Politicians, Leaders Stoke Division; Ordinary Americans Lead on Healing Racial Divides
"Instapundit" Glenn Reynolds explains why he's optimistic about the future.
In the age of Donald Trump and the Rev. Al, of racially motivated killings by white supremacists such as Dylann Roof and black TV reporter Vester Flanagan, the media is thriving by whipping up frenzy and panic.
Writing in USA Today, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit reports on how "ordinary Americans" are moving in the direction of racial healing.
Last week saw 20,000 people show up for a multiracial "All Lives Matter" march in Birmingham, Ala. It could be the largest such march there since MLK. Glenn Beck and Chuck Norris were there, but that's not all. AL.com reports: "Alveda King, a niece of civil rights activist the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., marched in the front row. Bishop Jim Lowe, pastor of the predominantly black Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, co-organized the march with Beck and marched with him at the front. As a child, Lowe attended Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where the march started, a headquarters church for the civil rights movement in Birmingham. Lowe and his sisters were in the church when a KKK bomb blew up the church and killed four little girls on Sept. 15, 1963." (Note: One of those girls was a childhood playmate of Condoleezza Rice.)
Once again the national news media, noted Washington Post blogger David Weigel, "was largely absent." No time for positivity where race is concerned, I guess.
He concludes:
From hate to healing: That's what's bubbling up from the American people, even as our political leadership sows division. Which will win out? That depends on what we all do next, doesn't it?
The American people have a strong spirit of egalitarianism and kindness, one that shows over and over again. But our political class (and, it seems the news media) sees more gain in promoting hatred and division. Who will win? If we're lucky, our "leaders" will follow the people on this.