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| Thousands protest hate in Boston ahead of a planned "Free Speech" rally by white nationalists [Reuters] |
As Matt Novak of Gizmodo reported this morning, Jason Kessler, the organizer of the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally, posted a Twitter message saying Heyer's death was "payback time" - part of a bizarre statement accusing her of being a communist responsible for the deaths of "94 million".
Despite widespread condemnation of their message of hate, right-wing proponents of racism and bigotry nonetheless planned similar rallies today in Atlanta, Dallas and Boston - as if they are determined to unleash a new wave of racist jihad across America.
During the course of the week, Boston's Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts' Republican Governor Charlie Baker both unequivocally denounced the coalition of Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and alt right nationalists and their message of division, hatred and violence.
By some of the estimates posted on Twitter by people who were there, approximately 100 white nationalists / Neo-Nazis were outnumbered by a possible 20,000 anti-racist counter-protesters.
The vast majority of whom peacefully flooded the streets of downtown Boston, marching towards the historic Boston Commons in a display of unity against the intolerance that Trump spent most of the week defending.
His rants against the removal of Confederate statues further alienated the dwindling number of Republican supporters he has left on Capitol Hill, and even some members of his own White House staff.
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| A counter-protester in Boston with a poster of Trump being shushed by Dr. Martin Luther King |
That story has been widely debunked by military historians for years.
It resurfaced in the wake of the anti-Muslim backlash after the 9/11 attacks, and Trump dredged it up at rallies during his 2016 presidential campaign in an effort to justify violence against Muslims.
Just one of the many lies repeated by Trump to justify his bigotry and racism.
According to Wikipedia, as a first lieutenant General Pershing commanded the all-black 10th Calvary Regiment for 19 months in 1895 - 1897, both in the western U.S. as part of the Army campaign to protect settlers and fight against insurgent Native American fighters, and later in Cuba as part of the Spanish-American War - where the unit performed with distinction in combat.
The 10th Calvary Regiment was one of the different groups of infantry and calvary units comprised entirely of African-American soldiers known as The Buffalo Soldiers; who were commanded by white Army officers.
In a reflection of the racism that permeated the ranks of the U.S. Army in the 1800's, some white officers turned down the assignment to command all-black units.
Including the flamboyant Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, a veteran of the Civil War whose bravery and desire for attention and fame often far outweighed his proficiency as a soldier and battlefield tactician.
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| Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer |
Some 294 U.S. soldiers, including Custer, two of his brothers, his nephew and his brother-in-law, were killed (five of the twelve companies under Custer's command were totally wiped out) in what would be the largest engagement of the Great Sioux War of 1876.
But to get back to General Pershing, he was a shrewd and calculating commanding officer who rose through the ranks and earned distinction in part, as a result of his willingness to lead all-black troops.
Later at West Point where he was known as a demanding instructor, white Army cadets began derisively referring to him as "Nigger Jack" because he'd led black calvary troops.
When Pershing was later appointed leader of the American forces during World War I, the press softened the nickname to "Black Jack" Pershing, the nickname by which he's widely known.
Pershing was not some kind of ignorant anti-Muslim bigot prone to insulting Islam as a means to defeating Muslim terrorists in the Philippines as Trump suggested.
As reporter Alex Horton observed in an article in the Washington Post on Friday, Texas A&M history professor Brian M. Linn, author of a book on the American military in Asia in the early 20th century titled, 'Guardians of Empire', said of the suggestion that General Pershing ever ordered soldiers to dip bullets in pigs blood then use them to execute Muslim terrorists:
"There is absolutely no evidence this occurred."
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| General Jack Pershing |
Unlike Trump, Pershing respected the Islamic faith.
Trump repeating the lie that General Pershing committed anti-Muslim atrocities is a reflection that despite graduating from the New York Military Academy and from the University of Pennsylvania, Trump has what can only be described as a remarkably feeble grasp of American history.
Same guy who accused President Obama, who lead the Harvard Law Review, of not graduating from college.
The removal of Trump's controversial chief strategist Steve Bannon on Friday capped off what is arguably one of the most chaotic and divisive weeks in recent American history.
There are conflicting media reports about what prompted this latest in a series of shakeups of Donald Trump's top advisers.
As Michelle Fox of CNBC reported on Friday, journalist Robert Kuttner, who interviewed Bannon just last Tuesday, is highly skeptical that Bannon actually handed in his resignation last Monday.
What seems more likely is that the announcement of his removal on Friday was not just another effort by a desperate White House to deflect media attention from the ongoing Russia investigation and Trump's own damaging statements on race.
It may well have been an effort to try and quiet the growing calls from members of both sides of Congress for Trump to purge his staff of the anti-immigrant bigots who sympathize with and even support known white supremacists - including Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka.
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| Congresswoman Pramila Jaypal |
After Trump's press conference in which he defended the white supremacists and claimed that "many sides" were responsible for the deadly violence that occurred in Charlottesville, Jaypal introduced another Congressional resolution calling for Trump to be censured for his comments.
79 members of Congress supported her censure resolution and the DailyKos is circulating a petition for people to sign on to it as citizen co-sponsors.
Almost 47,000 people have already signed it.
But it's not just progressive and Democratic members of Congress and concerned citizens expressing their condemnation of the Tiki Torch Nazis parading around Charlottesville.
Starting last Sunday with a Twitter message by the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, the leaders of the U.S. Army, Marines and Air Force all released messages rejecting racism and bigotry.
And they did it via Twitter to be sure that their erratic Commander-in-Chief got the message.
Praise for corporate American leadership isn't exactly a frequent topic on this blog.
But I do think the heads of some of the largest companies in the country deserve a measure of admiration for taking the initiative to call Donald Trump out for showing zero moral leadership for the first two days after an event which shook the conscience of the nation.
Despite Republicans holding majorities in both the House and Senate, and thus having control of the federal government, it was a high-profile citizen from the private sector who took the lead in standing up to Donald Trump's unwillingness to use the power of his office to immediately and unequivocally condemn the lackluster response from the embattled POTUS.
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| Merck CEO Ken Frazier |
As the New York Times reported on Wednesday, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi had phone conversations with several members of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum.
Subsequently, as you likely heard last week, various members of both groups, leaders of some of the largest companies in the nation, began announcing their resignation from both White House groups.
Before it could get really embarrassing, Trump released a brief somewhat snippy statement (via Twitter of course) announcing that he was dissolving both groups - this of course after most of the members had already cut the cord.
While corporate America, for the most part, has remained rather silent in the face of the growing extremism from this administration and from the Republican Party in general, I do applaud them for taking the initiative to use their influence in a respectful manner to send a message to Donald Trump for his initial refusal to demonstrate leadership on behalf of the entire nation by condemning the actions we saw in Charlottesville last Saturday.
Interestingly the corporate response seemed to nudge the members of Trump's party into weighing in on the controversy - including Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham.
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| Senators Cruz and Graham |
Sure, once it became clear that the vast majority of the U.S. population found Trump's initial wet dishrag "see no evil" response to the right-wing riots in Charlottesville repulsive, we finally started to see some Republican leaders calling Trump out.
But even though they're on vacation, it still took time.
It's interesting to see that very quickly, other business sectors are starting to consider the broader implications of the impact of racial hatred on their respective industry and customers.
Not long after the dustup in Charlottesville, I got an email from Uber summarizing the efforts they've taken to ensure that they're addressing accusations of discrimination within both the company and by their own drivers.
Within the industry in which I work, residential property management, there is conversation starting as well.
Last Wednesday, Brent Williams, a recognized figure in the industry, wrote an interesting blog post on MultifamilyInsiders.com on whether AirBnB should be banning white supremacists from their listings and properties and whether multi-family properties should be following suit.
The conversation is happening in various spheres in both the public and private sector, and that's a positive step for America - but it's sad that it took the events of Charlottesville for that to happen.
And that's still not addressing the vacuum of leadership on race in this country from the White House.
Sadly, as the events of the past couple weeks have shown, we're left with a failing president, one who's not only defending a deplorable ideology, but one who is increasingly isolated and left alone by virtue of his own words and beliefs.
A lone president, out of step and out of touch with the vast majority of the country he's supposed to serve and represent.
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