A Letter to the Editor

Vince Schmuki wrote this.  We'll see if anyone (other than me) publishes it.  Good stuff.

Letter to the editor for publishing:

The outcome of the George Zimmerman case has many people locally and nationally in an uproar. The outrage is real and that alone should cause many questions to be asked. Racial hatred and injustice has been with us always but it does appear to have reached a fevered pitch.

 

Locally, outrage was displayed over a white woman street musician, Cassandra Struve, who received a beat down at the hands of two black women outside of the main gate of Summerfest recently for having the audacity to play "black" music. Oops, I forgot, there was barely a mention of the incident outside of a Fox channel 6 news report. Nothing to see here folks, just move along now.

 

Then there were the 72 shootings in Chicago over the 4th of July weekend. Where was the outrage and the parade of reports decrying dozens of lives snuffed out? Just another busy weekend of largely black on black murders in the windy city -- apparently hardly newsworthy or worth discussion based on the media’s lack of outrage.

 

So while there is much to be outraged about, the general consensus is that unless an ulterior political agenda can be served, the everyday violence passes by with nary a peep or a cavalcade through the streets as is so popular. Reverend Al has offered to live in Chi-town for a while but rare is the soul who stands up to offer real pathways to peace. Quite frankly, even Sharpton’s gesture appears to be more press posturing because unless he plans to put roots down in the midst of the trouble, it is likely that little will have changed once his photo op is over and he has moved on.

 

The media, in large part, are the enablers of this show of shadows. Picking and choosing who the performers will be in their scripted play for the week. Turning and twisting public opinion to meet their template.

 

ENOUGH OF THIS SHOW! Let’s have some real community leaders stand up to racial violence of ALL kinds. Let’s turn to the graves of true leaders of the past who did not seek out power through the color of one’s skin but sought and encouraged all members of society to truly rise above the level of one’s skin covering and to treat one another by the character that lies buried beneath. Let’s turn to those who understood, that to seek the truth, the show must not go on. To those who truly understood, “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth”!