President Donald Trump
Dear President Trump:
The Klan, white supremacists and white nationalists are evil domestic terrorists. The KKK has terrorized my community for over a hundred years. On Friday night, while you may have only seen “good” white men with torches exercising their freedom of speech, what I saw was the stuff of my ancestors’ nightmares. So no Mr. President, I won’t let you rewrite history and compare the Black Lives Matter movement to the KKK, the organization who lynched blacks by the very same firelight in which they marched on Friday. You want to compare the two causes, but you can’t because the Klan killed people and in many cases it was state sanctioned terror. You judge us for our fear of the police but for many decades it was some of the local sheriffs and their deputies standing watch and participating as the KKK came in the dead of night. They burned crosses while people with my same skin color hung from trees.
You speak of their constitutional right to free speech, which as an attorney I have always supported, but fall into silence when my people’s God given constitutional rights to walk freely, drive freely, protest freely and carry a gun legally are violated. Even today in this country our right to exist is called into question depending upon how well behaved other Americans deem us to be.
I’m embarrassed for my friends on the Right because you have failed to speak out against this cancer of racism and instead have chosen to make excuses for people who would see those in my community incarcerated, dead or enslaved. Mr. President you failed to repudiate this behavior and history will judge you harshly for this failure. You make arguments with false equivalence while forgetting to mention hundreds of years of racial history, slavery, governmental policy and cultural norms perpetrated against blacks.
For the last few months many Americans may have tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, in hopes of finding equality, justice and common ground. However on Friday night, and in the days since, you have shown yourself unworthy of that effort. You have created a country in your mind where Whites are responsible for nothing and Black America is the cause of all ills. We will no longer stand by as the safety and comfort of your families are preserved at the expense of our families. This country was built on the backs of slaves and we will no longer allow things to continue as they have in the past.
People of good will of all races, creeds, religions, political affiliations, genders and sexual orientations will stand against you. This is not about Black versus White, but a fight about Good versus Evil. You may have won the last election but we will win the culture war. It’s time for US to take our country back.
Nikki Johnson-Huston, Esq.