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"He knows that he can use the American flag as a symbol of division and not unity." Dan Rather
Dan Rather on Facebook today:
It's football Sunday, and I have a pit in my stomach, and a sickening sense of deja vu. Who knows what the day will bring?
I do know the source of my disquiet. It is the stench of bigotry as a demagogue stirs the potent cauldron of racial division. I want to say, this is so unnecessary. We have so many other things we should be worrying about. But of course now this is real, and it must be called out. This is an age when no one can be neutral. To remain silent in the face of race-baiting is to be complicit. And I have seen the cost of complicity. It is ugly.
On Friday night, and then in a chain of tweets (what else) President Trump targeted African American athletes for provocation and ridicule. He has called into question their Americanness, as he called into question the Americanness of his predecessor President Obama. Perhaps what is saddest about this moral cowardice is that Mr. Trump may derive some political gain from these attacks amongst his supporters, but he fails in the test of leadership. Big time. For a President to be doing this - pouring gasoline on the embers of racial resentment - is really unspeakable. Instead of trying to reduce the potentially explosive emotions about race, he is trying to exacerbate them for his own gain.
I have seen this game plan before. My mind is transported across the decades. I hear the adjective "uppity", and much worse. I see the mouths of authority curl with disdain and mutter "what do you think you're doin', boy?" - the last word spit out in disgust.
I do know the source of my disquiet. It is the stench of bigotry as a demagogue stirs the potent cauldron of racial division. I want to say, this is so unnecessary. We have so many other things we should be worrying about. But of course now this is real, and it must be called out. This is an age when no one can be neutral. To remain silent in the face of race-baiting is to be complicit. And I have seen the cost of complicity. It is ugly.
On Friday night, and then in a chain of tweets (what else) President Trump targeted African American athletes for provocation and ridicule. He has called into question their Americanness, as he called into question the Americanness of his predecessor President Obama. Perhaps what is saddest about this moral cowardice is that Mr. Trump may derive some political gain from these attacks amongst his supporters, but he fails in the test of leadership. Big time. For a President to be doing this - pouring gasoline on the embers of racial resentment - is really unspeakable. Instead of trying to reduce the potentially explosive emotions about race, he is trying to exacerbate them for his own gain.
I have seen this game plan before. My mind is transported across the decades. I hear the adjective "uppity", and much worse. I see the mouths of authority curl with disdain and mutter "what do you think you're doin', boy?" - the last word spit out in disgust.
More at the link
https://www.facebook.com/theDanRather/posts/10159366068600716
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