Leonard Pitts The Miami Herald

March 28, 2010

Leonard Pitts
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693

RE: Hate speech and why we must condemn it, even retroactively, I think, maybe. Some comments on your column this date condemning Republicans, Tea Party members and, inferentially, everyone who does not revel in hope and change.

My dear Uncle Screwtape,

The “boys” in my coven do me honor by asking me to write to you on your idea of having all Republican office holders and candidates renounce violence, words leading to violence, thoughts leading to violence, and words and thoughts leading to words and thoughts leading to – You guessed it – violence. [What this will do to the Iliad and Hamlet is not to be addressed today.] That you do this so close to the anniversary of one of the big violent words/violent deeds is quite clever. I am referring to the New York Times and the Democratic Party acquiescing in calling Abraham Lincoln a “baboon”. I know that correlation is not causation but it seems pretty clear to me that both the New York Times and the Democratic Party favored slavery. You can see my reasoning there, can’t you?

I know that my copy of MacBird is somewhere. That was a nifty little play. Its premise, that Vice President Johnson killed President Kennedy because he wanted his job, still has believers. I loved it when the Egg of Head – AKA Adlai Stevenson – gets knocked off in London.

That this led to H. Rap Brown, the paradigmatic template for feral Black youths everywhere is commonly accepted. It was he who said that “violence is as American as apple pie”. As soon as he said that George Lincoln Rockwell, Martin Luther King., Robert Kennedy and George Wallace were shot. I couldn’t help but to compare it to the ship swallowing Bermuda Triangle.

I don’t know the reasons why Ruby Ridge gave government sharpshooters the chance to sharpen their skills but I think Theodore Kaczynski had a hand in it with his tree hugging eco-crazy ramblings. David Koresh and the Branch Davidian unpleasantness that marked the beginning of Janet Reno’s hugely successful stint as Attorney General, that’s that one where she barbecued some 7 dozen of her fellow citizens, was directly tied to the shocking dearth of Ricky Ray Rector. That was the execution where Hillary Clinton gave the killer, a Black man who was, shall we say in deference to the Word Police, differently able, a lap dance to keep him quiet in the electric chair.

We know that Columbine was caused by Halliburton and its devil master Cheney to discredit Gore. It may be blasphemous but “hanging chads” were the invention of the recount pros from Cook County and Hudson County.

Speaking of words begetting violence do you remember the half a dozen Black guys taking over the office of the President of Cornell University? There is a marvelous photo of some evil looking Black dudes with rifles, shotguns, Afros, and sinister glares. The purpose was to scare dumb ass red necked crackers into sharing some of that elusive equality provender that they had a monopoly on. Wasn’t their motto “by any means necessary”?

President Obama gave his followers “sharpen their elbows and get in their faces”, didn’t he? Anyone can see a straight line from there to the purple shirted thugs of SEIU finding a Black man in a wheelchair selling American flags. They called him “Nigger” which I guess is OK if there are some Black folk yelling it. Then they punched him and knocked him out of his chair. Is that what you mean by words inciting violence? Wouldn’t it be great fun if one of the alleged perpetrators called the President as a defense witness?

I don’t know who shot at Republican Congressman Cantor’s office this weekend.. You don’t suppose a Democrat had anything to do with it, do you?

There was film on this week with the intriguing title of “The Assassination of Richard Nixon”. Modern American Liberals sat in a cocoon of deafening silence when President Bush was called Hitler. Come to think of it, Vice President Curley Biden was half right. It probably was no “big fucking deal”, right?

What about those Shaft wanabees in Philadelphia on election day in 2008? Do you think the guy with the club was going to give his side of the Burke/Fox debates or was he concentrating on Lincoln/Douglas?

Speaking of speaking out against violence, when does the statute of limitations expire on bombing government buildings? I am sure a word from the President about how his best friend forever, Bill Ayers, was just a misguided youth. Still, the bombing of any building is never OK, right?

Tu qouque is unacceptable as empirical evidence but it is great in Rhetoric. I must confess that I am not your nephew Wormwood. I remain, as always





Kevin Smith