Why are celebrities offended now?
SUDDENLY, EVERYONE is supposedly appalled and insulted by Civil War statues, names of military posts after Confederate generals, and all the other items that are now considered racist. Funny how most of these so-called “outraged individuals” never began making noise about racism until in became fashionable and cool to do.
Where were all these “celebrities” when the various acts of racism, violence and death were occurring out around the world? Living their very comfortable, privileged and insulated lives where only if their own bottom line is impacted, will they venture out into the world, pontificating to all the lowly citizens who must listen to their every word, read every post or tweet they issue, because they know what’s best for the rest of us.
This current situation with the demonstrations, marches, protests, and, yes, the horrible violence that is permeating the entire nation will solve nothing. What good did it achieve to damage the historic, beautiful KiMo Theatre? By burning the Wendy’s in Atlanta, did it improve the neighborhood where most of the protesters live? Do any of us really want to live in a world with no police?
How anyone in Albuquerque would want to be in this city without the police is incredible when you look at the crime rate, the failure of our courts to adequately even detain violent offenders, let alone actually sentence any criminal to anything even closely considered punishment, and the idiotic behavior of our politicians who would rather paint a crosswalk, than do anything that actually benefited the entire city.
Diane Dimond stated in her (column June 15) that more white persons were killed by police than persons of color and yet not one celebrity has gotten their ire up about that. There are big issues staring at all of us these days and these rich, sheltered celebrities should either get off their compound and be engaged on a continuing basis and not just cherry pick the issues they want to appear concerned about, or stay in their isolated life and quit being hypocritical.
BARRY L. DAVIS Albuquerque