Blair

I appreciated your timely editorial (We should do better, Sept. 16, 2020); Clement Falbo’s excellent exposition of serving in our military; Ms. Jackman’s well-phrased description of the old, angry man who has no patience and is fomenting war, including in our own county.

But I write today regarding Kristy Athens’ well-written column (Hate groups shouldn’t be given public platforms, Sept. 2, 2020), specifically referring to the front-page photo of two Proud Boys attending a recent Back the Blue rally. My family was equally concerned about its prominent placement, as well as the photo inside of two Proud Boys “chatting with” (read “recruiting”) about six teenage boys.

In a muddled letter to the editor, Jennifer Ballard seemed to find that Ms. Athens’ op-ed was a “liberal narrative” that relied on “a discredited revisionist reference site such as Wikipedia.” She then stated unequivocally (notably without attribution, her objection to Athens’ column), “BLM and antifa are by definition marxist, anti-American, anti-nuclear family, fascist, terrorist organizations that promote the overthrow of the United States through political violence.”

By whose definition? The website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, to which I am a monthly contributor, describes the Proud Boys, “Founded in 2016 in New York City, NY. Ideology: General Hate.” SPLC doesn’t define Black Lives Matter or antifa.

Among many websites, I found this description on PolitiFACT: “Black Lives Matter has grown into a national anti-racism movement broadly supported by Americans, few of whom would identify themselves as Marxist.” PolitiFACT notes that BLM has become a movement overseas. Russell Berman, a professor at Stanford University and a senior fellow at its conservative Hoover Institution, who has written critically about Marxism, said this on PolitiFACT: “ … and the goals listed on (BLM’s) website do not appear to be expressly anti-capitalist, which would arguably be a Marxist identifier.”

As for antifa, Ms. Ballard apparently isn’t aware that antifa is an acronym for anti-fascist. As recently as last week, FBI director Christopher Wray testified before Congress that the FBI considers antifa an ideology, not an organization. (An at least partly tongue-in-cheek meme says that in the 1940s the U.S. had a large group of antifa — the U.S. military, who with our allies defeated two fascists in World War II.)

The peaceful June 5 BLM demonstration, which I attended along with about 200 others, had absolutely no plan to “overthrow the United States” — or to throw bricks concealed in Wallowa to be picked up by a busload of black-clad antifa protesters, a Facebook meme that brought out armed “violence monitors” who stood across the street. (Side note: My son was so incensed when he saw the photo of a local businessman among the armed individuals that he swore off patronizing that business from then on. “Would that businessman have shot my mom if she happened to trip over her cane and cause a disruption that looked threatening?”)

Ms. Ballard obviously gets her information, as so many do, from social media sites and pundits, both of which traffic in outlandish conspiracy theories and are regularly trolled by Russian bots who do indeed “seek to promote the overthrow of the United States” or at the very least desecrate our democracy with the help of those pundits who, for their own financial gain, peddle lies and conspiracy theories to the gullible.

Ms. Ballard’s point became more clear at the end of her letter. “What will stop young Black youths from dying is for their parents to teach the three ‘Cs’ when approached by law enforcement … Resisting arrest is a decision.” That revealed exactly where she is coming from.

Her final “C” was to “complain later.” That’s difficult when the person is deceased. BLM is speaking for them. Ms. Ballard views as a parenting problem Black humans being murdered with a knee on the neck, shot while jogging in a neighborhood or while sleeping in her own bed (just a few recent outrages).

To quote the Chieftain’s editorial, “We can do better.”

Do you have a point you’d like to make or an issue you feel strongly about? Submit a letter to the editor or a guest column.