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Members
of the
Ku Klux
Klan
participate
in cross
burnings
after a
white
pride
rally in
rural
Paulding
County
near
Cedar
Town,
Georgia
in
April,
2016.
(AP
Photo/John
Bazemore)
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Racism
is still
a major
problem
in the
U.S.
OpEd
by Mario
Morrow
Special
to Tell
Us USA
News
Network
DETROIT
- If you
can’t
remember
a time
when
overt
racism
was at
this
level in
America
during
your
lifetime,
that’s
because
the
majority
of
Americans
alive
today
have
never
lived
through
an
America
this
bad. For
some, a
state of
near
comatose
denial
is
preferable
to the
horror
show
that is
reality,
because
the
reality
of
America
today is
too much
to bear.
For
many,
denial
is the
best way
to cope.
We
are
witnessing
a
remainder
of the
days
before
and
after
the
Civil
War. It
is not
simply
the last
gasp of
democracy;
it is
the
death
rattle
of the
American
conscience.
Our fate
is not
yet
sealed,
but it
is
inevitable
unless
the
overwhelming
majority
of
Americans
of
goodwill,
common
sense
and
sanity
come to
grips
with
what we
face and
act as
swiftly,
making
the
right
choices
in 2020,
beginning
with the
removal
of the
apparent
leaders
of the
racist
messaging.
We need
to deal
with the
cause.
Once
upon a
time, we
were
shocked
at
behavior
exhibited
by the
president
of the
United
States.
For
perhaps
the
first
six
months
of his
presidency,
we were
shocked
at a
seemingly
never-ending
series
of
revelations
that
competed
for
space in
the
nation’s
headlines.
There
wasn’t
enough
room on
the page
to
detail
how much
was
going so
horribly
wrong
and how
fast it
was
getting
there.
But we
were
shocked
in a way
that
allowed
us to
cling to
the
belief
that
surely
this
would
soon
come to
an end.
Because
once
Trump
was
exposed
for the
embodiment
of evil
and
depravity,
Uncle
Sam
would
stick a
finger
down his
throat
and
purge
himself
of the
virus,
for
self-preservation
if
nothing
else.
Only
that
never
happened,
and
eventually
we
stopped
being
shocked.
Eventually,
we
crawled
into our
shell of
denial.
For
self-preservation.
Meanwhile,
beyond
the
shell,
racism
is not
only
peaking
at
record
high
levels,
it has
become
the
price of
admission
into
Trump’s
newly
refurbished
Republican
Party.
Few dare
oppose
him for
fear of
his
rabid
base of
followers.
Trump
represents
the best
opportunity
that
right
wing
Republicans
have
ever had
to get
their
agenda
rubber
stamped.
From the
stacking
and
packing
of the
courts
to the
dismantling
of
abortion
rights
and
voting
rights —
and
that’s
just
barely
for
starters
— the
right
wing
agenda
has been
fast-tracked.
Moderate
Republicans
have
sewn
their
own lips
shut,
watching
their
hard-right
colleagues
play
with
matches
as they
douse
the
nation
in
gasoline
and call
it rain.
Who
cares if
the
Nazis
march
openly
down our
streets?
Who
cares if
the
president
tells
dark-skinned
American
citizens
to go
back
where
they
came
from
(while
those
who
can’t
prove
their
citizenship
are
tossed
into
cages)?
Who
cares if
the
president
openly
bullies
those
who
disagree
with him
and his
policies?
And
who
cares
that an
entire
television
network
has been
co-opted
to
spread
every
distorted
lie he
tells as
he seeks
to
destroy
any news
outlet
that
labors
to
report
the
truth?
Shifting
gears
from
President
Barack
Obama to
President
Donald
Trump
has
inflicted
cultural
whiplash
on an
unsuspecting
and
woefully
unprepared
nation.
It is
this
lack of
preparedness
for the
triumph
of evil
that has
cast our
democracy
into a
second
Civil
War that
has
already
begun.
Whether
or not
we truly
won the
first
will be
determined
by what
happens
next.
Mario
Morrow
is a
Michigan
based
communications
and
political
consultant
who has
worked
for
members
of both
the
Democratic
and
Republican
parties.
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