Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The past weeks of protest and riots have really messed with my mind.

I certainly am not against peaceful protests nor do I think anyone is.

However, the rioting and looting is over the top.

The rioting and looting only turns most Americans against the cause. I agree some police departments probably need reform. My son was a Pennsylvania State policeman for many years so I am very familiar with police procedures.

We can all argue why the Minneapolis policeman did what he did. We can discuss this for years and may never know his intentions. What does the rioting and looting accomplish?

I certainly don’t understand unless some people feel they are entitled to “free stuff” and a protest is their way of getting stuff and setting fires is their daily enjoyment.

Then I read in the newspaper, on the news and the internet that some people cut off the head of a statue of Christopher Columbus, put graffiti on other statues and that the Democrats with to remove all the Confederate statues in and around the Capitol, and that some people are proposing to rename the 10 Army forts that have a Confederate general’s name.  I am not going to debate in this article if keeping the statues is right or wrong, but the desecration of public property is wrong and doesn’t help their cause. I also saw the “Gone With the Wind” is now going to be deleted from HBO.

How can anyone deface a statue of Abraham Lincoln when he is the one who freed the slaves, but I guess that must have offended some of the Black Lives Matter people. Probably the most insulting idea is to have Nickelodeon remove “Paw Patrol” because it has a policeman and a police dog in the script. Keep the kids out of this mess.

Then, I read that Lady Antebellum is going to change their name to Lady A. because Antebellum has to do with the Civil War and slavery.

Who came up with the idea of defunding the police? If a person gets into a life or death situation, who are they going to call? Where is this going to end? Where do people come up with these ideas and can’t they see that doing these things will only inflame the situation when we all need to come together and discuss the issue as grown adults.

I am sure many people who live in Natchez are saying to themselves that this happening elsewhere and will not happen here. Don’t be surprised that if some day, if the attitudes don’t change in this country, some group doesn’t come into Natchez and demand that the antebellum houses in town that were constructed with slave labor get leveled.

My wife and I moved to Natchez 15 years ago to retire and I can tell you that living in other places in our lifetime that race relations here are much better than other areas of the county. However, we could have outside groups come in and create difficulties for our town. Let’s hope not.

Clark Feiser,

Natchez resident