My father was a gracious man, born in Mobile, Alabama in 1917. My grandmother, a Bible believing Christian, at times used racial slurs to refer to people of color without a pause or sense that such language typecast groups of people as “other than us.” The South, with its “Southern Gentility,” replaces an overt tirade with a smiling, “I love your dress!” and a head-turned, “But I hate your guts.” “Woke!,” “DEI Hire!,” and “Illegal!” reflect the neobigotry of genteel racism.
My father, Howard, a WWII Navy veteran, moved to Phoenix following the war and lived in a mobile home with my mother, May, in the back section of the Sun Valley Motel, my first home after birth. The U.S. Highway Route 66 tied a post-Dust Bowl travel ribbon of the American dream West 2400 miles, from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. This ribbon flowed in front of my grandparents’ theme motel shown below on Van Buren Street, in Phoenix. Van Buren became the mecca of theme motels where people could park their cars next to their cabin as got their kicks on Route 66.
These historic “motor hotels” boasted kitchenette apartments, shuffle-board, phones, and beautifully landscaped grounds framed with neon signs heralding their presence:
What was not advertised were the stories my father told me of watching Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian war hero stumble drunk and forgotten along the Van Buren Street on the sidewalk in front of my grandparents’ Sun Valley Motel. Johnny Cash also sang the plight of this Pima Indian and other Native Tribes, with their lands used and exploited before being tossed aside and forgotten. Even so with Ira Hayes, Iwo Jima war hero, who died in a watery grave trying to numb his PTSD with alcohol, as the trauma of the war and the guilt of surviving when so many of his comrades had died weighed heavily on him.
In May 14, 1945, the Boston Daily Globe quoted Mr. Hayes saying: “How can I feel like a hero when I hit the beach with two hundred and fifty buddies and only twenty-seven of us walked off alive?”
How may veterans, such as Ira Hayes, have been purged from our U.S. history by its myopic neobigotry actions of the present administration to redact and forget those they label DEI, such as Ira Hayes.
Genteel Racism One Step Removed
Neobigotry’s genteel racism walks a path racism one step removed. This was the same scorched earth policy launched by the U.S. Army following the Civil War as it then waged war against the Plains Native Americans with a “one step removed” eradication of the Buffalo. Without one shot fired at Native Americans, they took away their food and life essentials by killing their symbol of life — the Buffalo! Buffalo skull mounds served as bleached tombstones for the Plains Native Tribes.
Buffalo Skull Mounds Tombstone for the Plains Native Tribes
The attack against the “Woke,” the “DEI Hires,” and the “Illegals” is nothing short of “Buffalo Hunting” that creates disparate treatment and harassment for protected classes of race, gender, sex, religion, age, and orientation. Before eradicating human groups, humans like to ascribe subhuman names to them that lessen the guilt of eradicating real people. The genteel terms given to “Woke”, “DEI Hires” and “Illegals,” while one step removed from historic racial slurs, are symbiotic with protected classes of people. Those seeking eradication of these classes may boast they shot not one word of hate against people of color, age, or sexual orientation, while at the same time these neobigotry attacks result in the scorched earth destruction of the sources that feed a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace and culture in a truly fair and free America.
The attack against the “Woke,” the “DEI Hires,” and the “Illegals” is nothing short of “Buffalo Hunting” that creates disparate treatment and harassment for protected classes of race, gender, sex, religion, age, and orientation.
Pastor Jim
The Buffalo Hunt
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Read Luke chapter 10 for the parable.
– Luke 10
“…l’d love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything’s okay
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
Until things are brighter
I’m the Man In Black.”
~Johnny Cash
“Day One of Cat’s Plan to Eliminate Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI)”
Woke Up!,
Pastor Jim
The Great DOGE Buffalo Hunt