Today's JG rant: White guilt and Fantasyland gun control

I must give Jacqueline St. John's letter (Aug. 10) a big fat cheers for smoking out so many self-loathing virtue signaling well-heeled white letter writers lamenting the fate of African - Americans and “people of color” – a racist term is ever there was one.  

Many take on the characteristics of Stephanie O’Shaughnessy’s letter, “Privilege exists even if it’s not acknowledged” of August 18, 2019 where writers bemoan blatant racism.  Then, like O’Shaughnessy, they don’t tell us what they are doing to level the playing field, rather they point their woke self-righteous boney fingers at “you” and demand that “you” do something about it.

Here are the undeniable truths:

Racism exists in America and has largely been the sole province of the Democratic Party since the 1860s (Slavery, founding of the KKK, opposing Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Segregation, etc. is the platform upon which today’s Democratic Party rests).

With blatant flaming racists and anti-Semites like Talib, Omar, Jackson, Sharpton, Wright, AntiFa etc. at its forefront, the Democratic Party remains America’s safe space for raging racists.

Democrats enacted welfare rules that chased African – American males out of their homes and away from their children forcing families into generational reliance on the bare subsistence provided by the government and Democrats labeled it “compassion”.

For 60 years now, Democrats have promoted the use of troublesome hyphenated Americans and government “affirmative action” programs to promote division.  We’re 60 years on now, and there is no end in sight.

Now consider this: how is it possible for Asians and immigrants from the sub-continent to come to America and thrive within a generation while Democrat wards of the state, African – Americans, remain mired in Democrat controlled urban hell holes for 60 years?

And this:  PDJT has done more for African – Americans in two years with Opportunity Zones, criminal justice reform and record low unemployment than the entirety of the Democratic Party has done in 60 years.  What has it gotten him?  An avalanche of lies and projection from the Democratic Party labeling him a racist.  Pathetic.

Privilege exists even if it's not acknowledged

In response to Jacqueline St. John's letter (Aug. 10) on the past dragging down the present. Racism didn't end when slavery was abolished. It didn't end when the Civil Rights Act established equal voting rights or when Brown v. Board of Education desegregated schools. Racism is prevalent today when black people are more frequently stopped by police. Given harsher sentences for the same crimes white people commit. When students of color are reprimanded more in schools and given harsher punishments than white students – often preventing them from receiving the education to succeed in life.

Racism exists in the daily microaggressions of rude service, fewer tips, and nurses and doctors disbelieving of black people's pain. Racism exists when real estate agents only show houses in “that” part of town to black and brown people.

You may not have participated in any of the above actions, but have you benefited from them? Has your family been able to accumulate wealth because they were able to receive a quality education, get a decent job, buy property? Have you witnessed any of the above and called out the discrimination in any way?

If not, then you've benefited from simply being white. You didn't ask for this privilege, but not understanding it or having a willingness to confront it does keep this country from moving forward. Read books and articles (there are so many wonderful ones) on how to dismantle the systemic racism established by our ancestors. That's the only way for this country to reach its true greatness.

Stephanie O'Shaughnessy

Fort Wayne

Racial discrimination a staining legacy

Jacqueline St. John's letter of Aug. 10 lamented how much attention has been placed on the phenomena of white privilege and racism. She argued that such complaints come “straight out of the 1960s” and that there is “very little still relevant today.”

William Faulkner's well-worn wisdom is useful here: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” Racial discrimination has a long legacy that shapes our nation still today. After World War II, notorious “housing covenants” denied black veterans the same opportunity as white veterans to use their GI Bill benefits to buy family homes in the suburbs. This still affects black families today, who struggle to accrue the financial stability their white counterparts achieved by investing in lucrative suburban housing more than half a century ago.

The “war on drugs” that began in the 1970s and grew into a “tough on crime” movement by the 1990s resulted in millions of people going to jail. By 1999, 74% of all Americans going to jail on drug offenses were black. This is not because black people were responsible for 74% of drug use; it is because the police and judicial system enforced laws against blacks more vigorously than against whites. As professor Michelle Alexander explained in “The New Jim Crow” (2010), this has led to African American communities struggling to achieve economic and social advancement.

Most white folks, and I am one, don't spend much time in black communities and, as a result, lack an intuitive understanding of the legacy of racism. To be sure, the legacy exists. The activists today raising issues of white privilege and racism follow a proud and honorable American tradition that goes back hundreds of years. Their America is your America, and it is a nation that has long wrestled with racial discrimination and its legacy.

David G. Schuster

Fort Wayne

JG editors and Libs living in Fantasyland

Re: John Boerger’s letter “Meaningful action on guns long overdue” of Aug 18, 2019

Content to publish what is essentially the same letter over a different name, the JG turns to Boerger to recycle the same lies about and Fantasyland solutions to gun violence in America. 

The first big lie is that gun violence is exclusive to America.  It is not.  When adjusted for population, America is not in the top of nations with most deaths as a result of mass shootings.  Nor is it in the top ten of nations in frequency of mass shootings. 

Next are the Fantasyland solutions like Australian style gun buybacks.  First and most importantly, what Boerger doesn’t mention is that Australian “buyback” was mandatory.  In plain English, it was gun confiscation orchestrated by the government.

Consider the scale of the problem.  Australia managed to confiscate somewhere between 650,000 to million weapons. Roughly half of the American population – about 155 million people – own roughly 310 million guns.     

When the very deep blue states of New York and Connecticut instituted “mandatory” registration and bans on certain types of magazines, compliance among leftists who populate those states and supposedly support this kind of nonsense was tepid at best.  So how does Boerger suppose a gun confiscation scheme will play out in red stares?  My guess is civil war.

But, being a veteran, I’m sure Boerger will be willing to ruck up move out and draw fire as he goes door to door to confiscate his neighbor’s guns by force.  Nhaa. Whining lefties will be hiding under the bedsheets wetting themselves while demanding the government “do something.”

Boerger notes, falsely, that Australia, Russia, all of Europe, Canada and Asia none of these “have the gun violence like in the USA.”  Actually, what none of these countries have is a constitution like the United States.   

       

If the left wants to avoid civil unrest what they need to do is propose a repeal and replacement for the Second Amendment and put it to a vote.  The left claims Americans are demanding “common sense gun control.”  Put it out there.  Let’s vote.

Meaningful action on guns long overdue

We fly the flag at half staff, we offer thoughts, we offer prayers, we watch our politicians visit the wounded and offer sympathy for the dead. Symbols, yes. Meaningful, no!

Symbols can have meaning if they are supported by or have a history of action, such as legislation that addresses mass murders, domestic terrorism and violence. But since Columbine, Sandy Hook, etc., there has been no action to address our culture of guns.

A recent report suggested we would study where effective measures were in place to counter gun violence. That has already been done – in Australia, Russia, all of Europe, Canada and Asia. None of these have gun violence like the USA. Why? Perhaps because guns are not as readily available.

The USA is not significantly different from other countries in mental health issues; all have similar access to the internet and violent gaming; conservative, liberal and radical influencers are throughout the world and easily found. What is different is the accessibility of guns in the USA.

I am a veteran and I respect and admire the Constitution of the United States, but I think we have either misinterpreted the Second Amendment or our founders just got it wrong on this single point.

We are tired of thoughts and prayers, half-staff flags and hollow political symbols. We are long overdue for meaningful action.

John Boerger

Fort Wayne