The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 3-13-2019

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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 3-13-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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Miles was invited in for a visit with the current owners of the house, Mary and John Gier. She says, “They are proud of their heritage (English, Dutch, Irish and German) but resist hyphenated labels like ‘Euro-American’ or ‘African-American.’” (Apparently they don’t subscribe to the Left’s hyphenated “identity politics16.”) The Giers have restored the house to the condition when it was occupied by Lewis Hayden and his wife, Harriet — in an era when they were well armed and ready to defend the innate right to Liberty of former slaves.

Miles insists it was clear that the Giers “saw the NRA emblem as simpatico with the home’s spirit. To them, Lewis Hayden is a ‘model for America.’ Mrs. Gier thinks if he were alive today, he would be a member of the NRA or the National African-American Gun Association.”

Mrs. Gier asked Miles, “Can you imagine what would have happened had he not had his guns? I believe that Hayden would have left no stone unturned to maintain his defense. In that sense, he is not unlike our law-abiding citizens today who are protecting their constitutional rights.”

Indeed, disarmament and gun confiscation in the United States has racist origins17, particularly in the destructive wake of the War Between the States.

After a bit more research, Miles discovered that, according to historian Manisha Sinha, “Black abolitionists, especially those involved in the abolitionist underground and Vigilance Committees, tended to arm themselves. … Fugitive slaves often resorted to armed self-defense when confronted by slave catchers and law enforcement.” Sarah Bradford, biographer of famous Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman, wrote that she carried at least one gun.

Unfortunately, Miles’s reconsideration of the Second Amendment collided with her own unhinged cultural bias.

She asserts that we are in “another moment of peril for African-Americans — with rates of racially motivated hate crimes on the rise, organized white supremacist rallies and open advocacy of white power ideology becoming more common,” and for that reason, “black gun ownership has surged … markedly after the election of Donald Trump.”

However, despite her disdain for the NRA, Miles concedes that many black gun owners are “super assertively pro-gun,” including Maj Toure, the founder of a group called Black Guns Matter, who “sees the NRA as an important civil rights organization.”

Likewise, Philip Smith, founder of the National African-American Gun Association18, maintains “close ties to the NRA.” Smith impressed upon Miles that “black gun owners are not a monolith. ‘We have black Republicans, Democrats, gay, straight.’”

Miles was shocked to find that among Smith’s NAAGA membership are people who want to be self-sufficient in a crisis and take care of their neighbors, including many women. There are “even black gun owners preparing for natural or human-made disasters (‘preppers’),” and black women make up more than 60% of his organization. In fact, NAAGA is now in 30 states and is expecting to have chapters in all states by 2020 — although Miles is unlikely to join.

Miles was even more astounded to find, after she “took an informal family poll,” that many of her relatives “store weapons in hidden chambers inside homes where we gather; possess permits to carry concealed weapons and take target practice; have friends who bring guns to church in case the congregation should need shielding; and are prepared to ‘protect my family no matter who comes through the door.”

Her conclusion: “I did come to realize through a series of unexpected exchanges that the issue was more complicated than I had allowed and that my views of just coexistence and human flourishing might not require the absolute prohibition of arms.”

Unfortunately, she then reverts to her deranged concerns about Trump and race wars: “I would not abide having a gun inside my dwelling or my children’s schools. But where would I want to be if civil society topples and 2020 feels like 1820?”

In a home like that of the Haydens, she says, where someone else will defend her against the latest generation of “white citizens wielding guns, capital and political influence.”

What Miles can’t begin to conceive, much less concede, is that black Americans are among the major beneficiaries19 of the Trump administration’s economic policies. She might also be horrified to discover that black American approval of Trump20 has significantly increased over the last two years.

Clearly Miles’s worldview is the product of willing confinement in a leftist groupthink echo chamber. There, she and her ilk can safely convince themselves that their president is a racist, the nation is ablaze with racist attacks, a race war may ensue if Trump is reelected, and black people had better arm themselves so they won’t be enslaved again.

Miles, unfortunately, can’t even see that she’s already enslaved — by the shackles of her own dimly lit worldview.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776