Some random thoughts on some unsettling times
If you are still watching television news (I rarely do these days), you will notice that the protests across the country seem to be as much generational as racial. There are a lot of young white kids marching with Blacks. That tells me these protests are going to be with us awhile. What youngsters lack in perspective, they make up for in passion . ...
Protesters seem intent on erasing any vestiges of Southern history. That includes tearing down statues and changing the names of anything associated with the past. But how do they propose to handle the issue of the 14 counties in Georgia named for Confederate soldiers and politicians? And what about the Democratic Party? If protesters are going to tarnish the image of famed journalist Henry W. Grady, why give a pass to the party of Gene Talmadge and Marvin Griffin and Roy Harris? (Look them up, kiddies.) ...
I must admit I look on the Confederate statue issue with some ambivalence. In all my years of dealing with special interest groups, the meanest and surliest was the old Georgia state flag crowd for whom the War Between the States still rages. The flag that featured the Confederate battle standard was adopted in 1956 in defiance to the beginnings of the civil rights struggles. During the planning for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, flaggers demanded the flag be flown at the state-owned venues, despite Olympic rules saying only the flag of the host country and the Olympic flag could be flown. That wasn’t good enough for them and we endured all kinds of nasty threats corporately and me personally. When Gov. Roy Barnes changed the flag in 2001 and lost reelection to Sonny Perdue, the flaggers took credit, only to have Perdue change it anyway. I have no sympathy for that bunch. They lost my good will years ago . ...
I’m still trying to figure out why a bunch of protesters in Madison, Wisconsin, tore down a statue of Col. Christian Heg, an anti-slavery activist who fought for the Union and died during the Civil War. The nearly 100-year-old sculpture was decapitated and thrown into a nearby lake. I am guessing it snows so much in Wisconsin that it produces brain freeze or maybe there is nothing else to do there but milk cows . ...
Six members of the Chicago City Council have called for the defunding of the police department and putting the money toward “public programs that will support workingclass and poor Chicagoans.” Then on Memorial Day weekend, 18 people were killed in a 24-hour period, making that 245 murders since the first of the year in Chicago. The Chicago Sun-times reports most homicide victims in Chicago are young black men and that the suspects are, too. No comment from Black Lives Matter . ...
I saw a young white female flouncing around the governor’s mansion with a “Defund the Police” sign. I wonder how she would feel if she got dragged into an alley on the mean streets of Atlanta. Who would she call? Colick Kaperdoodle? Her mommy? ...
Speaking of Malfunction Junction, aka, the City Too Busy to Hate, and home to a demoralized police force, records show that arrests over a recent two-week period in Atlanta were down 72% from the same period last year. Narcotics arrests were down 95%, while shooting incidents tripled and the number of shooting victims almost quadrupled.
Serious domestic crimes rose by 57%. The sad thing is the areas most impacted by these crimes are the poor neighborhoods. Let’s ask them how they feel about defunding the police. Or maybe the armed thugs guarding the burned-out Wendy’s restaurant in southeast Atlanta will deign to help out . ...
Finally, the University of Georgia Redcoat Band has announced it will no longer play Tara’s Theme from Gone with the Wind at football games. No problem here. I never liked the movie anyway. Instead, they will play “Georgia on my Mind,” the greatest song in the history of mankind and made famous by Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany, Georgia. Warning to all you do-gooders, the ACLU, eager-beaver kids and Colick Kaperdoodle admirers: Don’t even think about messing with “Georgia on my Mind.” And if you choose to kneel while that sacred paean is being performed, it had better be out of profound and reverential respect. We aren’t having this conversation again.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@ dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta GA 31139; or on Facebook at www. facebook.com/dickyarb.