It should have been no surprise to see the Nazi flag and the Confederate flag flying side by side in Charlottesville, Va. Both flags are emblems of white supremacists who lost a war against the U.S. while fighting on the wrong side of history.
White supremacy is the "heritage" celebrated by Confederate monuments. And there is no equivalency between groups who call for ethnic cleansing and those who protest them, including those who have given up on singing "Kumbaya."
This country was built on white supremacy, and it remains a systemic part of our culture - beyond the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and the would-be race-warrior militias. Christopher Columbus's men hunted Native Americans for dog food. Some of the teeth in George Washington's dentures were taken from the mouths of his slaves. Thomas Jefferson owned his own children as slaves. A century after the Civil War, the civil-rights movement began its struggle for equality. More than 50 years later, equality is still nowhere in sight.
Many casual bigots may think they're above the KKK, but if they talk about entire groups of people as if they all fit the same negative stereotypes, they also are white supremacists. We should be grateful for our freedom of speech, which has given fascists a forum to demonstrate where our president's own racism and authoritarianism can lead. These were, after all, the president's supporters.
How can these immoral and irrational forces be resisted? How long before another bogus war calls on us to pretend that "united" we stand?
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David A. Sorensen
Duluth
