Editor,
It’s too bad some people are so wedded to their political party that they can’t see how misguided their rhetoric is.
To try and link Antifa with the Black Lives Matter movement is shameful. BLM is just as it states, that black lives matter as much as white life or any human life. It does not stand for anything nefarious, nor does it evoke or want violence.
To try and influence people that Antifa is part of the BLM movement is wrong.
Black people were originally brought here as slaves. They have been used as political footballs ever since.
Any characteristic that makes a person stand out, makes it easier to discriminate against them, be afraid of, or just not want them around.
No excuse is right.
Perhaps it’s time to reach out in understanding, talk to them or just let them live it, could finally be a way forward. One might discover there is nothing scary there.
There were some bad apples in the demonstrations, last year, for George Floyd. Maybe those young men felt if they could not make a way forward in our society they would just take what they needed or wanted, never a good excuse, and perhaps a simplistic explanation? But what happened Jan. 6, at the Capitol, was a very different thing. It was a fired up mob bent on killing or at the very least harming our elected officials
Did you listen to their words, see the flags they carried and used as weapons? A noose does not lie, their red Maga hats and chants do not lie. They were within minutes of maybe bringing down or at least hurting our republic and elected officials.
The rioters did not want to vote out the people they did not like, they wanted to kill them.
We do not allow home-grown terrorism in this country, no matter who they follow. I feel the “leaders” that egged them on and stirred them up should also answer to the damage and injury caused. No one has the right to stir up a mob and let them loose to cause such atrocities, then feign ignorance. I would hope we could stop this back and forth, us vs. them, black vs. white, Republican vs. Democrat and try to see the humanity in us all.
Our country does not need or want more hatred.
Nancy Mayer
Freeland
