In the May 6 Mount Vernon Gazette publication, Capital News Service writer Saffeya Ahmed reported her investigation of hate crimes and quoted Professor David Webber (VCU, emergency preparedness) to inform responsible citizens in The Commonwealth of Virginia. Are Gazette readers concerned that faculty at VCU encouraged the student to conduct an ethnographic study of supremacists?
What is the remedy to supremacist's toxic thinking of deceptive self-interest that threatens all nations? Would Gazette readers find such hateful supremacists in Africa, China, Mexico, South America, Middle East, Far East, Europe, or Australia? I have never met or spoken to a supremacist. The Rule of Law in America has protected people who have migrated to the United States from all over the world. The tolerant American society has enabled legal immigrants to become productive citizens able to thrive within the American dream of liberty and justice for all.
Did the writer conduct her social science investigation of the human condition through qualitative interviews of various cultural supremacists to analyze and validate her theoretical framework and unbiased findings? Did her research include visiting and discussing perspectives with the children and grandparents of these criminals and their victims? Did she become familiar with supremacist cultural anthropology by offering food, clothes, shelter, jobs, and transportation if they need a hospital? My professors required students “to demonstrate academic integrity” by conducting a systematic review to consider anticipating, monitoring, mediating, and mitigating risk.
Did she investigate the cultural distrust, fear, and anger that motivates a supremacist’s method of operating in society? She does not define or diagnose a remedy to supremacist's toxic thinking of deceptive self-interest that threatens all nations. She brings forward questions by quoting Raha Batts, imam of Masjid Ash-Shura in Norfolk, who claims that we can coexist with such groups, because “we all have the same goals in mind.” Did Mr. Batts consider distinctively different goals such as a citizen’s duty under oath to defend our United States Constitution against all threats foreign and domestic? Do Batts and Ahmed reconcile their claim to coexist with the traditional norm to “love your neighbor and do to them as you would want them to equally do to you?” Dr. Martin Luther King called citizens to expand our circle of love and understand those who provoke disagreement and retaliation. Citizens are responsible for discerning subtle agendas by groups who plan to occupy, replace, and undermine civil rights laws. To what extent is it practical for communities to accommodate a movement that consumes benefits from an established infrastructure and yet refuses to adopt healthy cultural habits of safe predictable interaction?
I am thankful every hour of the day for the millions of men and women from all ethnic backgrounds and religions who have given their lives through the military and other public service to protect American citizens and our U.S. Constitution from all threats both foreign and domestic.
David Harrison
Alexandria