The League of the South says it will stage demonstrations in Murfreesboro and Shelbyville on
Oct. 12 in “opposition to the demographic displacement of the Southern people in central Tennessee, an area which a short time ago was homogeneously Southern. Tens of thousands of immigrants from Islamic countries in the Middle East and Africa have been brought to the area by the Federal Government using your tax dollars. This has been done as part of the U.S. Federal Government’s ‘refugee’ resettlement program . . . The Feds attack countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and then bring vast numbers of the people from those countries and place them in places such as Shelbyville—greatly altering the demographics, culture and politics of such places,” the group said in a statement.

OK, for one, anyone who claims that the heritage and tradition of this land that we now call Tennessee has anything to do with Caucasian people must not have a brain capable of comprehending anything earlier than 200 years ago. You hypocrites! You’re concerned about your culture being infiltrated with other religions, colors of skin, languages and traditions? What do you think happened to the Cherokee and other nations? Go back a few hundred years and you will see a real example of an outside culture invading the indigenous people as your European Christian forefathers came to this land and slaughtered, killed, waged war and pushed people aside. Your culture is being displaced today!? Pitiful. Laughable. You have already made it very hard for me to take you seriously.

However, this is a conversation worth having. There are some strange cultural factors at play in our country, and the Feds do seem to have an agenda of pitting the people against one another and controlling them all. Hey, I’m fine with the South becoming its own country once again, I’m fine with ending crazy U.S. taxpayer-funded war. But I’m not OK with hatred, or fear, or intimidation.

I can understand hotels banning this group; it is good PR to kick an unpopular group out of your place of business. But exclusion of a person or group based on their political ideas is not American, and most likely it adds fuel to the fire, gives the whole outfit a bunch of publicity, draws unnecessary battle lines and oversimplifies the matter. While many didn’t even realize this group was coming, now they feel they must “pick a side” because war is on.

People have a right to gather; people have a right to their ideas. Let’s listen to all ideas and really hear what the individual is saying. If they are rooted in hate, paranoia, stupidity and violence, if they call for harm or death against someone, let’s stand against those ideas, but let’s have a real conversation and not knee-jerk reactions.

Finally, if you come to the conclusion that the group staging this demonstration is based on hatred, please do not hate them in return. You will have already lost. You will have sunk to their level. What if some people of other races, of other beliefs, of other colors, of other languages came to this group and instead of arguing, protesting, and fighting simply offered them a sandwich and lemonade and said to them “You will not harm anyone, you will not intimidate anyone, but if you want to come to Middle Tennessee, come on, because the people of Middle Tennessee welcome people and respect people and help people, and I love you because you are a person.” How powerful would that be?

Peace,
Bracken Mayo
Editor in Chief