Dear Editor:
Recently, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about a movie directed by Spike Lee. It was an interview discussing his most recent film, “BlacKkKlansman,” and was published on Aug. 9.
During the interview, Lee said, “I just feel that we’re never going to get anywhere on race in this country until we have a very, very honest, painful conversation about the origin of this country.”
Lee states, “People try to change the narrative, but the foundation of the United States of America is based on the genocide of Native people and slavery. That has to be the starting point.”
This is false and it is a trap.
Lee leaves no room for discussion. Anyone who disagrees with him is a liar. This is a trap.
Here are a few more examples of traps:
“People are stuck where they are because they don’t want to improve.”
“Those (fill in the blank) people … cannot be trusted.”
“I made it on my own. If I can do it, anybody can.”
We can escape that type of thinking.
To do that we must return to the self-evident truths upon which our nation was born. People from all over the world, from different cultures, races, nationalities and faiths, all desperately try to protect our God-given rights and freedoms to be able to pursue their dreams.
While many were doing that, there were those who want nothing more than to erase those truths from our past and replace them or twist them into a “new order.” Note: Whenever you hear those two words as they relate to government — duck! It isn’t going to be pretty.
Those who created our republic were men with intelligence and insight into the nature of human beings. Although the truths of the document were denied to some before the ink was dry, they stated the truths they believed were self-evident. The truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
Lee didn’t go back far enough. If we heed the Creator, we are charged to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are all children of our Creator and therefore all brothers and sisters. Only when we learn to respect each other as brothers and sisters will we get out of the trap.
There is still time. If we the people return to implementing the view our founders had for our future, that future will be clear and bright for all of us.
To believe that you can build a free nation by continuing the same failed distinctions of the past and just have the races change places without changing their hearts and minds, well, that is a trap.
Perhaps it is time to abandon the “Blame America First” crowd and move forward and closer to the truth, our self-evident truths.
The French philosopher Jean Francois Revel said, “A civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.”
Have you been down to the border lately? It’s a trap.
Jim Hofmann
Moab
