We’ve been reading the words “white supremacist” quite a bit these last several days.
White supremacy by its nature is a creed of fear, paranoia and hatred that leads to all kinds of bizarre justifications. Once someone starts regarding members of a certain race or faith as inferior or subhuman, it’s possible for such a person to think of anyone else they believe is “not one of us” as suspect, too.
These are people who are afraid. Some are quite volatile.
So how did three adults find it safe to be in the same house as J.T. Ready, and to allow a 15-month-old child in it? We may never know. They are all dead.
Five people died in Ready’s Gilbert home early Wednesday afternoon. Police say that a domestic dispute of some sort was taking place before Ready, 39, killed his girlfriend, her daughter, 15-month-old granddaughter, and her daughter’s fiancé before killing himself.
News reports this week have told of military-grade weaponry, illegal for civilians to own, being found in the home. Amber Mederos, 23, had a 15-month-old girl, Lily.
The Associated Press reported Friday that Heather Morton, a friend of Amber Mederos, said Ready had said that the child was 50 percent ugly because Lily was half Hispanic. The report quoted Morton as saying the couple and child moved out a few months ago.
But on Wednesday, all three were in the home where Amber’s mother, Ready’s girlfriend, Lisa Lynn Mederos, 47, still lived with Ready.
It proved to be a fatal decision to return.
The Anti-Defamation League knows much about white supremacists. Bill Straus, ADL regional director, told me Friday that for several years his organization has been observing Ready and concluded early on that he was a white supremacist who advocated violence.
Reasonable people, even unreasonable ones, can differ on the issue of illegal immigration without defining the people involved as inferior beings. But that was what Ready believed, as according to earlier statements by the ADL, in May 2010 Ready joined other white supremacists in handing out a flier that “was clearly directed at Hispanics, particularly Mexicans. ‘When Whites are outnumbered,’ the flier read, ‘history shows that they have always been raped, murdered and massacred by the non Whites. If you can provide one logical reason why this won’t occur here as well we want to hear from you,’” according to the ADL.
Straus said Ready, who ran unsuccessfully for several offices, “loved the camera” and was able to spread the message of bigotry beyond the members of extremist groups.
“People need to get the point also that we are constantly cautioning about people like J.T. because he put his arms around the rhetoric surrounding the immigration issue,” he said. “He was able to make that crossover from extreme to mainstream. And when that happens it’s really dangerous.”
Straus and ADL regional board chair Miriam Weisman issued a statement Thursday saying that “while to our knowledge he (Ready) had no previous personal record of domestic violence, ADL has tracked many incidents of white supremacist violence against women in recent years, including domestic violence.”
The statement further said that Ready “subscribed to an ideology that embraces hate and violence. It is a culture which sees violence as a solution to social, political and even personal problems.”
In his conversation with me Friday, Straus said his organization’s investigative research director told him that violence against women is “way more prevalent in the white supremacist world than the general populace.”
Those for whom violence is an acceptable part of life may have less hesitation about it, Straus said.
“The more familiar you are with something the more comfortable you are. Whether it’s your creed or philosophy, the more comfortable you are with it,” he said. “Pick up a military grade weapon a few hundred times and you’re going to think less of holding up a military grade weapon.”
And whatever keeps the rest of us from pointing a gun at those we love and pulling the trigger, it appears that such restraint wasn’t there in J.T. Ready.
Read Tribune contributing columnist Mark J. Scarp’s views here on Sundays. Watch his video commentaries, “On the Mark,” on eastvalleytribune.com. Reach him at mscarp1@cox.net.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 5:54 pm on Wed, May 9, 2012.
Funny how the Liberals, the Progressives, the Democrats and their Left-Wing TV and Newspaper media "fellow-travelers" always equate the word "White" with "Hate".
These people might want to go on YouTube and type in "Reginald Denny" and watch the video of Blacks showing "Hate" to innocent "Whites".
Racism cuts both ways..........White-hating Blacks and Black-hating Whites.
"CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG" (Rodney King).
Cerulean posted at 1:45 pm on Wed, May 9, 2012.
Rich,
There is the bell curve, and the associated tests. Then there is the test on physical body intelligence written on a basketball court or other tests that do not bend to the curve of a bell. Some people are smarter than others, there is no doubt; but at what? I watched a program on PBS several years ago about a mathematical genius who worked for a year on a proof for a theorem. He found the proof but in the process, he nearly went mad. There is a fine line between genius and insanity.
Many years ago I read Guns, Germs, and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years (the title has since changed to: The Fates of Human Societies) by Jared Diamond. Today one can skip the book and watch the documentary on youtube.
To me, Diamond is interesting. His theory examines how the environment influenced cultural differences and conquest one over another and the planet.
I also thought, Rich, that you might appreciate the humor in an illustration I found while I was looking up the meaning of lese-majesty. You can see it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lese-majesty
Dale – you are gifted. I love to read and hear your stories. I will always appreciate you conversation.
Rich posted at 7:04 pm on Mon, May 7, 2012.
"I heard a theory yesterday that liberals are more willing to examine change and in doing so, experiement to make things better. Conservatives think things are better and that change is some sort of conspiracy to ruin things, no doubt a plan formulated by the devil. Liberals tend to trust science. Conservatives distrust science. Science challenges assumptions that Conservative believe to be established fact."
What if you accept neither science nor 'established fact'? Science cannot establish a fact, it is empirical and no matter how many times you test it, the first 'black swan' crashes it. So I find experimenting with human beings more than a little sick. I think there is only one established fact, 'cogito ergo sum' because I can't doubt that I doubt. The rest is just a way to mess with you, to someone else's advantage. In short, can we get past both Liberals and Conservatives?
Masterrogue666 posted at 6:56 pm on Mon, May 7, 2012.
There are racists of every color and creed. There are also Non-racists of every color and creed. Better to judge a person by their actions, and not the color of their skin.
Hatred like that needs to end, but I fear it never will...
VofReason posted at 1:32 pm on Mon, May 7, 2012.
I pray for the people who lost their lives here and this guy just seemed like evil incarnate. I believe like the post above, why would you ever stay in that environment and worse put your children and grandchildren any where near it. Such bad decisions are not reason to lose your life. People need to take responsibility for themselves and be their own best ally.
Dale Whiting posted at 2:38 am on Mon, May 7, 2012.
Actually samkat,
Neither you nor I know one another well enough to judge what we might be like in person. And your point about my judgement of Pearce would be well taken but for the situation of my knowing people well who know Pearce personally and quite well. And trusting their judgement, I feel secure in talking about him. One of those persons spoke out in this newspaper during Pearce's recall campaign. But before that, I had predicted in comments that Pearce would support a candidate to siphone off votes from his chief opponent. That really did it for me. This is not honest and is the sign of a Latterday Saint who does not really know and practice his religion.
And over the years I too have had numerous room mates while on active duty. I never push until asked and then only mildly and with mutual respect. Otherwise how do you think I got all of those Muslims as friends? But when a fellow Mormon steps in it, voicing something contrary to principles, and many Neoconservative LDS do, I let them know of their contradictions as softly as I can. And I am not alone. There are many others like me, patiently waiting for the right moment to speak up, then listen for reasonable responses. Far too often, the responses lack reason.[smile]
samkat posted at 9:51 pm on Sun, May 6, 2012.
Dale: I sense a little bit of bias on your part towards Russell Pearce. While I have never met the man, I doubt that he is as bad as you make him out to be. From the accounts I have read about his encounter with Ready is that he had no idea he was a White Supremacist and broke his ties with Ready when that fact was revealed. In fact, i am really surprised that you would even speak ill of him since I thought it was a Mormon thing to not speak negatively about another Mormon.
You remind me of a room mate I had in the Air Force some 55 years ago. He made my life a living hell for almost a year until I finally managed to move out of the room. He thought it was his mission to prostalize me every day even though I made it plain that I was not interested in becoming a Mormon.
I don't mind good natured sparring with you or anyone else online but I do take issue with constantly being belittled for taking a different view and no I am not interested in meeting with you one on one.
Dale Whiting posted at 7:09 am on Sun, May 6, 2012.
Rich,
You are still poplar with me, now more popular than ever.
I heard a theory yesterday that liberals are more willing to examine change and in doing so, experiement to make things better. Conservatives think things are better and that change is some sort of conspiracy to ruin things, no doubt a plan formulated by the devil. Liberals tend to trust science. Conservatives distrust science. Science challenges assumptions that Conservative believe to be established fact.
When I met with k33j88, I tried to illustrate for him what events in my early life taught me to not fear change and to be open to those who were different. His eyes glazed over. He just could not see how his life and mine, differing in experience as they do, naturally lead us to reach different conclusions about how to approach matters.
Here we have Ready, a failure at most everything he tried, taking up causes that blamed others, not himself. He surely was a social misfit. And his fears seemed to center on illegal immigrants. Not much different from Russell Pearce, who as a career law enforcment officer, divided groups into good guys wearing white hats and bad guys crossing the border wearing black hats. That these two had things in common sufficient to have Pearce 'recruit' ready into my faith only serves to give me fodder to work with others of my faith to help them see the light. Closed groups close their minds to outsiders, outsiders my faith commands me to love all others. kj just can't see this.
So, yes, let's have that debate. Those of us who have personal experience sufficient to know better, that differences between races, cultures, genders and even gender orientation do not signal inferiority will not be diswaded. First hand experience will not be overcome. Those like Pearce and Ready whose first hand experience never lead to coming to know, appreciate and value differences will not be easily moved to change.
Have any of you fearmongering Neocons out there made any friends of others not sharing you culture and beliefs yet? If you do, CAUTION. You'll become quite uncomfortable. Liberals like Cerulean are not affraid.
Cerulean, want to meet somewhere? As you can see, Rich and I know that this topic is not ammenable to rational analysis. I'd love to share my experiences in dealing with irrationals who have questioned change. One will surprise you. Acting behind the scenes, he helped forumlate a change that impacted policies in my faith like no other change had done in almost 100 years.
mvccd1000 posted at 12:41 am on Sun, May 6, 2012.
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call all of these victims innocent. Anyone who knowingly enters into a relationship with someone so ignorant and bigoted surely must expect that something like this could happen at some point. I get tired of reading all the stories of "innocent victims" who kept going back to their abusers, kept refusing to press charges, kept posting bail, etc. At some point they became complicit in their own treatment.
Rich posted at 11:12 pm on Sat, May 5, 2012.
Cerulean,
The subject itself is not approached rationally. There is an accepted norm, a belief, not facts or even empirical data. In fact empirical data, for example, Murray and Herrnstein's The Bell Curve, are dismissed in flames of irrational argument, not discussed. The fact is for about three centuries the top man on the totem pole was white worldwide. Since 1945 the reason doesn't get studied, examined or discussed outside of nutball ravings, which, as you pointed out, get covered. I don't really accept the idea that being white, despite being white myself, makes you automatically smarter, quicker or better. I do accept an existential view that we are all individuals. But I think I would like to see what racial traits might make you better, understand you better, understand society better. And when the data, the thoughts to help you understand that are censored, or grist for the mill of Mr. Ready, with pics on line from the EVT, the fact that wife, my children, my grandchildren are different races, ethnicities and religions, causes me pause. Of course, if you are white, I understand lese majeste.
Cerulean posted at 9:48 pm on Sat, May 5, 2012.
This is a good column Mark. Mr. Ready was a loose cannon and while I sympathize for his girlfriend and her family it may be a good thing that Mr. Ready is gone. I have also read that he was part of a vigilante group who regularly spent time near the US/Mexican border hunting people.
Rich,
I am confused by your comment. Are you suggesting that Ready did not have a voice, even a following in Arizona? He certainly had the ear of Russell Pearce who is up for Senate reelection. It is my sense that racist individuals get their views published regularly in the opinion sections of this forum and it doesn’t read like dialectic either, it reads like ‘Ding, ding, ding! We have our award for biggest racist A - - on the boards today’.
Slabside posted at 9:08 pm on Sat, May 5, 2012.
Rich, I concur. Well said.
Rich posted at 7:57 pm on Sat, May 5, 2012.
I'm not going to win any popularity contests with this one. And I do want to state that. since the philosophy would call my children, and grandchildren inferior, I don't agree with it, I still take issue with "White supremacy by its nature is a creed of fear, paranoia and hatred that leads to all kinds of bizarre justifications." This is the kind of censorship, denigration and nonsense that causes people like Mr. Ready and others such as Mr.Breivik in Norway.It is a valid cultural anthropological hypothesis. Read someone like Madison Grant, and refute him logically, rationally without emotion. Since WWII, since the losing side accepted it, it has been pushed into a corner, not discussed, not subject to dialectic, only denigration and censorship. Because it has, things like Mr. Scarp has written has had as much or more to do with people like Mr. Ready as the philosophy. I'm not defending the philosophy, in fact I've lived for the last forty years proving it false. Discuss it, make it normal, before you push another nutball into a corner, and my children pay the price. If you continue to push it into a corner, it's just starting to bite.
aluap posted at 6:30 pm on Sat, May 5, 2012.
this just shows how messed up our political system is. a man stealing a loaf of bread for his family would be in jail...yet this known monster was out walking the streets of arizona and this is allowed. where was the sheriff while these innocent people were dying? the american justice system is not working and because of politics people are dying in vain. need to get rid of people like JA (sheriff)