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Understanding Racism in America
7-30-2k10
By CJ Davidson
The last Civil War cost 110,070 American lives. Most people believe it was fought and won to abolish the institution of slavery, which it did.
The teaching of racism in Southern America can be examined in economic and political terms as well as racial anxiety…revenge. Slavery has been a financial tradition and commodity since African slaves were brought to Spanish Florida as early as the 1560s. As this free labor built an aristocratic and prosperous south, three hundred years of violent slave trade could only be driven and maintained through a brutal and primordial belief system…racism.
But the South is where the Bible belt thrives with a church on every corner and a Bible in every hand. How could such a religious region with such absolute ties to Christianity ever allow such an inhumane system to pepetuate? The crux of racism allows for a “non-human” or “sub-human status” attitude toward a group of individuals for the purpose of hatred and violence. It is easier to own and kill slaves if they are not considered human, true?
From 1933 to 1945, the populace of Germany used this same “sub-human” creed, allowing 6 million Jews to be murdered, ad hock. The same genocidal “non-human” status was employed by an expanding America as it wiped out nation after nation of Native Americans. Our “Manifest Destiny” allowed us to look upon the natives as “beasts” and godless animals, thus allowing “good Christian” Americans to annihilate them and take their land in the name of “progress”. Throughout world history hate has been used as a powerful tool for political as well as economic gain.
The basic motives for slavery and the teaching of hate become much more concrete and clear when seen in the context of economics. As compassionate and humane as Lincoln was, most scholars believe the ONLY way to bring a wealthy, arrogant and rebellious South to its knees was through its pocketbook. Eliminating the institution of slavery was a shattering blow to a prosperous southern economy, whose centuries of racism have been firmly embedded within its society and these racial teachings obviously still exist.
As the question of secession was violently nullified in 1865 with the Surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox, the teachings of racism still persisted.
The problem with the Civil War is that it never erased racism or attempted to re-educate from false attitudes of “non-humanship”, the primary mechanism driving slavery and hatred. Southern States, to this day have never forgiven the Northern States. Today, the original 13 Confederate States STILL exists and the original Confederate flag (The Stars and Bars) flaps freely and openly in some southern states and Klu Klux Klan rallies.
In fact, the end of the Civil War brought an end to the short-lived Confederate States of America (1861–65). Southeastern United States maintained a provincial sense and desire for the South to "rise again". Neo-Confederate organizations like the League of the South and an independent Southern Party called for the 10 southern states, popularly known as "Dixie" to have the right of states to secede from the Union or to legally able to nullify federal laws. This argument persists today with the peaceful and annual secession requests of such states as Texas, Hawaii, and Alaska. As demonstrated, these motives are usually ethnic or regional, as the Federal Government simply responds back with a peaceful. “No thanks”, via congressional vote.
Abolition, according to Wikipedia:
“Abolitionism was a movement in western Europe and the Americas to end the slave trade and set slaves free. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical religious groups condemned it as un-Christian. Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, they had little immediate effect on the centers of slavery: the West Indies, South America, and the Southern United States. The Somersett's case in 1772 that emancipated slaves in England helped launch the movement to abolish slavery.”
The emancipation and abolition of slavery in England in 1772 occurred nearly a CENTURY before America took armed action against it in 1861.
Why did it take so long to abolish slavery in America?
As Wikipedia states,
The Confederate States of America had an agrarian-based economy that relied heavily on slave-worked plantations for the production of cotton for export to Europe and the northern US states. If ranked as an independent nation, it would have been the fourth richest country of the world in 1860.[1]
Four hundred years of wealth and prosperity was brought to an abrupt end, free labor was gone and the South was chastised by Radical Republicans after Lincoln’s assassination. James Wilkes Booth not only murdered the conqueror of the South, but he also killed the last vestige of Southern compassion regarding post Civil War reconstruction. Lincoln was geared toward a humane and respectful reconstruction of a battered South, whereas his radical Republican party wished to make the south pay with harsh laws and humiliation. As was the case with 1918 Germany, they were kicked when they were down, spawning Southern anger and resentments that persist to this day.
This economic & political resentment is still prevalent through the use of hatred toward blacks and The Federal Government. Barak Obama fits both criteria. Anxieties of black reprisals against southern inhumanities are fanned and exploited by conservative and racial media despite Obama’s “Mandela” approach of reconciliation. To the uneducated, bigoted redneck in the mountains, Obama is merely “white man’s property with a college education”, just as they were taught from the beginning of slavery in the Americas in the 1500s.
To understand this “economic resentment” clearly, we can use the current US attitude toward Cuba (who abolished slavery in 1833)
Despite our “communist” reasons for the Cuban embargo, human rights, etc., true American resentments are economic. Since the end of the Spanish-American War in 1 January 1899 America’s United Fruit owned approximately 80% of Cuban plantations and GDP through corporate and government corruption, essentially turning Havana into it’s own little whorehouse and playground. This of course was abruptly cut-off in 1959 by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, denying corporate America of billions in yearly profits and as The Cuban Revolution adopted Marxism, they were demonized, vilified and sanctioned to this day.
If our concerns for against communist states and human rights were valid, Communist China would be facing the same embargo as Communist Cuba, instead of a $69 Billion dollar trade status.
As we reflect on the reasons to use hatred and racism in America, we see that it can only be remedied through educating children properly against it, but these hateful teaching still persists, despite the bloodshed from 1861-1865. Is the reduction demonizing of education a catalyst for racist doctrine? Quite possibly it is. There were no plantations in England or aristocratic society thriving in England when slavery was abolished, no regional conflicts to cause regional resentments. There was no reason to teach racism, as it was not dependent on economic prosperity.
To the current questions posed to me, “Are we headed for Second Civil War here in America?”
Quite possibly.
My answer: Since those spewing hatred, violence and racism do not read books or history exemplifying the dangers of such ethnic behaviors they will never understand the suffering and meat-grinder era our nation faced.. The hateful refuse to read of the 110,070 American lives America spent to cease slavery. The bigoted do not research the 6 million Jews exterminated during World War 2. Ignorance is a breeding ground for fear, anger and hatred and is mostly encouraged by powers looking to blame another class of people to hide their own faults or sins, such as Germany in 1933. Politics needs scapegoats. Progress and profit demand enemies, we can therefore fabricate them despite logic and rational thinking; human beings can be Un-humanized and dehumanized though family tradition, misinformation and propaganda.
If this perpetual exacerbation of racial disharmony continues, we (the non-racists) will have to employ the same methods as General William Tecumseh Sherman: “We will give them total war until they can no longer wage war.” Is violence against violence the answer? Brother and sister against fellow American inevitable? Quite possibly as Winston Churchill declared, “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” It appears we are quite doomed to relive civil war hell, under the current racially inflamed overtones.
And what of racism?
If a racist state can rationally sterilize its victims for the good of the state, can a NON-racist state rationally sterilize racists for the same preservation of the state?
As in Germany 1933, the result of condoning hatred and violence lead to that’s state’s downfall and inevitable obliteration at the hands of NON-racist nations who simply had their fill of hatred.
But perhaps we can inform and educate without prejudice, anger or hatred. Perhaps we can save our nation from imploding from within by ignoring racial slurs, ethnic jokes and bigoted overtones. Maybe we can preserve our country, as the pledge goes…”ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISABLE WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.” Not just a few.
If, just ONE little redneck kid, after being taught racism and hateful epithets reads this and reflects on the WRONGNESS of hate and REFUSES BIGOTRY and ANGER, my reasons for writing this, my show and my mortal existence will be validated.
CJ Davidson |
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