Edward Hum – 10/3/14

This page was last updated on October 5, 2014.

Time to improve racial brotherhood; Edward J. Hum; Beaver County Times; October 3, 2014.

An editor’s note for a previous letter asserted, “The writer is a 1948 graduate of Geneva College.”

Mr. Hum has written more than 67 letters since mid-2004, including a 10-month hiatus from September 2007 to July 2008 and another from November 2012 to July 2014. Long after George W. Bush left office, most of Mr. Hum’s letters still are no more than exercises in bashing President Bush and/or other Republicans. Mr. Hum’s letters are also flame-throwing exercises. I don’t know if Mr. Hum actually believes what he writes, or if he simply likes to stir things up to call attention to himself.

Mr. Hum frequently includes “fellow Republicans” or something similar in his letters and is one of a group of local Republican impersonators (The group also includes Messrs. William A. Alexander, Arthur Brown, George Reese, and Oren M. Spiegler) who write claiming to be disgruntled Republicans. You have to give Mr. Hum “credit,” however, for going the extra mile to further his impersonation. As of September 2006, Mr. Hum was actually registered as a Republican despite the fact he’s no more a Republican than is Dennis Kucinich.

Given his body of work, for a while I wondered what Mr. Hum would use for subject matter now that Barack Obama is President. Mr. Hum wrote three letters in support of a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly (here, here, and here), then he reverted to his Bush-bashing habit, as in “Bush earns status as ‘most liberal.’” I guess some addictions are too tough to overcome. The last Hum letter I critiqued was entitled “Time to raise federal taxes.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“It is long past time for religious people to improve racial brotherhood in this great country.

“It seems especially overdue after spending a week in Branson, Mo., watching shows with white audiences hearing Gospel songs, jokes about a brain-dead White House and praying for a badly injured Ferguson cop.”

[RWC] Mr. Hum has guts throwing rocks. The guy who today is concerned about alleged “jokes about a brain-dead White House” referred to then-President George W. Bush as “about the dumbest president in the last 212 years.” What’s wrong with “praying for a badly injured Ferguson cop?”

“Blacks have been here since the early 1600s, long before most of our ancestors arrived. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War and after federal troops left the South, the KKK took over well into the 20th century. Still, we integrated the armed forces, got rid of separate and supposedly equal, and passed civil, voting and employment rights laws.”

[RWC] By “we” I hope Mr. Hum isn’t referring to his fellow lefties. The Democrat party is/was the party of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, and fought equal rights tooth and nail into the 1960s, even filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You can read more here, here, and here.

“We don’t have Little Italy or Hunky Alley any more, but we still have all-black neighborhoods. White evangelical Christians should imagine what would have happened it [sic] Trevon [sic] Martin had been white and had turned to stand his ground against a black guy. What if cattleman Clive [sic] Bundy and his militia had been black?”

[RWC] “We don’t have Little Italy or Hunky Alley any more [sic]?” Depending on the municipality, there are plenty of ethnic neighborhoods, especially in larger cities.

Uh, Mr. Hum’s Trayvon Martin hypothetical scenario is what happened, except the “white” guy was African-American (maternal great-grandfather), Peruvian-American (mother), and white (father).

What about Kayla Peterson of Beaver Falls? Where were the riots?

What if the Weavers (Ruby Ridge) and the Branch Davidians had been black?

“What to do? Maybe just what our Christian founder [sic] did -- get out and eat and drink with people.”

[RWC] As long as you don’t go to Branson? <g>