Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Editorial Roundup
Recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
The Charlotte Observer acknowledges the country’s past with lynchings in light of the opening of the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama (April 23):
Just about every American knows the importance of 1776, when 13 colonies declared their independence and created a democratic experiment unlike any other in world history. We will celebrate the 242nd anniversary of that event on July 4 with hot dogs and bathing suits and furniture sales.
Too few Americans, however, know about what happened 100 years later, and how it changed the trajectory of this country in ways nearly as profound. It was 1876, the year Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, Congress and the Supreme Court compromised to settle a tight election. Hayes became president. Tilden’s wish, and that of other white Southerners, that federal troops be removed from the South, was granted. It came just four years after Congress had restored full civil rights to Confederate leaders, making them eligible to hold office again.
The compromise set the stage for white mob rule that resulted in more than 4,000 lynchings and the unleashing of violence-backed Jim Crow. It also helped launch a devastating convict leasing system that marked the beginning of racial disparities in the criminal justice system that remain today. It was the end of an enormous amount of progress made by former enslaved Africans during Reconstruction.
There were at least 123 lynchings in North Carolina and 185 in South Carolina between 1880 and 1950, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that fights mass incarceration and racial injustice.
EJI believes an unflinching grappling with that history can help the country better understand — and heal — racial wounds that still fester. Those wounds have been reopened the past couple of years with the increasing public presence of emboldened white supremacists and fights over public Confederate monuments. That hope for healing is why the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice are opening this week in Montgomery, Ala.
Among the victims the museum honors are thousands who may remain unknown. Some were burned alive; some had their lifeless corpse sprayed with hundreds of bullets. Some died for the sin of demanding racial equality or daring to vote. Others were hanged after being falsely accused of raping white women, or even talking to them. Others were murdered for refusing to work for white farmers who treated them like slaves. One victim, Mary Turner, was lynched in 1918 in Lowndes County, Ga., after she complained that her husband had been lynched.
Such acts were widely accepted. Members of media outlets, as well as local, state and federal law enforcement officials either participated in those horrors or did little to stop them.
A Paris, Texas, lynching is documented by the museum: “On July 6, 1920, a mob of 3,000 gathered to watch as (two) men were tied to a flagpole at the fairgrounds, tortured and burned to death . ... (Their) sisters were jailed under the pretense of protection but then beaten and gangraped by more than 20 white men.”
It’s not easy to acknowledge such things. But the truth, no matter how gut-wrenching, can set us free — and may be the only thing that can.
The New York Times on the lasting fascination with the British monarchy, even in the United States (April 23):
It was an English monarch who purportedly said, “No news is better than evil news,” and thereby launched an enduring (though now somewhat less wordy) maxim. Unless, King James I should have added, it’s news about his successors.
From the time Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, entered the maternity hospital until she and her husband, Prince William, emerged with their newborn boy 12 hours later, the minutiae of the royal birth Monday dominated the news in Britain — and not only there. The arrival of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Washington was no competition for the suspense in London, broken shortly after 11 a.m. not by the traditional notice in a wooden frame posted by the gates of Buckingham Palace but by a tweet from Kensington Palace that the duchess “was safely delivered of a son.”
Before and after that, there was little the inquiring public would not learn. It was “breaking news” when Prince William brought his other children, little Prince George, still in his school uniform, and Princess Charlotte, who gave an oh-so-precious wave to the crowd, to visit their new brother. The royal obstetrician and royal gynecologist were richly profiled. The fact that Lady Gabriella Windsor, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, had been born in the same hospital on the same day, only 37 years earlier, was presented as a remarkable coincidence. Westminster Abbey announced it would ring a full peal of “Cambridge Surprise Royal” on Tuesday; tabloids noted with disapproval that the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, took more than three hours to send his greetings to “Kate and William.”
And so it went. That which did remain unknown by day’s end — the baby’s name and the godparents — was endlessly discussed. Bookmakers were putting odds on Arthur, Albert, Frederick, James and Philip; as for sponsors, the speculation was that a third child with few chances of ever ascending to the throne would not need a roster of prominent godparents like his siblings.
Was it too much? Of course, but when offered alongside all the other “evil news” of White House iniquities, shooting rampages and other horrors, it’s barely enough, as Mark Twain might have put it.
Though the British royalty went through a rough patch in the 1990s with a rash of divorces, scandals and the death of Princess Diana, today Queen Elizabeth II, who turned 92 on Saturday, presides over a curiously sympathetic and attractive mix of archaic tradition, fairytale titles and very modern lives. While the duchess was giving royal birth, her brother-in-law Prince Harry and his fiancée, Meghan Markle, an American actress, were attending a memorial service on the 25th anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence, murdered in a racially motivated attack.
The Sacramento Bee on the arrest made in the East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer case, 40 years after the first crime (April 25):
In an era when true crime tales of serial killers are the stuff of Netflix binges, it may be difficult to appreciate the fear spread in California’s capital by the East Area Rapist in 1976.
The Golden State’s dark side was, of course, well known by then — the Zodiac Killer, Charles Manson — but in Sacramento, 1976 was a “time of innocence” when kids played outside until dark and many residents didn’t lock their doors, recalled Sacramento County District Anne Marie Schubert. Schubert was 12 that year, and living in the area. Once the assaults started, she said, “it all changed.”
Wednesday, thanks to an investigation that was agonizingly slow for decades and then lightning fast, Schubert and a sobering array of California law enforcement officials announced an arrest in the terrifying crime spree that encompassed at least 12 slayings and 45 rapes. The case is still unfolding, but there are already important takeaways:
The persistence of law enforcement to seek justice for victims: After an event in June 2016 to mark 40 years since the first crime, Schubert and Sheriff Scott Jones put more resources and renewed their commitment to solve the case.
The difference that public attention can make: Hundreds of tips poured in after 2016, and focus on the suspect — who also became known as the Golden State Killer as he moved to the Bay area and Southern California — intensified with a book, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” that reached No. 1 on The New York Times’ bestseller list last month and a documentary that aired this month in Old Sacramento.
The value of DNA testing and evidence: While officials were sparing with the details, they said new technology allowed DNA samples from several old crime scenes to be used and eventually matched last week with a sample obtained by detectives from material discarded by Joseph James DeAngelo.
DeAngelo, 72, a former cop who lived for more than three decades in Citrus Heights, was arrested without incident Tuesday. Wednesday, officials said he has been charged with murder in the February 1978 killings of Brian and Katie Maggiore in Rancho Cordova and the March 1980 killings of Charlene and Lyman Smith in Ventura County.
“The answer has always been in Sacramento,” Schubert, who is facing a tough re-election fight, said at the press conference in front of Sacramento County’s crime lab. “The answer was always going to be in the DNA.”
And that truth should again spotlight that California could be doing more with DNA evidence — especially the thousands of rape kits sitting in evidence rooms that haven’t been tested.
So far, state lawmakers have been unwilling to spend significant money to cut down the backlog. Last year, the only bill they passed was to add a check-off on state income tax returns so Californians can donate for testing. It’s miserly and embarrassing.
At the arrest announcement, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley made a point to promote Senate Bill 1449, which would require all new rape kits to be sent to crime labs so the backlog doesn’t grow and which includes $2 million in funding. Legislators need to strongly consider that bill if they’re paying any attention to this case.
For now, we can hope the arrest eases the anguish for the victims and their loved ones — hundreds now across several generations, as we were reminded by Bruce Harrington, whose brother and sister-in-law were slain in 1980 in Dana Point. “It’s time for all victims to grieve,” he said.
It appears justice will finally be done in this case. But many, many other victims still wait.
The Orange County Register says a new, proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force will keep the U.S. in a perpetual state of war (April 24):
Congress has long abdicated its constitutional authority with respect to the nation’s numerous and ever-expanding wars abroad.
It was welcome news, then, to learn that Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., have put forward a new Authorization for Use of Military Force for consideration. At the very least, the offering of a new AUMF gives Congress a long-overdue opportunity to talk about America’s wars and perhaps even contemplate whether the United States should continue any of those efforts.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Congress rushed to pass an AUMF that granted the executive branch the authority to order military action against those responsible for the attacks. Unfortunately, in the time since then, the 2001 AUMF has been used to justify American military action in countries and against groups that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, with little congressional oversight.
The AUMF proposed by Corker and Kaine, while appreciated as a starting point for conversation, regrettably does nothing to rein in America’s perpetual state of war. The AUMF authorizes military action against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State, as well as at least five “existing associated forces”: al-Shabab in Somalia, the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan, al-Qaida in Syria, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (in northern Africa).
The AUMF also permits the president to add groups to the AUMF, as well as countries where operations can be conducted, beyond Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, though it does provide for congressional review for doing so.
While there are elements of the new AUMF that might be an improvement over the 2001 AUMF, in totality, what the proposed new AUMF does is keep the United States engaged in wars in at least half a dozen countries against an ever-expanding number of groups, with no sunset provisions or geographical limitations.
In other words, it merely continues, with congressional blessings, a state of war without clear goals or limits. After 17 years of perpetual war, it is time we reconsider our wasteful interventionism abroad and bring the troops home.
The Toronto Star reflects on social media and misogyny, which may have fueled the deadly van attack this week (April 25):
Humankind is a narrative species. We instinctively seek to make sense of things, to find the story line and, crucially, its lessons. We always want to know why.
In the aftermath of the murderous van attack Monday on Toronto pedestrians — 10 dead, 14 injured — and after similar horrors around the world, we want to impose order on chaos, find meaning in the seemingly random.
More than anything, we want death to mean something. We want at least that comfort. How, otherwise, to reconcile the loss of the vibrant Anne Marie D’Amico, a former Tennis Canada ball girl and perennial volunteer run down near the investment firm where she worked?
Even as Toronto turned Tuesday to the familiar rituals of leaving flowers on sidewalks, creating memorials on walls, holding prayer vigils, raising money for shattered families, we wish the irrational explained.
Reared on parables and fables, we usually favour archetypes. Heroes and villains. Evil attacking good. Innocence lost. Little vexes us as much as a story without a moral.
In its overarching themes, there initially seemed little novel in the events of Monday. True devastation usually comes not from the things we fret about daily, but from out of the blue on an ordinary afternoon.
It seemed certain, as the motive of the perpetrator was plumbed, that it would turn out to be familiar — a random targeting of scapegoats to compensate for his own hurt and torment, inadequacy or delusion.
Yet, there were hints the driver was selective in his victims. Police said Tuesday that, minutes before beginning his drive of devastation across the sidewalks, the man posted a cryptic comment to Facebook lauding an American mass killer motivated by a hatred of women. Most of the victims, police said, were women. Beyond that, a detective said, he could make no “general and sweeping statement” about motive.
But it was difficult not to fill in the blanks and suspect misogyny as the motivating fury.
It should always be recalled that the perpetrator is not of another species. Humanity has always been as capable of hatred and horror as of genius and grace. Poets and scientists both speak of the capacity for aberrance in the human psyche.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven,” Milton said four centuries ago in “Paradise Lost.” And so it remains.
The mind seems most prone to fashioning hells when isolated, estranged from others, festering in grievance and alienation. And that, too, from suggestions filtering out on social media, was at play in the accused.
Any other lessons are probably old ones. A legend usually attributed to Native Americans tells the story of two wolves. One is darkness and despair, the other light and hope. Their fighting causes our inner conflicts.
“Which one wins?” a young man asks.
“The one you feed,” an elder answers.
Never in human history — with the advent of social media that have become breeding grounds of hatred and trading posts of instruction on mass murder — has it been so easy to feed the wrong wolf.
In recent times, the vitriol aimed at women has been both savage and perpetrated from high office. Any of us who, by word or deed or tweet or post, feed that hatred and vilification has some soul-searching to do this week about the unknowable consequences of such toxin on the troubled.
We know that the human mind, unspooling, can be an incubator of horror. Short of walling our streets and bunkering ourselves in ways inconsistent with life worth living, it is impossible to protect people from all harm and prevent those bent on slaughter from such attacks.
But, in consolation, we were reminded that people, even in the worst of moments, and thankfully in the vast majority, are capable of selflessness, generosity and resilience. Sometimes, that’s the only lesson there is.
Sometimes, the only moral is as basic as Premier Kathleen Wynne suggested Tuesday.
The desire to comfort the bereaved, she said, “can perhaps help us all in Toronto and beyond to be a bit kinder and a bit more gentle with each other today and in the days to come.”