VIOLENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER
RESOLVING THE UNSOLVABLE
For a survivor of the January 6th violence, Michael Fanone has demonstrated great courage in speaking out against the violence inflicted on Charlie Kirk, a person who actively supported the Jan. 6th insurrectionists.
I agree with Michael Fanone. Violence should have no place in political discourse - not even in political hate speech. But what the “violence has no place here” crowd is failing to understand is that this country was BUILT on violence. As I study US history, I am forced to recognize the European forefathers’ brutalization and murder of thousands upon thousands of native people - WHY? because they had God on their side. With this Manifest Destiny, the white man was given clearance to kill native Americans, rob and enslave black people under the guise of white skin superiority. Both Teddy Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson subscribed to the pseudoscientific theory that whites were superior to blacks. These racist ideas are not new. Charlie Kirk was following the same losing game plan. He worked hard to convince the unschooled youth of this country that blacks are inferior. And many whites loved him for his vocal bravery.
It’s no mistake that the rise in overt racism comes after the first black man was elected president. For eight years, there were no scandals, no embarrassing test scores to parade as proof that blacks are less intelligent. Barack Obama was the real deal, not because he was black or “part white” but because he was simply a bright, thoughtful, decent, and brilliant man, and *gasp - white people loved him.
Enter the Tea Party- “Take our country back” had been their slogan. Granted, many Tea Partiers - once the racist upwelling began - left the party, leaving a vile and hateful core ready to indoctrinate people like Charlie Kirk, and when a white person tells me Kirk was one of the good guys, I can read the subtext. Charlie Kirk was unafraid to say the quiet parts out loud.
You are right, Mr. Fanone, violence should have no place in political discourse. It should have no place in a peaceful culture at all - but it does, and honestly, it always has.
I taught high school English for more than twenty years. After the beginning of the Iraq war, I posed a question to my ninth and tenth graders:
We can send messages around the world in nanoseconds, we can solve unsolvable diseases, we can read license plates from outer space, we can put a man on the moon, but when it comes to settling differences, our only recourse, it seems, is to resort to violence/war. WHY?
