knew I was rejoicing too soon

       I knew I was rejoicing too soon when Thomas Sowell announced his retirement from writing op-ed columns. Sadly, Walter Williams has appeared to take his place. Who would have ever guessed  there could be another Black apologist with so little real sense of history or truth in journalism. In one of Williams' first efforts to reach  the Daily Sun, He declares that liberals have lower standards of behavior than Conservatives.

     Wow, where to start? Ok lets analyze several points often made by the Far Right, almost always wrong, because they're lies.

     When the bulk of conservatives look at demonstrations of civil dissatisfaction , they see what they immediately characterize as "liberals," meaning they see persons of more than the Caucasian persuasion, and frequently together, for heaven's sakes. When violence occurs they continue to label it as "Liberal, even when said violence is instigated by law enforcement." When they see looting and wanton destruction of property, they lose every shred of critical thinking skill , if any , that they had ever possessed and brand the violators as "liberals" again.  When actual political liberals see the same behavior they label; it "criminal", since that's what it actually is. An inference of deep political philosophical belief in any direction other than anarchy  in the minds of said looters and police car burners is simply ludicrous not to mention dead wrong about 98% of the time. It is angry people behaving badly, period. They're almost certainly not voters, nor do they support real political beliefs of any real focus.

     

     Second, when Conservatives speak of Liberals' behavior in many cases the phrase "Black Lives Matter" is almost sure to pop  up, usually because much of Conservative White America has added a sotto voce  ending to the phrase which they seem determined to believe that most Black Americans intend, that being  "Black Lives Matter (more than white lives)."  This of course is intended to demean and belittle the efforts of those of all races who abhor the continued disparity in treatment of Black and White citizens by the police. There are far too many recent incidents of unarmed persons of color being murdered to even pretend it isn't a problem, nor can anyone claim that it is only a recent concern. The history of much of law enforcement turning a blind eye to racial inequity extends as far back as the 1870s. I'd say farther back, but before then, inequality  was mandated by law. After Reconstruction was ended, even though unconstitutional, Jim Crow maintained the status quo for Blacks in much of the U.S. until the Civil Rights Era. In fact Black Lives Matter would make more sense (since all lives should always matter) if it were phrased Black Lives Matter (even if whites may not think so).

     Finally, the claim in Walter Williams column cites the undeniably bad actions of that fringe of violent and usually apolitical  hangers on I mentioned in the second paragraph and extrapolates them to the entire liberal movement. In the spirit of Mr. Williams' own alternate facts viewpoint let's consider some groups of Liberals juxtaposed with Conservatives and at odds in various causes. As a person of color and of late middle age, I must assume that Mr. Williams considered the  Liberals  of many racial backgrounds, who walked across the bridge in Selma  Alabama, to be the exemplars of bad behavior, while the Conservatives who beat them, used water cannons against them and  urged their dogs to attack them must have been demonstrating the "better" behavior Mr. Williams was referring to.  Of course those good ole Wyoming  conservatives who beat Matthew Shephard to death were behaving righteously as well. The deeply religious inbreds  of the Westboro Baptist Church, when they picket with vile signs screaming filth at the parents of a dead coed in North Carolina are the well behaved ones and the mourners are unruly trash? How we doing so far?

        And finally, it would be difficult to be more Conservative than   the Ku Klux Klan. Modeling good behavior, as Christians, they have terrorized Blacks, Catholics and Jews in America for decades. If you're looking for a yardstick of decency try this: in Georgia, alone,  since reconstruction, more people of color (586) were lynched by white hate groups than the number who have died from violence in urban riots since. in America as a nation the number of persons killed by these "well behaved Conservatives" totals well over 3,000.

       In summary, like Thomas Sowell before him, Walter Williams doesn't even know what he doesn't know.