I recently commented on a posting on Face Book of 20 million Muslims openly protesting ISIS in the Middle East and I called for a similar protest by American Christians against the KKK. Several FB participants chastised me for making such a comparison because ISIS is a known terrorist organization that perpetrates violent acts on a daily basis, and the KKK of today is rather benign and nothing like its violent incarnation of our grandfather’s era. It’s comparing apples to oranges, they imply, and is unjust. I believe it’s more like comparing oranges to tangerines, and is justly apt.

Consider the environment people of color in America live with in just getting through each day:

1. Fire bombings of African American churches, Jewish temples, and Muslim mosques.
2. Nazi/KKK desecration of African American churches, Jewish temples, and Muslim mosques.
3. Nazi/KKK desecration of Jewish cemetery headstones.
4. KKK cross burnings in African American communities.
5. Plans to halt all immigration of Muslims by our next president.
6. Threats of deporting all immigrant Muslims possibly including Muslim Americans by our next president.
7. A federal registry of all Muslims, including of Muslim Americans.
8. Consideration of internment camps for Muslims including Muslim Americans by our next president.
9. Plans by our next president to deport all illegal (Hispanic) immigrants from the U.S.
10. Plans to build a wall to keep illegal (Hispanic) immigrants from entering the U.S. over our southern border.
11. Preventing illegal immigrants from having access to welfare benefits. (Being illegal they are not eligible for such benefits.)
12. Threats against Black Lives Matter protestors by white supremacist groups.
13. Fire bombings of African American churches because of BLM sympathies or ties.
14. Threats of lynching of African Americans by the KKK.
15. Nooses hung by white college fraternity students as an “innocent” prank.
16. Blackface makeup by a university (of Oregon) professor for Halloween.
17. Unacceptably high number of shootings of unarmed African American young men by police, with essentially zero convictions of police officers for such murders.
18. Militarized assaults against peaceful Native American protestors at Standing Rock.
19. Declaration of martial law and suspension of the constitution to authorize the assaults by militarized police against protestors at Standing Rock.
20. Use of militarized armed forces in crowd control in African American communities.
21. Killings of African Americans by white male KKK/Nazi sympathizers.
22. Assaults against Muslims by American Nazis.
23. Openly racist ranting by our next president giving consent for such rhetoric while also giving veiled invitations for hateful attacks.
24. Encouraging and condoning assaults against African Americans by our next president during his primary campaign.
25. Open support of our next president by the KKK and American Nazis because of his support and use of their hate speech.
26. KKK comments of deportation of African Americans to return America to a pure white nation.
27. Appointment of white supremacists to high presidential consultant positions and to our next president’s cabinet.
28. The Confederate Flag.
29. Arizona state’s initial refusal to acknowledge a federal holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. While it was subsequently approved the law remains contentious and a political issue for the state’s KKK.
30. Increasing incidents of intimidation and verbal abuse of Muslim children by elementary and secondary school teachers.
31. Use of non-violent police handling of armed white terrorists who took over a federal installation in southern Oregon. The court jury decided the individuals were not guilty for their armed terrorist raid on federal lands.
32. Withdrawal of armed federal agents in confrontation with armed Bundy family/supporters who threatened to shoot federal agents in a conflict over use of federal lands. The terrorists were subsequently taken without incident following their takeover of a federal installation in southern Oregon.
33. Gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court because racism no longer exists. The day the Supreme Court handed down its decision every red state initiated extreme voter ID laws designed to suppress registration and voting by African American communities.
34. Declared interest in some southern red states to reinstate anti-miscegenation laws.
35. Increasing incidents of verbal abuse and assaults of Muslim shoppers by KKK/Nazi sympathizers.
36. Federal and state governmental inaction over the desecration of Standing Rock tribal holy lands and burial grounds.
37. State and federal inaction in the prosecution of criminal acts by state officials in the fouling of the water system of Flint, MI. After 2+ years the situation with lead poisoned water is unresolved.

Peace, my friends…