The terrible tragedy in Charlottsville has many questions swirling about it. Why, for example, is only one type of extremism condemned and the other either ignored or elevated to special social warrior status? Why were dangerous opposing factions allowed to assemble practically on top of each other? Why are the agents of political correction so quick to vilify the long-dead and so willing to misrepresent history? Why do members of the Alt-Right attempt to distort Trump's victory last November as justification for supremacist views? And why are the complex intricacies of an historical period so ignorantly dismissed by media pundits? 

When a few years back black ministers objected to the presence in the Smithsonian of a bust of  Margaret Sanger, their protest was rejected in spite of overwhelming evidence confirming her promotion of racist and eugenicist beliefs primarily directed at persons of color. And where is the outrage against the Senate's Richard Russell Office Building, named after an ardent segregationist from Georgia (and a Democrat)? And let's not forget that stone figure of Robert Byrd, a longtime Democrat Senator from West Virginia who was a member of the hate-filled KKK. As the saying goes, “Were it not for double standards, Democrats would have no standards.” 

Peter Wilson

Groton