Letters for Aug. 22, 2023

The fraud of the ‘white race’

The “white race” didn’t exist before 1676. Until then, in colonial Virginia those of English, Irish, Scottish and African origins worked, lived and ate together. There was no “racism.” Their “masters” treated them all with equal brutality, so they rebelled together, too. The plantation owners there invented the “white race” after Bacon’s Rebellion sought to overthrow their power and control over them. Bacon had offered freedom to all those indentured servants and slaves who joined him. They did and almost succeeded until he died and the rebellion collapsed.

The fact that all groups rebelled against them terrified the plantation elites. They devised a “divide and conquer” strategy to protect themselves against a possible future rebellion by pitting “whites” against Blacks. They segregated them and elevated the status of the European servile class with a sense of “white supremacy” by inventing a shared “white race” with them while degrading and depriving Blacks of rights.

Theodore Allen’s landmark book, “The Invention of the White Race” Volume II, first exposed this fraud in 1997. It details the events surrounding Bacon’s Rebellion in “Part Four: Rebellion and Reaction.” Audrey and Brian Smedley compiled Allen’s work with other researchers in their own scholarly book, “Race in North America.” Chapter 5, “The Arrival of Africans and Descent into Slavery” further describes the facts and the plantation elites’ malevolent motives behind the creation of the “white race.”

Today, America haters are using “divide and conquer” racism too. And deceiving us again.

Bob Strong

Spokane

You can’t reason with crazy

In another saga of the party of bad faith and complaints, Republican members of Congress have endlessly whined about David Weiss not being appointed a special counsel regarding the Hunter Biden show they’ve been fixated upon all year. Now that Weiss has been appointed a special counselor, Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz, who earlier this year whined about Weiss not being a special counselor, is now whining about getting what he asked for.

This behavior is by definition insane and also is an example of how impossible it is to negotiate with such and find any solutions to any problem at hand. If anyone wants to know why any reasonable compromise to govern cannot be reached and why we cannot bridge our country’s divide to deal with problems, all one has to do is look at Cruz as an example why. There is one good solution though, and that is to vote the likes of Cruz out of office.

David Cannon

Spokane

Alimony for the Pac-4

If you follow college football, you are aware of the situation with the Pac-12. Bigger schools like USC, Washington, and Oregon have are leaving the conference for more revenue with the Big Ten Conference and the Big 12 Conference, leaving California, Stanford, Oregon State, and Washington State with uncertain athletic futures.

Here’s my thinking. What happens when a husband leaves his wife and the wife’s lifestyle cannot be maintained with the resources she possesses? She sues for alimony. I’m not an attorney, but why can’t the Pac-12 schools that were left behind do this, too? The schools that, in effect, destroyed the Pac-12 by exiting should be forced to give money to the schools that remain so that those schools can continue to fund their athletic programs in the way that they have become accustomed to. I think a fair amount can be agreed upon. I believe a fair term would be five years with the payments being terminated upon the Pac-4 schools’ agreements to join another conference that would pay them a comparable amount to what they were receiving while with the Pac-12.

This isn’t about sticking it to the schools that left, it’s fitting compensation for a 108-year-long marriage.

Cardell Simmons

Tacoma