Signs of hate in the Mat-Su Valley

Where are we as a country when it comes to race relations and tolerance for opposingpositions? Better yet, where are we in Southcentral Alaska when it comes to these issues?A Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reader called and asked me to take a drive down Knik-Goose Bay Road. Approximately mile marker 16 or so stands a series of signs on whatlooks like private property. All of the signs are painted white for the background and inred are block lettering in all caps and punctuated with exclamation points.On one small sign nailed to a birch tree above the others reads GEN. LEE. The othersigns appear to be 4-foot by 8-foot painted plywood with the same color and letterscheme. One sign with the Confederate flag hanging above reads, NIGROID FAKE!!HIS STORIES. Asecond sign reads, BLACK FACE IT MONTH!!, also a confederateflag mounted above the sign. A third sign reads BROWN IS–NOT BLACK!!The display is at the very least appalling, and it also evokes emotions of sadness; sadnessthat in our beautiful communitysuch hate exists. Maybe you are thinking, it’s an isolatedincident, or one person’s opinion. Maybe you are right. Unfortunately, we rise in themorning and go to bed in the evening to such divisiveness. All one has to do is checktheir favorite social media account or national news source.Last November, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman editorial staff sat with U.S. Senator DanSullivan to discuss an array of topics. This was immediately following the Judge Brett

Kavanaugh hearings. I asked him if, in his opinion, we were back to 1968, one of themost tumultuous years in our nation’s history. He added “or 1850?” Both years have beenput out there as comparisons to our current state of debate or lack thereof in any civilform in this country.Sullivan pointedout that there are bi-partisan efforts within congress to move the countryforward; efforts that don’t get reported in the media. He actually took to the Senate Floorand expressed his displeasure last October.“I was venting to my staff on this issue which I don’t normally do. I went down onto theSenate Floor and gave a speech that wasn’t ... usually my staff helps me. Essentially, Igave a bunch of examples of important stuff where there was bi-partisan support. Youhave some Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who are saying it’s 1850. That kind ofrhetoric, I don’t agree with and I don’t think it’s helpful,” Sullivan stated.I couldn’t agree more with Sullivan. When I asked him to compare this time in ourhistory with 1968, he qualified it as a differentera. Martin Luther King Jr wasassassinated, so was Robert F Kennedy. There was the riot at the Democratic NationalConvention in Chicago. So much discourse and destruction, but is today much different?The racial confrontation last year in Charlottesville, Virginia, is not a distant memory, noris that of the gunman who walked onto a softball field in Alexandria, Virginia, and firedon Republican politicians, wounding five. There is the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting lastOctober that left 11 dead and seven wounded. The gunman who was charged with theassault posted anti-semitic speech on GAB, a self-proclaimed social network for ‘freespeech.’ How about the man charged last fall with sending pipe bombs to PresidentDonald Trump’s critics?

Short of a contentious and unpopular war in Vietnam, it sure feels a lot like 1968.Prominent figures of our time are not being assassinated, but innocent civilians are, for nobetter reason than their political or religious affiliation. It all starts with hate speech anddivisive displays.Perhaps legally, the property owner, who has allowed or posted these signs on KGB has aright to express their frustration with whatever national issue has struck this hatefulchord. It’s just tough to realize that more than 50 years later this kind of hate still exists,especially in a loving and beautiful community such as the Mat-Su Valley. I know in myheart this person is in a very small minority, but hate begets hate when it is ignored. If theperson who owns this property reads this column, I have but one request of you: Takedown the signs. There is nothing to gain from this display. There is, however, atremendous amount to lose.Dennis Anderson is a group publisher for Wick Communications Alaska, Colorado.