BY BOB BEARDEN

Death by gun, the deadly season, continues and fear is a rising commodity. More and more police shootings of African Americans and nothing is done to stop it. The Donald sells fear as a weapon to end violence. With more deaths and more violence he ramps up the fear, hate and bigotry as an answer to making for us all a better world.

The scary part in this is the fact that more and more people seem to think that building walls will stop the hate, stop the fear, stop the bigotry. We are fast becoming a bunker, hunker down in our homes, hate and fear our neighbors, especially if they are of a different religion or a different color of skin, society.

And more and more people are buying guns as a way to end the fear, the hate, the bigotry.

We are a society where the answer to everything is more guns and more ammunition. And people like The Donald feed our hate, bigotry and fears by telling us that the way to end hate, fear and bigotry is with more hate, fear and bigotry.

And the scary part of that is more and more people seem to think that the more we spread fear, the more we spread hate, the more bigoted we become, the better things will get for us and our nation.

We are told by The Donald that fear of our neighbors is a good thing and that the more guns and ammunition we have, the better our world we be, because we can kill those who hate us and – guess what? – we will then have a world where love and peace will reign. WTF?

We worry about losing our freedoms and The Donald tells us that the way to be freer is to take away the freedoms and the rights of those he says we should hate. That by giving only rights and freedoms to certain segments of our society we as a people will then be free. Free from fear, free from hate and free from bigotry. WTF?

We are a nation of immigrants where the largest segment of our society is either immigrants or decedents of immigrants. But The Donald says we must hate immigrants because they are all rapists and murderers. So does that mean his ancestors and our ancestors were rapists and murderers?

FDR said in 1933, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” Today we are being told to fear everything and everyone. Fear breeds division and division fuels hate and bigotry. But the ramping up of hate and fear against one another buys a lot of votes. And if we allow fear, hatred and bigotry to rule our lives then we will be truly lost as a people and as a free nation.

As long as we allow charlatans the ilk of The Donald to feed our fears of each other, he wins and we lose. If he can make us believe that by fearing our neighbor, hating our neighbor and building a 50-foot wall to keep people out will somehow make our lives better and cause peace, love and goodwill to breakout in our nation, we really have become the most gullible people on earth.

We are in a dark place in this nation and The Donald only seeks to make things darker. We cannot let him do that. Dr. King said it best, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” We cannot bring peace and love back into season by the spreading of hate, bigotry and fear! If we as a people can’t understand that our world can’t work that way, then we as a nation and a people may truly be doomed.

– Bob Bearden, a trustee with the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation and a member of Mayflower Congregational Church, UCC in Oklahoma City, is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer