Specious:  superficially plausible, but actually wrong. Misleading in appearance, misleadingly attractive.

Disingenuous:  not candid or sincere, pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

John from Arizona sent me the following: The Wichita Horror: 20th Anniversary, by Jack Kerwick.  The piece starts out, In the era of Black Lives Matter when, as the indefatigable Colin Flaherty terms it, ‘the greatest lie of our generation…

There’s no question that the Carr Brothers, perpetrators of the Witchita Massacre were monsters who probably hated White people.

The Carrs tortured and killed five and pistol whipped a 23-year old man in Witchita, KS in 2000.  Since then, hundreds of unarmed Black men, women and children have been killed by police and self-styled vigilantes.

I support the police and thank them every chance I get for standing that blue line between us and chaos.  I condemn criminals like the Carrs and all violence racially motivated or directed at the police.

It is however, specious, disingenuous and just plain lame to use the acts of two men twenty years ago to dismiss the systemic blind eye turned to unnecessary deaths of unarmed, Black victims at the hands of State actors, armed with badges and guns.

What are Kerwick and John from Arizona trying to say?  Do the heinous crimes of two brothers 20 years ago mean that Black lives don’t matter?

I’ve studied the rise of Adolph Hitler, his Nazi Party and the Holocaust.  I read about atrocities suffered by my ancestors and the attitudes of the German people, most of whom agreed with or turned a blind eye to the attempted extermination of Jews from this planet.

The Holocaust was not perpetrated by just two people and victims numbered in the MILLIONS, not just five or six unlucky white people in Witchita, Kansas.

By Kerwick’s logic, any violence I do to those of German descent would be well justified.  It might even be a successful legal defense.

After reading Kerwick’s homage to white supremacy, I sent John in Arizona Remembering ‘Red Summer,’ when white mobs massacred Blacks from Tulsa to D.C.  for balance.

If you can call that balance.

Last month Jonah Goldberg, published Listen to science – but listen carefully.

In a nutshell, Goldberg says that protesting the wanton killing of George Floyd should not have taken place during a pandemic.

Somebody should have told Derek Chauvin not to stare into a camera for nine minutes while he asphyxiated George Floyd during a pandemic.

Someone should also ask Chauvin why he thought he could get away with killing George Floyd on camera.

Goldberg also attempts to make the point that the risk of protesting during a pandemic could be deemed worthwhile IF an end to systemic racism could be a guaranteed result.

If John Lewis felt that way, he might not have gotten his head cracked open on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.

Should we believe that Black people don’t deserve equal protection under the law because of what the Carr brothers did 20 years ago?  Or that now is not a good time for Black people to speak out against systemic injustice?

Most of the violence and looting associated with Black Lives Matter was opportunistic in nature.  It was not a part of the #BLM protests, which were by and large peaceful.

As for social distancing, all the pictures and videos that I’ve seen show most or all #BLM participants wearing masks, as opposed to the armed, White yahoos who stormed the Michigan capital to protest a mask mandate.

As opposed to Donald Trump’s rallies and White House super spreader events.

Guys like Jack Kerwick and Jonas Goldberg should admit that they loathe Black people for intruding into their lives with their protests, demands for justice and their animus toward White people.

They shouldn’t hide behind weak arguments about Black criminals or a pandemic that’s been most destructive in communities of color.

No one should ever, for any reason be dissuaded from speaking truth to power.  We can only speculate on the course of history if good people had spoken out against Adolph Hitler.

For the record:  Since 2012, the FBI and other government agencies have cited right-wing militants (knuckle-dragging White people) as the greatest security threat in America.

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