What occurred to me is that this is how it must feel to live in a dictatorship. For the current occupant of the White House to talk about the courage of people like Medgar Evers, the Freedom Riders, and the 3 young Civil Rights Workers brutally murdered, it was repulsive. This is a man who believes and sustains the worst stereotypes. This is a man whose party has rescinded the Voting Rights Act that many of those enshrined in the new museum devoted their lives to achieve.
Two of the events that stand out most in my memory of growing up as the struggle for Civil Rights was blossoming in the 1960s are the funeral of the 3 civil rights workers and the 1963 March on Washington. I wonder where the current President was on those two occasions? I recall my presence and my emotions clearly. What was he doing? Thinking? How had his life and worldview changed?
In this current climate, a news reporter would not even get the chance to ask such a question.
Of course, all this is set against the soon to be election of Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate.
The fact that the people of Alabama are comfortable electing an accused child molester to represent shows the real truth here.
Hopefully, the consequences will make them pay the price needed to join the 21st century. So, this is the new normal.
There is an Arthur Miller quote that keeps tapping away at my brain. In the Introduction to his famous play "Death of a Salesman," Miller talks about the change that has come over the Lowman house. Says Miller, "Now it was quiet in the house and the wrong people in the beds." Later on, he says, "Strangers in the seats of the mighty."
What we have here is a troop of actors playing at running a government. The wrong people in the halls.
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