As I drove down Beal Parkway in Fort Walton Beach on a recent Monday, I viewed the signage that related to the inauguration of our president placed on a vacant lot along the roadside. I wondered what the person who posted the signs was thinking as he or she decided to make such views known to the community.
Did that person think about the color of those whose blood soaks the sands of the battlefield? Does that person understand that those who die are not all white? Does that person ever think about how those who are fighting and dying give their lives, in part, so that we have the freedom to think and speak freely, even if our thoughts and words are hateful and bigoted?
Our country is more divided today than I have ever seen, and those signs on Beal Parkway are not the only outlet for divisiveness in Fort Walton Beach. Local AM radio stations spend several hours each day encouraging it.
This is a military town. Many of our fellow citizens have witnessed war and the carnage that it brings. What do they think as they drive down Beal Parkway on the way to a job that was created to ensure our freedoms? What do they think when they hear a shock jock encourage taking up arms against our government?
As tourists arrive in our city, are hatred and racism the message we want to present?
— MICHAEL LEBERT
Fort Walton Beach