Notre Dame and 3 black churches

Don Lemon of CNN when reporting on the donors for Notre Dame rebuilding thought it part of that story to focus on the 3 black churches recently victims of arson. Donations for that went up too (although not for all the other French churches that have been torched, vandalized and desecrated in recent years.)

In the 1960s, church arson was a favorite tactic of--wait for it--Democrats in the South. Just like Jim Crow and KKK belongs to them. About 2 decades ago there was a rash of reported church fires, and a special commission was formed by Clinton to investigate. Then it was later disbanded--apparently only 16% were intentionally set, and some of those were to claim insurance. It seems that no one had been collecting the data, and when they did--guess what--all of a sudden big increase--just like the hate crimes skewed stats. And the news stories we would get about black churches came from a far left activist group, the Center for Democratic Renewal. There had actually been a dramatic decrease, not increase.

". . . the National Fire Protection Association. . . data don’t break down churches by race, they do show a dramatic drop in the number of church arsons — from 1,420 in 1980 to 520 in 1994. While arson committed against a house of worship is a heinous crime, it should be reassuring to know there have been far fewer recently [1996] than in years past.

So where did the story of black church burnings come from? It turns out the main source is the Center for Democratic Renewal, a group whose mission, says its promotional literature, is to work "with progressive activists and organizations to build a movement to counter right-wing rhetoric and public policy initiatives." Originally called the National Anti-Klan Network, it changed its name when the Klan largely fell apart in the 1980s. But instead of seeing that as a sign of declining bigotry, the CDR has continued for more than a decade to issue statements and reports "discovering" a sudden resurgence in racist activity." (Wall St. Journal, July 8, 1996)

So fomenting racial unrest is nothing new on the left--it's just been taken to a new level using a fire in France to a thousand year old cathedral as tinder.