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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPierce: It's Just That Kind of Morning. It's Morning in America.
It's Just That Kind of Morning. It's Morning in America.
You go to bed thinking about a mass shooting in Texas and wake up hearing about a mass shooting in Ohio.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
AUG 4, 2019
...Thanks to Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative, we are being reminded that this is the 100th anniversary of a series of events that the country has done a damned fine job of forgetting. In the summer of 1919, in the wake of World War I and with the Red Scare already warming up, the forces of white supremacy engaged all the private and public resources of American society and government in an all-out assault on African-American citizens. It was called the Red Summer and, by the end of it, there had been 25 white-supremacist assaults all over the country. African-American citizens, almost 400,000 of them soldiers who had survived the hell of the Western Front and who had learned to fight there, defended themselves, which only intensified the attacks.
In Elaine, Arkansas, a white mob attacked a group of black sharecroppers who were attempting to organize themselves for better working conditions, and a three-day slaughter ensured, abetted by Army units dispatched to the town, allegedly to keep order. Woodrow Wilson, that thin-lipped overrated bigot of a president, sat idly by while riots reached the steps of the Capitol and 40 people were killed. Chicago exploded after a black teenager was killed. In Omaha, a lynch mob ran riot, demanding the blood of an African American accused of rape. Before finally hanging the unfortunate prisoner, the mob nearly lynched the city's mayor. In all, there were 43 formal lynchings, 13 of which involved the murder of African-American veterans. That was 100 years ago, and, Lord, we've come so very far, haven't we?
Because what happened in El Paso on Saturday, when a white supremacist named Patrick Crusius brought a military-style weapon into a Walmart store and left 20 people dead and 26 wounded, was a lynching. He might have been alone, but his gun was his rope and his bullets were Crusius's mob. He drove eight or nine hours from Dallas to El Paso. He came prepared with eye and ear protection for his mission. He wasn't angry. He was coming to make war on the invading enemy. Pissant war, to be sure. Paranoid war, definitely. But war nonetheless. Patrick Crusius killed 20 more people than died at Fort Sumter. He married the lynch mob to war-fighting, the same way it happened at Wounded Knee or the Warsaw ghetto. With our modern technology of death, we have created one-man einsatzgruppen. Our atomized culture has atomized mass murder. You can be your very own lynch mob. ...
This is the common parlance of modern hate; the white supremacists at Charlottesville chanted, "Youand, occasionally, 'Jews'will not replace us." These are the forces summoned up blithely by the current President* of the United States in recent days because he has no concept of politics without them, and no concept of patriotism in him at all. He is running around the powder magazines of American history, giggling, with a blowtorch in each fist. I honestly don't believe he knows the peril he has brought on the country. I also honestly believe he could care less.
This is the common parlance of modern hate; the white supremacists at Charlottesville also talked about invaders and invasion. These are the forces with which the Republican Party has engaged blithely, supporting this president* in everything he says and does. They are running around the powder magazines of American history, giggling, with blowtorches in all of their fists. I honestly believe they do know what they're doing. I honestly believe they could care less.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28599598/el-paso-walmart-dayton-ohio-shooting/
hlthe2b
(101,698 posts)PSPS
(13,512 posts)It seems petty to be annoyed, but something like this in such a powerful piece honestly feels like a splinter under a thumbnail when you're trying to build the ark.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)eppur_se_muova
(36,227 posts)But it really doesn't work in this case.
PSPS
(13,512 posts)His piece is otherwise well-written and is excellent. As a professional writer, though, even he would admit that such errors detract from any piece's impact. Maybe his editor mangled it.
eppur_se_muova
(36,227 posts)Don't know if it's regional or ethnic, but I've noted mostly people from NYC area saying it that way. Not what I grew up with, and it used to drive me crazy when I first heard it.
cyclonefence
(4,483 posts)then you *do* care some; if you *couldn't* care less, well then... you don't care at all. Careful writers, like Pierce, choose their words to mean what they say. If it was intentional, I don't see the point.