Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 041, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 12, 2015 Page: 6 of 24
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OPINION
6A
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Denton Record-Chronicle
Denton Record-Chronicle
Race still
big factor
in politics
THE OXFORD ONliNf
DICTIONARY JUST
ADDED NEW WORDS
AND THERE'S STJIL
NO WAY TO DESCRIBE
TRUMP'S SUCCESS!
Published by Denton Publishing Co.,
a subsidiary of A.H. Belo Corporation
M Founded from weekly newspapers,
■ the Denton Chronicle, established in 1882,
and the Denton Record, established in 1897.
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Record-Chronicle since Aug. 3,1903.
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Bill Patterson
Publisher and CEO
Scott K. Parks
Managing Editor
Mark Finley
City Editor
Mariel Tarn-Ray
News Editor
PAST PUBLISHERS
William C. “Will” Edwards
1903-1927
Robert J. “Bob” Edwards
1927-1945
Riley Cross
1945-1970
Vivian Cross
1970-1986
Fred Patterson
1986-1999
w/
'■fe-
tter the 2008 presidential election, it
was obvious that American politics
was entering a new era in which race
would figure less than it had before. For the
first time in our history, we had a president
who was not white, and it was bound to have
a profound, positive impact.
Whites would find that a black president
would not make their lives worse. Blacks
would face less prejudice and feel more fully
American. The deep wounds of slavery and
discrimination would heal and fade. We
were entering a “post-
racial” era.
It lasted about as
long as the average
honeymoon. Barack
Obama stimulated
more racial neuroses
than he banished. Be-
fore long, Fox News
host Glenn Beck called
him a “racist” with a
“deep-seated hatred for
white people.” Rush
Iimbaugh said he was “behaving like an Af-
rican colonial despot.” Obama’s birth certif-
icate was an issue that wouldn’t go away.
From this year’s campaign, it’s clear that
race is just as potent a factor as ever. In fact,
attitudes about race may be the basic divide
in the 2016 election.
The shooting of Michael Brown in Au-
gust 2014 exposed a wide gulf among Amer-
icans — between those of any race who re-
garded black anger about police conduct as
legitimate and those who didn’t. To a large
extent, the split ran along partisan lines.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll last
year found that Republicans were twice as
likely as Democrats to think whites and
blacks get equal treatment from the criminal
justice system or to say police don’t discrim-
inate. Put simply, most Democrats sympa-
thize with African-American grievances.
Most Republicans don’t.
In an Associated Press-Times Square Al-
liance survey last December, GOP voters said
the rise of the Islamic State was the most im-
portant news event of 2014. Democrats, by
contrast, gave priority to the unrest in Fergu-
son and elsewhere over the deaths of un-
armed black men at the hands of cops.
This is not purely a matter of differing
philosophies of criminology. On issue after
issue, racial attitudes play a major role in
where the two parties come out. Illegal im-
migration, “Black lives Matter,” the Confed-
erate flag, even the mountain previously
known as McKinley — all are filtered
through fundamental though sometimes
subconscious feelings about race.
Donald Trump is doing so well because
he exploits racial anxieties masterfully with-
out ever raising them directly. He complains
we are ‘losing our country” ridicules “politi-
cal correctness,” blames Mexicans for “bring-
ing crime” and claims to represent the “silent
majority.” All these themes are perfectly de-
signed to appeal to white resentments and
fear of minorities.
Trump’s strategy is hardly unique. When
a white sheriff’s deputy was shot to death in
Houston, allegedly by a black man, Ted Cruz
blamed it on Obama for striving to “tear us
apart along racial lines, to inflame racial divi-
sions.”
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Editorials published in the Denton Record-Chronicle
are determined by the editorial board.
Questions and suggestions should be directed to the:
Denton Record-Chronicle
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Phone: 940-387-3811
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If Sandy Hook is
‘bearable,’ what is not?
m
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ahbelo.com NYSE symbol: AHC
Steve
Chapman
Other voices
ou frequently find fortune cookie
aphorisms, yes, but it’s not often that
you find searing insight within Twit-
ter’s 140-character confines. Which is why a
June tweet from one Dan Hodges — his pro-
file describes him as a
British political com-
mentator — stood out.
retrospect,”
wrote Hodges, “Sandy
Hook marked the end
of the U.S. gun control
debate. Once America
decided killing chil-
dren was bearable, it
cemed: the shooting of a congresswoman
and her constituents at a supermarket, a
mass murder at a movie theater, the Christ-
mas season butchery of schoolchildren in
Newtown.
“But,” he said, sounding like nothing so
much as a father who very much loved his
daughter, “I think people recognizing who
the victim was and what she represented
and how kind and sweet and innocent she
was, I think this time it’s going to be differ-
Y
Horse racing’s
future up to state
‘In
f Texas racing needs fixing, let the work begin.
Ranchers, horse trainers and spokesmen say the
industry is suffering. They say Texas tracks will strug-
gle without new revenue from electronic games, or maybe
casino gambling.
Neither is legal in Texas. Both would require thorough
review by lawmakers and the public, not the agency vote
state racing commissioners have tried.
State officials have given the commission a deadline to
reverse a vote to add slot-like electronic “historical racing”
games used elsewhere.
But if gaming is not the answer, leaders must decide
what is.
Now is the time for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas
House officials to appoint a joint interim committee on
the future of pari-mutuel racing.
The one-day shutdown of Lone Star Park at Grand
Prairie and other Texas horse and dog racing tracks re-
cently has left industry leaders and track patrons un-
certain about the future.
If lawmakers do not set a course quickly, the industry
will continue to suffer along with pari-mutuel revenue.
The question should not be only how to save racing,
but also if it should be saved.
Total revenue is down by half since 2000, and atten-
dance is on a steady decline. As a result, the purse money
for thoroughbreds has shrunk more than 40 percent in
the last 10 years, and employment has declined as thor-
oughbred owners go to races in other states.
The reason is one of simple economics: Other states
offer richer purses financed by more gamblers and more
games.
Years ago, officials at an Arkansas park devised slot-
like race replays called “historical racing,” and the state
has added video slots and gaming. The 2004 and 2006
openings of two Oklahoma casinos barely across the state
line also eroded Texas racing attendance and revenue.
Texas lawmakers have consistently rejected casino slots
and any similar electronic games. But the pressure will
only intensify to expand gambling for the sake of jobs and
the racing industry.
Lawmakers need to make tough choices about racing’s
future. A joint committee should get started.
— Fort Worth Star-Telegram
I
ent.’
It’s always going to be different. But it
never is.
With all due deference to a father’s incal-
culable sorrow, the likeliest outcome here is
that the murder of Alison Parker and her
colleague Adam Ward and the wounding of
local official Vicki Gardner will join the long
line of tipping points that didn’t tip and
turning points that didn’t turn. Which is why
Parker’s words inspire no great hope, but on-
ly break your heart.
The sad thing is, there is no — repeat: no
— inherent or insoluble conflict between the
desire of some of us to have access to guns for
sport and self-defense and the desire of oth-
ers of us to keep dangerous people from pos-
sessing those weapons. Decent, moderate
people, working from both sides of the ques-
tion, could probably hammer out ideas to
safeguard both imperatives in an afternoon.
Problem is, gun owners’ interests are re-
presented not by decent, moderate people,
but by the NRA, an extremist gang for
whom even the most modest regulation is a
brick in the road to tyranny.
So long as the NRA has such an outsized
voice in this debate, so long as politicians,
unencumbered by conscience or vertebrae,
tremble to its call, and so long as many of us
are silent and supine in the face of that ob-
scenity, Hodges is correct. And we are
doomed to a future of frequent, predictable
and preventable tragedies some of us will
mistake for freedom.
It makes you wonder. If that kind of thing
is really ‘bearable” then what, pray tell, is
not?
Leonard
Pitts
was over.
You may cringe to
hear the nation’s re-
sponse to the December 2012 massacre of 20
young children — six adults also died — at
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut, described in that fashion, but you
can’t deny the brutal truth of the observation.
After Sandy Hook, President Barack
Obama called for new legislative initiatives,
saying, “Surely we can do better than this.”
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said,
“We need action.” Rep. John Larson said,
“Politics be damned.” Parents of one victim
walked the halls of Congress carrying pic-
tures of their dead son and beseeching law-
makers to look, even as polls showed nearly
60 percent of Americans wanted stronger
gun laws.
And nothing happened. In deciding be-
tween its children and its guns, America had
decided the loss of the former was, in Hodg-
es’ chilling word, “bearable.”
The memory of it haunts a recent inter-
view CNN did with Andy Parker, the father
of Roanoke, Virginia, TV reporter Alison
Parker, who was murdered live on camera
recently by a hateful and deranged man
named Vester Flanagan. In vowing to com-
mit his life to achieving sensible gun control,
Parker said a number of striking things.
“I’m telling you,” he said, “they messed
with the wrong family.”
“I’m going to be working on this for a long
time,” he said. “I know that this is not a
sprint, it’s a marathon.”
He acknowledged that we have seen
many “tipping points” where guns are con-
TPON ART) PITTS writes for the Miami
Herald. His column is distributed by Tri-
bune Content Agency. His email address is
lpitts@herald.com.
When Martin O’Malley apologized for
telling “Black lives Matter” protesters that
“all lives matter,” Jeb Bush took umbrage. “If
he believes that white lives matter, which I
hope he does, then he shouldn’t apologize
with a group that seemed to disagree with it,”
said Bush, neatly smearing both O’Malley
and the demonstrators.
Mike Huckabee said Martin Luther King
Jr. would be “appalled by the notion that
we’re elevating some lives above others.” It’s
never clear whether Huckabee is an ignora-
mus or merely a demagogue. For the record,
King said, “A society that has done some-
thing special against the negro for hundreds
of years must now do something special for
the negro.”
The activists’ slogan is meant to elevate
the value of black lives, not diminish that of
white ones. A longer version would be:
“Black lives should matter as much as white
lives.”
Letters to the editor
Gun registration
The killing of a man and a woman and
the injuring of another by a nut is terrible.
He did it because he was fired two years ago!
Yes, he did use a handgun. So, instantly, the
anti-gunners started their ranting and rav-
SUBMISSIONS
Letters for publication must include the writer’s
name, address and telephone number. Au-
thorship must be verified before publication.
The Record-Chronicle reserves the right to edit
letters for length. Letters should be typed or
legibly handwritten and be 250 or fewer words.
We prefer email submissions.
Send to: drc@dentonrc.com.
Otherwise, fax to 940-566-6888, or mail to:
Letters to the editor, P.0. Box 369,
Denton, TX 76202
This day in history: September 12
Today is Saturday, Sept. 12,
the 255th day of 2015. There
are 110 days left in the year.
On Sept. 12, 1962, in a
speech at Rice University in
Houston, President John F.
Kennedy reaffirmed his support
for the manned space program,
declaring: “We choose to go to
the moon in this decade and do
the other things, not because
they are easy, but because they
are hard.”
In 1814, the Battle of North
Point took place in Maryland
during the War of 1812 as Amer-
ican forces slowed British troops
advancing on Baltimore.
In 1846, Elizabeth Barrett
secretly married Robert Brown-
ing at St. Marylebone Church in
London.
In 1914, during World War I,
the First Battle of the Marne
ended in an Allied victory
against Germany.
In 1938, Adolf Hitler de-
manded the right of self-deter-
mination for the Sudeten Ger-
mans in Czechoslovakia.
In 1944, the Second Quebec
Conference opened with Presi-
dent Franklin D. Roosevelt and
British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill in attendance.
In 1953, Massachusetts Sen.
John F. Kennedy married Jac-
queline Lee Bouvier in Newport,
Rhode Island.
In 1960, Democratic presi-
dential candidate John F. Ken-
nedy addressed questions about
his Roman Catholic faith, telling
a Southern Baptist group, “I do
not speak for my church on pub-
lic matters, and the church does
not speak for me.”
In 1974, Emperor Haile Se-
lassie was deposed by Ethiopia’s
military after ruling for 58 years.
In 1977, South African black
student leader Steve Biko died
while in police custody, trigger-
ing an international outcry.
In 1986, Joseph Cicippio,
acting comptroller at the Amer-
ican University in Beirut, was
kidnapped.
In 1995, the Belarusian mil-
itary shot down a hydrogen bal-
loon during an international
race, killing its two American pi-
lots, John Stuart-Jervis and
Alan Fraenckel.
In 2000, Hillary Rodham
Clinton became the first first la-
dy to win an election as she
claimed victory in the New York
Democratic Senate primary, de-
feating little-known opponent
Dr. Mark McMahon.
Ten years ago: Federal
Emergency Management Agen-
cy director Mike Brown re-
signed, three days after losing
his onsite command of the Hur-
ricane Katrina relief effort.
— The Associated Press
mg.
They want to remove all guns by using
small steps to do so.
Registration is what they want — even
the guns owned for many years that are cur-
rently kept in safes. It will allow the govern-
ment to know where all the guns are. The SS
types in our government will knock on the
doors of gun owners, then kick them down if
the owners refuse. What will they do next?
Those in the government will end up
with the guns so they can protect themselves
from the people. Our Constitution says it
should be the other way around, right?
The big truth here is that it will only cre-
ate a ‘black market” for the firearms that will
use the illegal firearms to protect themselves
from criminals that have illegal firearms,
they will be sent to prison for doing so with
an illegal weapon.
It will also allow radical Muslims to ask
us Christians how we want to die. Will it be a
bullet to the brain with our own confiscated
firearm? Or have your head handed to you?
Mr. Beck and Mr. Gamer — what will be
your choice?
Prohibition worked real good, didn’t it? It
created the Mafia as we know it today!
James Penton,
Denton
Responding to police mistreatment of Af-
rican-Americans by saying “all lives matter”
is like demanding that doctors divide their
time evenly between the healthy and the sick.
Taking the slogan to be racist is like regard-
ing Black History Month as racist. Which,
come to think of it, Tmmp probably does.
Whites are on their way to becoming a
minority of the population. The Republican
candidates know that many of the party
faithful associate this trend with national de-
cline and social decay, so they cater to — and
maybe even share — these fears.
For half a century, the GOP has been able
to reap political success from the racial reali-
ty once noted by Alabama’s George Wallace
(a segregationist Democrat): “They’s more of
us than they is of them.”
That won’t be the case for many more
years, and a party that wants to prosper has
to adapt. But Republicans are campaigning
like it’s 1968.
STEVE CHAPMAN writes for the
Chicago Tribune. His column is distrib-
uted by Creators Syndicate Inc.
be in the hands of drug gangs and all other
types of criminals. Illegal immigrants will be
the main highways that bring them in.
They will prey on the unarmed American
public to the point that they will have to buy
illegal firearms. When honest Americans
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 041, Ed. 1 Saturday, September 12, 2015, newspaper, September 12, 2015; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124769/m1/6/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .