Thomas Lemay: Both extremes are wrong

To The Daily Sun,

“We all know that George Floyd was murdered, and that was wrong” to paraphrase a few of the local writers who chime in each week. Don Ewing, Steve Earle and Tony Boutin to name a few. Really, Boutin referenced LBJ? Can you be any more out of touch? I actually hold a special place in my heart for these local gentlemen who think that reading their daily updates from their slanted news sources are somehow better from those radical thoughts on the other side. Both extremes are wrong, but there is right in the middle for all of us who judge people on how they treat you and not by the color of their skin. You should rush to admonish all the history of evil and ignorance rather than compare it to other tragedies. You should leave ALL politics out of it. You act as if its a race to convince normal thinking, unbiased, light-skinned people that we shouldn't give our apathy because of a few atrocities the other way.

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are outraged as those who are.”-Benjamin Franklin They race to find cases of white people being murdered from police. They race to disparage any organized movement on the other side (BLM). They immediately go on defense and move to conversations of ‘what about this’ and ‘what about that’. I mean it’s in the past dudes. I don’t think that this is about slavery anymore. None of the current generations have had to go through that actual horror. It is about something deeper. A feeling of being looked down upon every day. Feeling out of place. Having displaced hatred and prejudice towards you only because of the way you look. Having to apologize to your own child for you giving them a ‘curse’ that is your skin color (words from a friend). No man or woman in Laconia with my skin color can say with truth that we know what it is like to be black in this country.

“Burn Boston, though it makes John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires it!”

-John Hancock

Freedom and liberty have always been fought for. America was founded on revolt. This is a new form of that same American angst. No one ever said it wouldn’t be messy. I support the right for protest, yet also support the business and home owners who choose to defend. Riot and loot at your own risk.

I consider myself a white ally. And with that I don’t mean affiliated with any group crap that you may read when googling those words. I mean that I am color-blind, and that I will go out of my way to be ANTI any racist that I encounter. Can you say the same?

If not, maybe it's time to change.

Thomas Lemay

Laconia