Letters to the Editor on protests, police violence. ‘Our nation ... is on its knees’
Violent justice
The death of George Floyd goes beyond the murder of one black man by four out-of-control Minneapolis police officers. His murder has become the event that scraped the scab off the wound of generational trauma. For 400 years Americans of black ethnicity have been bought and sold, beaten, lynched, raped, and murdered by white Americans. Until recent years blacks were denied the right to eat in restaurants with whites, attend the same schools as whites, swim in swimming pools with whites, and drink from the same water fountains as whites. Blacks have been denied adequate housing, proper medical care, and even the right to vote. Is anyone surprised that those with a social conscience, black and white, would react with anger to Mr. Floyd’s murder? I find myself fully supportive of the demonstrations occurring across the country and the world. My support goes beyond a thumbs-up to peaceful protests; I am also supportive of those demonstrators who loot, burn, and hurl rocks at the power structure which historically has oppressed them. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called protest the voice of the voiceless. America is now hearing that voice loudly and clearly. The violence in our streets is not unmitigated or mindless; it is the justice of those who for generations have been treated unjustly.
Rev. James A. Belcher, Wilmore
Tears and questions
As I sit here watching the CNN COVID-19 victims memorial service with tears flowing down my face, I cannot stop crying. My heart aches with unbearable pain for all of those people who have lost a loved one to the coronavirus, and those people who have senselessly lost a loved one at the hands of rogue police. I keep waiting for God to come to our rescue, but it seems as though God is unable to hear our prayers for help. Our country is literally on its knees at this very moment, and the open wounds to our hearts are so raw it seems as though they will never heal. As I look back on our nation’s last four turbulent years, I cannot help but wonder if the people of our nation brought all of what’s happening upon themselves. Is all of this happening because we turned our backs on God and voted for a president that doesn’t know Him? Is God mad at us for not caring enough about the murders of unarmed and often innocent black men by our nation’s police? Are we sick and dying and being killed because we have become a nation full of people without souls? What has happened to our country?
Yolanda M. Averette, Lexington
Look in the mirror
It is said there are none so blind as they who will not see. In a time of the greatest division in our country since the Civil War, why are we allowing “divide and conquer” to take over?
Can any of us honestly say our thoughts and actions are our own? Are these beliefs we have been taught since childhood? Have we ever thought to question them? Or have we blindly followed our parents’ beliefs, our church’s beliefs and a peer group’s beliefs? THINK!
Has social media, with its seemingly common-sense propaganda designed to inflame, propelled us into a state of blind frenzy?
Some of us spout the Constitution when it suits us, but are we allowing our constitutional rights to be undermined by being a lemming following the Pied Piper off a cliff? THINK!
Our Declaration of Independence begins: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Do we want to live in an isolated existence of clones, or will we recognize the foundation of this great country was built on the blending of all?
Carolyn Payne, Lexington
On the brink
President Donald Trump, during a pandemic, with an economy as bad as it has ever been, is on the cusp of instigating a civil war against an enraged population that has endured and keeps enduring injustice after injustice.
Do justice, and order may well be restored. Increase injustice, and there will be chaos and more destruction. Trump has offered to use military might against a citizenry justly angered at continued injustice. We are on the precipice.
Robert Moreland, Lexington