by Dr. Ed DeVries
In August, the “Rev.” Ferrell Brown, the white pastor of an Atlanta
area church, stood atop the wide bald knob of Stone Mountain on a balmy
southern Saturday morning. Before him stood an estimated 2,000 people,
mostly members of Brown’s church, who had assembled for what I will
simply describe as a racial unity stunt. Their Pastor wanted to make it
into the newscasts and headlines. He finally did,
in October.
According to a report on
MSNBC that was picked up by the
New York Times,
“Rev.” Brown LIED about his family’s history, claiming to be a direct
descendant of Nathan Bedford Forrest. This, of course, is impossible
since the direct line ended with Gen. N.B. Forrest III (who died in
WWII) and his sister, facts that the mainstream sources covering the
story would have known if they had bothered to “fact-check,” which
obviously they did not. Anyway, according to this “Rev.” Brown his
“grandfather” was the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, who, he told the
New York Times,
“would throw a meal in the trash at a restaurant if he saw a mixed-race
couple walk in.” Maybe Brown’s grandfather was that man, but he
certainly wasn’t describing Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Anywhoo, as the slobber dribbled down his face Brown told the
audience, “I stand here today as a representation of the racism of the
white man against African-Americans, against Jews, against Hispanics,”
he said. “And I’m asking forgiveness, I’m asking you, I repent. I
repent! I’m asking you to forgive!”
So why was
MSNBC and the
New York Times finally
covering an event that had happened months before? Because the
Democrat, 44-year-old Stacey Abrams, a former leader in Georgia’s State
House of Representatives and also the first black woman in America to
win a major party nomination for Governor, had promised that if elected,
the monument featuring carved likenesses of General Robert E. Lee,
President Jefferson Davis, and General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson on
horseback; the Confederate equivalent to Mount Rushmore, would be
quickly blown off piece by piece with explosives.
James Henry Fetzer (born December 6, 1940) is a philosopher of science and conspiracy theorist. Since the late 1970s, Fetzer has worked on assessing and clarifying the forms and foundations of scientific explanation, probability in science, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of cognitive science, especially artificial intelligence and computer science.
