Letter: On the Olympics, America’s past, and the elections

I have only criticism for Dick Hubert’s criticism of Thomas Ceruzzi’s opinion piece in the Aug. 16 issue of this paper, wherein the latter’s call for a boycott of French products prompted the retired news producer and reporter to call his sense of history “narrow” and to denounce his condemnation of the French government and the International Olympic Committee. Well, I myself might not go as far as to urge all Christians not to buy anything made in France, but despite America’s longstanding friendship and cooperation with its ally, I must say that Ceruzzi’s anger is well justified after witnessing the perverse mockery of The Last Supper during the opening ceremony of the Olympics—even if it is just “one sequence that he didn’t like.” The portrayal of Jesus and his disciples by a “bunch of drag queens, perverts, and deviants,” to use Ceruzzi’s well-chosen words, should indeed arouse the anger of “all Christians around the world” and everyone else in fact. Should this not have mattered merely because it was just “one sequence”? If Muhammed had been portrayed in the same manner, it is a certainty that Muslims wouldn’t have given a hoot that it was just “one sequence,” and that some would have called for a price on the heads of those responsible for such disgust. In fact, disgust is a gross understatement. It is interesting to note that no one dares to commit blasphemy against Islam, but it seems to be tolerated against Christianity. I wonder why this is. Could it be another attempt to give legitimacy to the perverse side of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” as is the raising of the “Pride flag” alongside the American flag at Port Chester High School and even at the White House?

On another topic, Mr. Hubert does rightly speak about our country’s past mistreatment of its native peoples. Indeed, “all those broken treaties,” and all that land taken “away from the Indigenous [sic] people who had lived here for thousands of years” is a blot on our nation’s history. To say that “the collective guilt of our treatment of Indigenous people is finally catching up with us;” however, wrongly implies that we living today have to make amends for what happened over a century and a half ago. Moreover, let it be understood that, although the colonists and settlers, as well as the United States government itself, committed numerous atrocities, the Native Americans were no angels. In fact, their cruelty, not only to captured settlers, but to other tribes, makes the cruelties committed by the Nazis look tame: the scalping of prisoners, the cutting off of hands and feet, the disembowelment of captives while still alive, their burial in the hot desert sun with only the head exposed after the ears, the nose, the lips, and the eyelids had been cut off, are only some of the creative means conceived by tribes—the Comanche, the Apache, the Sioux (even the Iroquois right here in New York)—to wreak vengeance on their enemies. And, atop their sacrificial temples, the Aztecs would rip out captives’ hearts to offer to their dungy gods. Indeed, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés was actually helped and thanked by another tribe that had been forced to pay tribute to the Aztecs—often in the form of their own people to be sacrificed.

Additionally, Mr. Hubert’s calling to our attention “a reckoning with our country’s other initial sin—its enslavement of Black Americans,” also seems to insinuate culpability on the part of those now living. There is nothing that Democrats like more—other than “police brutality”—than to raise the issue of “racism,” which only serves to perpetuate racism. If we are going to argue in favor of recompense for past misdeeds, then why not go as far as to demand that Italy pay for the misdeeds of the Romans, or that Egypt compensate Israel for the enslavement of the Israelites by the Pharaohs? More to the point, why not sue Benin and other African nations for their part in having sold their fellow Africans captured in war to the transatlantic slave traders? You know darn well where they’ll tell us to take our “political correctness”!

After calling the reader’s attention to the political gains made by both Native and African Americans, Mr. Hubert wrote that “we have a chance as voters to affirm this historical progress,” and asked, “Are you ready, dear readers, to cast your vote?”

So, in addition to gender, are we now supposed to take into account the injustices committed long ago against African Americans as we decide whether to vote into office a woman of “Black and Asian descent”? Are we supposed to be elated merely because a Native American may become the governor of Minnesota? The past be what it may, let not race and ethnicity determine whom we vote for (although I’m sure that they will be the decisive factors for many low-information voters), but rather ability, competence, and experience.

Ron Weckessar

Port Chester