Hard times breed spikes in racism, violence
Lewis DiuguidJust as much as guns are a problem in America so is the bad economy helping to fuel violence and hate.
People who land on hard times are easy prey for hate groups. Wade Michael Page was one of them.
He is the gunman who was killed after he shot to death six persons and wounded several others Sunday at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. Page, 40, had been demoted and discharged from the Army, where he had served from 1992 to 1998.
Drinking problems also caused Page to lose his job as a truck driver. Financial trouble that followed led to his house, which he bought for $165,000 in 2007 in Fayetteville, N.C., to go into foreclosure, The Washington Post reported.
The Southern Poverty Law Center had been monitoring Page because of his ties to the white supremacist movement. The center described him as “a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band,” The New York Times reported.
Such hate organizations often target minorities as scapegoats, blaming them when things go wrong. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks led a lot of people to focus their hatred on Muslims. Page’s and other white supremacists’ ignorance resulted Sikhs to be misidentified and scapegoated as Muslims.
It is a tragic and toxic American mixture of racism, hard times, hatred and guns. It has to end before more innocent people are hurt.
Phil Cardarella
9 months, 2 weeks agoI guess you could say that “racist, white-power” music is a deservedly unappreciated genre.
This guy was never playing with a full deck — but the economic collapse that has made the rich richer and the rest struggling exacerbated the situation. Out of a job, out of his home and so blindly full of hate that he struck out at those “others”.
Make no mistake. We have a bunch of these American suicide bombers wandering the land. Some have longer fuses than others. Some are racist, some just frustrated to the point of insanity. All well-armed.
Mark Hastert
9 months, 2 weeks agoAs they say, society is only three missed meals away from revolution, nine missed meals from anarchy. Hatred always looks for a scapegoat.
Carl Olney
9 months agoThere is one thing about you Mr. Lewis You only want to focus on beating of white people. That is very sad because it shows how much of a racist you are. Me its doesn’t mater who you are or where you come from. I don’t like racist. And this is why I do not like the president because he promotes racism with all his racist comments about white people. And you will never touch on the subject of Andrie Caron comments will you. When you decide to get over your racism, you mite be worth listening to.