By EZRAH AHARONE 5/2011
There’s a political and planetary solar system at work, where the earth revolves around the sun, while it comprises near-200 nations that revolve around various interests and ideologies that cooperate, compete, and clash.
In short, regardless of norms or ideals, no government or society has escaped the gravitational pull of geopolitics and globalization, which are bookend forces that configure today’s “balance of power” to the advantage of select nations while – either artfully or inadvertently – breeding seeds of terrorism along the way.
Globalization in benign terms refers to the world’s ever-growing interconnectedness via common markets, technology, and development. Within this necessary interdependency however, colonial-like political and corporate arrangements are maintained whereby power and wealth remain largely concentrated within the orbital grips of Western nations and institutions. This is reflected in the 67-year-old Bretton Woods outcome whereby only Americans would head the World Bank and only Europeans would head the IMF. Hence, the EU’s adamancy that former-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who resigned amid rape charges) must unquestionably be replaced by a European.
Geopolitics in benign terms concerns the relationship between geography and politics . . . a government’s legitimate activities in domestic and foreign territories. But from an operational standpoint of certain governments to safeguard or advance their economic, security, and foreign policy interests, geopolitics doubles as a sneaky codeword for the political muscling, coddling, and/or finessing of particular nations that have strategic value or pose threats, based on factors including location, resources, intelligence, terrorism and military implications.
Invariably, classified operations ensue that the world public never knows or imagines because, along with geopolitics comes foreign intrigue, domestic deception of citizens, and manipulation of media, as governments jostle for upsmanship in a globalized pecking-order for world power.
As such, the US has long played a dangerous game of “geopolitical roulette” in places like Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which – not unrelated – are places that it now identifies as hotbeds for terrorist networks. President Richard Nixon, who set modern precedents for America’s geopolitical approach to foreign relations, wrote in The Real War (1980) about maintaining geopolitical leverage in the Middle East and Africa, saying early on Page 3: “We have to recover the geopolitical momentum, marshaling and using our resources in the tradition of a great power . . . We must recognize the relationship between strategic resources and patterns of world trade, between economic productivity and military might.”
Accordingly, in roulette fashion, the US has no permanent enemies or permanent friends around Middle East territory, except for Israel. Even Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak became disposable after 30 years of expediency. Geopolitical relations have vacillated based on oil interests and the degree to which Arab governments are amenable to US policies. Iran for example received billions in support after a known CIA-engineered coup installed Shah Pahlavi (1967-1979). But once Ayatollah Khomeini ruled Iran, America propped and supplied Saddam Hussein in Iraqi’s war against Iran (1980-1988).
Saddam later fell from geopolitical grace when his 1990 attempt to annex Kuwait jeopardized US oil stability. He thereafter became the terrorist face of “What’s Wrong With the World,” until 9/11, when Osama Bin Laden unforgivably bit America’s geopolitical hand that fed him during the Afghan Mujahideen war against the Soviets (1979-1989).
Once Bin Laden went turncoat, the US played roulette with Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf, ignoring all warning signals . . . Musharraf already had active sanctions imposed for his 1999 coup; his government was one of few with diplomatic relations with the former Taliban government in Afghanistan; and Pakistan had violated international arms agreements by obtaining missile technology from China and conducting nuclear weapons tests.
On September 11th 2001 Musharraf was therefore ostracized as a “military dictator.” Nevertheless, by September 12th 2001 in haste to avenge Bin Laden, the US began to geopolitically reincarnate the “military dictator” into the honorable stature and media image of “President Musharraf.” He was coddled and gift-wrapped over $1 billion for his allegiance against terrorism, and Pakistan was seduced with over $20 billion since.
After a near-decade of this wobbly courtship, along with thinking Bin Laden was a desolate cave-dweller in Afghanistan; he was paradoxically caught and killed in – of all places – Pakistan, where he’d lived unbothered for years with his family in a million dollar urban compound in – of all places – a military neighborhood.
While the US consequently suspects Pakistan of consorting with al-Qaeda, Pakistan resents that the US conducted the raid unannounced. To teach America a geopolitical lesson in return, Pakistan denied the US further access to the compound and refused to handover wreckage of the abandoned “special forces helicopter” for 2 weeks. Eye-for-eye, it’s well plausible that Pakistan even accommodated China’s suspected overtures to “reverse engineer” the copter’s technology, especially knowing China has since awarded Pakistan 50 fighter jets.
The world is locked into a rotational axis where geopolitics, globalization, and terrorism are fixed realities. And since America’s globalized-edge is predicated upon strategic resources like oil, the US cannot discontinue its risky proneness of trying to rent or convert Arab allies who are just as diametric to Americanization as Americanization is to them. So irrespective of the president’s color, America will duplicitously continue to abet regimes that it may afterwards seek to violently dismantle – under the pretext of “fighting for freedom.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two acclaimed political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@EzrahSpeaks.com.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Black History and Vindicationalism
By EZRAH AHARONE 2/2011
As we celebrate another Black History Month during these political times of world turmoil and uprise, it’s important for America to project a world image that it has “turned the page” of racism in its own blood-stained history. And while the relevance of this month has even been called into question since the advent of a Black president, I’m reminded of the African proverb that: “Until the lion has his historian, the hunter will always be the hero.”
As such, when it comes to slavery and what is popularly categorized as “Black History,” America practices the seductive allure of what I call “Historical Vindicationalism,” where the harsh realities of events and narratives are masked and sterilized, while the end-product of Americanization gets epitomized as being lofty-enough to excuse and acquit the otherwise flagrant inhumanities of its means. Thus, we as African Americans are psychologically expected to deem the inflicted pains of our history as well worth the ascribed value of the prize of Americanization.
Vindicationalism incubates historically and thrives unsuspectingly in various imposed forms and expressions. In government for example, partisan members convened the 112th Congress with a showy display of patriotism by ceremoniously taking turns reading the US Constitution. This was great political theater, especially for the viewing world audience, but what went largely unreported is that they propitiously skipped portions related to slavery . . . knowing that such uncut historical truths would naturally corrode the perceived integrity of the document and vainglory of the occasion.
What also should not go unrecognized is that, the political ease of which Congress omitted references of slavery, stems from an overall greater political ease whereby Congress has ignored the unbroken link of causational inequities that 2½ centuries of slavery have systemically and endemically produced.
Upon seemingly inhaling the same vindicationalist fumes, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who gave the Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, remarked in a subsequent speech that “the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.” While she is wholly incorrect, this typifies a pervading psyche and a form of vindicationalism wherein Americans hold unconditional reverence for people and events of the 18th century, in ways that give near-Biblical inferences to the founding fathers and founding documents.
As such, even though slavery is invariably and universally “wrong,” vindicationalism requires that we however are not to regard it as “wrong enough” to repudiate the character or diminish the greatness of the founding fathers. Interestingly, to defend their historical imprint and further their just cause for posterity, Jewish cultures for instance avow unapologetically to “never forget,” while we seem resigned to fecklessly prefer “not to consider” the adversarial conduct of those historically responsible for our harm. Since this would equate to political blasphemy on our part, men of Thomas Jefferson’s ilk are historically depicted at-worst as being benignly “complex and ambivalent,” rather than “immoral and inhumane.”
To limit propaganda, nations should recount history with accurate terminologies since omissions, additions, embellishments and/or misplacements of words can distort facts to the point where false perceptions can become misleadingly disguised as irrefutable truths. Euro-Americans understand both the dangers and advantages of word-manipulations, which is exactly why people in US courts are not merely demanded to swear on the Bible to just “tell the truth” . . . They must swear all-inclusively to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Mark Twain emphasized the importance of word-use, saying “Use the right word and not its second cousin” and “The difference between the right word and almost the right word, is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” Nevertheless, in another example of vindicationalism, his 19th-century classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was recently cleansed of all 219 mentions of the “N-Word,” which he deliberately used to capture America’s racial “lightning” that still strikes in this 21st century.
Vindicationalism works however to camouflage racism and the horrors of our history into sugar-coated blends with modern media, politics, and education. Students at Grover Cleveland Middle School in New Jersey for example, were assigned to “write catchy slogans and advertisements for why slave labor was the best way to run cotton plantations.” One slogan read: “Got Slaves? Get Cash and Get Some.” Black professor Stacey Patton of Montclair State responded saying: “It is important for students to understand both sides,” while Rutgers University professor Clement Price didn’t have a problem “teaching the past through several lenses.”
Based on the overall vindicationalist nature of America’s system of education, experts and authorities will commonly impart “sides and lenses” that intellectually rationalize and reconcile America’s historical depravity. Conversely, there is no such academic lens to legitimize catchy ads or slogans about the other side to 9/11 or the Holocaust, and neither would the rank and file of Black or White professors intellectually defend it.
In fighting for freedom, Thomas Paine warned about such distorted thinking which satisfies the sociopolitical expediency of others, saying, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” So, if “the truth sets you free,” then we as African Americans need political outlooks and historical interpretations beyond today’s vindicationalist versions and time-warped customs which deify Americanization in ways that are both highly disingenuous and factually untrue.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two acclaimed political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@EzrahSpeaks.com.
As we celebrate another Black History Month during these political times of world turmoil and uprise, it’s important for America to project a world image that it has “turned the page” of racism in its own blood-stained history. And while the relevance of this month has even been called into question since the advent of a Black president, I’m reminded of the African proverb that: “Until the lion has his historian, the hunter will always be the hero.”
As such, when it comes to slavery and what is popularly categorized as “Black History,” America practices the seductive allure of what I call “Historical Vindicationalism,” where the harsh realities of events and narratives are masked and sterilized, while the end-product of Americanization gets epitomized as being lofty-enough to excuse and acquit the otherwise flagrant inhumanities of its means. Thus, we as African Americans are psychologically expected to deem the inflicted pains of our history as well worth the ascribed value of the prize of Americanization.
Vindicationalism incubates historically and thrives unsuspectingly in various imposed forms and expressions. In government for example, partisan members convened the 112th Congress with a showy display of patriotism by ceremoniously taking turns reading the US Constitution. This was great political theater, especially for the viewing world audience, but what went largely unreported is that they propitiously skipped portions related to slavery . . . knowing that such uncut historical truths would naturally corrode the perceived integrity of the document and vainglory of the occasion.
What also should not go unrecognized is that, the political ease of which Congress omitted references of slavery, stems from an overall greater political ease whereby Congress has ignored the unbroken link of causational inequities that 2½ centuries of slavery have systemically and endemically produced.
Upon seemingly inhaling the same vindicationalist fumes, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who gave the Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, remarked in a subsequent speech that “the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.” While she is wholly incorrect, this typifies a pervading psyche and a form of vindicationalism wherein Americans hold unconditional reverence for people and events of the 18th century, in ways that give near-Biblical inferences to the founding fathers and founding documents.
As such, even though slavery is invariably and universally “wrong,” vindicationalism requires that we however are not to regard it as “wrong enough” to repudiate the character or diminish the greatness of the founding fathers. Interestingly, to defend their historical imprint and further their just cause for posterity, Jewish cultures for instance avow unapologetically to “never forget,” while we seem resigned to fecklessly prefer “not to consider” the adversarial conduct of those historically responsible for our harm. Since this would equate to political blasphemy on our part, men of Thomas Jefferson’s ilk are historically depicted at-worst as being benignly “complex and ambivalent,” rather than “immoral and inhumane.”
To limit propaganda, nations should recount history with accurate terminologies since omissions, additions, embellishments and/or misplacements of words can distort facts to the point where false perceptions can become misleadingly disguised as irrefutable truths. Euro-Americans understand both the dangers and advantages of word-manipulations, which is exactly why people in US courts are not merely demanded to swear on the Bible to just “tell the truth” . . . They must swear all-inclusively to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Mark Twain emphasized the importance of word-use, saying “Use the right word and not its second cousin” and “The difference between the right word and almost the right word, is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” Nevertheless, in another example of vindicationalism, his 19th-century classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was recently cleansed of all 219 mentions of the “N-Word,” which he deliberately used to capture America’s racial “lightning” that still strikes in this 21st century.
Vindicationalism works however to camouflage racism and the horrors of our history into sugar-coated blends with modern media, politics, and education. Students at Grover Cleveland Middle School in New Jersey for example, were assigned to “write catchy slogans and advertisements for why slave labor was the best way to run cotton plantations.” One slogan read: “Got Slaves? Get Cash and Get Some.” Black professor Stacey Patton of Montclair State responded saying: “It is important for students to understand both sides,” while Rutgers University professor Clement Price didn’t have a problem “teaching the past through several lenses.”
Based on the overall vindicationalist nature of America’s system of education, experts and authorities will commonly impart “sides and lenses” that intellectually rationalize and reconcile America’s historical depravity. Conversely, there is no such academic lens to legitimize catchy ads or slogans about the other side to 9/11 or the Holocaust, and neither would the rank and file of Black or White professors intellectually defend it.
In fighting for freedom, Thomas Paine warned about such distorted thinking which satisfies the sociopolitical expediency of others, saying, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” So, if “the truth sets you free,” then we as African Americans need political outlooks and historical interpretations beyond today’s vindicationalist versions and time-warped customs which deify Americanization in ways that are both highly disingenuous and factually untrue.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two acclaimed political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@EzrahSpeaks.com.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Culture, Constitution, and Religious Conformity
By Ezrah Aharone 10/10
The Juan Williams incident and the rhetoric of Bill O’Reilly that caused Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to walkoff the set of The View, fan the flames of an unbroken theme in history where no other “belief” has arguably been as unifying yet divisive, peaceful yet violent as religion.
Although the proposed Mosque at Ground Zero is widening the gap of intolerance between some Christians and Muslims, the tragedy of 9-11 (which involved extremist Muslims) is no more a window into Islam than the Atlantic Slave Trade (which involved extremist Christians) is a window into Christianity. Extremists have historically slain innumerable others in the name of all 3 major faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
And just as there are doctrinal distinctions among the world’s estimated 1.9 billion Christians such as Mormons, Anglicans, Catholics and Coptics of Ethiopia in East Africa, there are likewise distinctions among the world’s estimated 1.6 billion Muslims such as Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadiyyas and Murids of Senegal in West Africa. So it’s either dimwitted or deliberate agitation for someone like O’Reilly, who is Harvard-educated, to wholesale indict and generalize that “Muslims killed Americans on 9-11.”
While the masses of Christians would never fathom blowing-up a building as did Timothy McVeigh, the masses of Muslims would likewise never fathom flying an airplane into skyscrapers as on 9-11. But let’s be unpopularly frank but true about something . . . Islam, in any form, has been historically depreciated by this establishment as being alien and adverse to the cultural and ideological makeup of Americanization.
Whether you agree or disagree with his comments or firing, this stigmatic view of Islam adds to why an otherwise cosmopolitan Black man like Juan Williams is orientated to get spooked if he “sees people in Muslim garbs boarding airplanes.”
Mosques and Muslims have long been viewed by this establishment with national security concerns that predate 9-11, given that Islamic theology and practices reside mostly outside of Westernized input and influence. In a certain sense, Islam is classified somewhat as being a quasi political, judicial, and cultural system-unto-itself, that competes far more than it complements Americanization.
Quite contrary to the presumption of being a compassionate “welcoming call” to embrace “all religions,” America was constitutionally founded with Freedom of Religion as a safeguard to prevent theocratic rule. It was never meant to harbinger all religions to come and culturally or ideologically saturate society. Hence, when it comes to religious freedoms, there have always been seeming breaches between “culture and constitution” as the mosque in question fittingly demonstrates.
The concept of Freedom of Religion is one thing, constitutionally. But culturally, the Anglo-Saxon diaspora of this nation is wedded unequivocally to Protestant brands of Christianity that are nationalistically bundled with patriotism and militarism . . . Which is why Christmas, for example, is the only state-recognized religious holiday; and why Congress decreed 1983 as the “Year of the Bible,” proclaiming that Biblical beliefs led to America’s settlement; and why soldiers are mandated by the Oath of Enlistment to “Solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States . . . so help [them] God.”
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who “interprets” the constitution, remarked that “A religious-neutral government does not fit with an America that reflects belief in God in everything from its money to its military.” As such, US Protestantism is politically allied with Judaism and Catholicism, and despite all the hype about religious freedoms, there’s always been an unexpressed yet well-understood “cultural expectancy” and “nationalistic thrust” for all other Americans to conform accordingly.
In fact, another unpopular but frank truth is that, African Americans are largely Protestant – not because of Freedom of Religion – but because Euro-Americans are largely Protestant. Our “style” of worship differs, but because our enslavement was so complete, our religious precepts are mirror replicas of theirs, even though Christianity has various doctrinal distinctions as earlier cited. Due to their rigors, if they hypothetically were Buddhists, the majority of us would no doubt be Buddhists too.
This same thrust of conformity and expectancy is precisely what pressurized President Obama – after he seemingly expressed support for the mosque – to straddle the fuzzy line between “culture and constitution,” by saying he wasn’t commenting on the “wisdom,” but rather the “right” of Muslims to build the mosque.
With the looming Tea Partiers and Glenn Beck idealists, coupled with 20 percent of Americans thinking he’s a closet Muslim, Obama is under a religious microscope like no other president. He must coat each word with caution whenever he speaks about Islam, Israel, or Middle East politics, so that he isn’t perceived as being a “Muslim sympathizer” or veering from the long-held cultural traditionalism that politically synchronizes America’s “faith and foreign policy.”
At core, the mosque controversy isn’t merely about religious freedom. Nor is the Juan Williams matter merely about free speech. And certain criticisms against Obama aren’t mere partisan differences.
On a deeper level, these issues are indicators that the conformed ways of the original paradigms of Americanization are colliding with today’s multiethnic paradigms, causing the erstwhile boundaries of freedom and equality to be stretched to limits that Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries never imagined or intended.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two acclaimed political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org.
The Juan Williams incident and the rhetoric of Bill O’Reilly that caused Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to walkoff the set of The View, fan the flames of an unbroken theme in history where no other “belief” has arguably been as unifying yet divisive, peaceful yet violent as religion.
Although the proposed Mosque at Ground Zero is widening the gap of intolerance between some Christians and Muslims, the tragedy of 9-11 (which involved extremist Muslims) is no more a window into Islam than the Atlantic Slave Trade (which involved extremist Christians) is a window into Christianity. Extremists have historically slain innumerable others in the name of all 3 major faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
And just as there are doctrinal distinctions among the world’s estimated 1.9 billion Christians such as Mormons, Anglicans, Catholics and Coptics of Ethiopia in East Africa, there are likewise distinctions among the world’s estimated 1.6 billion Muslims such as Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadiyyas and Murids of Senegal in West Africa. So it’s either dimwitted or deliberate agitation for someone like O’Reilly, who is Harvard-educated, to wholesale indict and generalize that “Muslims killed Americans on 9-11.”
While the masses of Christians would never fathom blowing-up a building as did Timothy McVeigh, the masses of Muslims would likewise never fathom flying an airplane into skyscrapers as on 9-11. But let’s be unpopularly frank but true about something . . . Islam, in any form, has been historically depreciated by this establishment as being alien and adverse to the cultural and ideological makeup of Americanization.
Whether you agree or disagree with his comments or firing, this stigmatic view of Islam adds to why an otherwise cosmopolitan Black man like Juan Williams is orientated to get spooked if he “sees people in Muslim garbs boarding airplanes.”
Mosques and Muslims have long been viewed by this establishment with national security concerns that predate 9-11, given that Islamic theology and practices reside mostly outside of Westernized input and influence. In a certain sense, Islam is classified somewhat as being a quasi political, judicial, and cultural system-unto-itself, that competes far more than it complements Americanization.
Quite contrary to the presumption of being a compassionate “welcoming call” to embrace “all religions,” America was constitutionally founded with Freedom of Religion as a safeguard to prevent theocratic rule. It was never meant to harbinger all religions to come and culturally or ideologically saturate society. Hence, when it comes to religious freedoms, there have always been seeming breaches between “culture and constitution” as the mosque in question fittingly demonstrates.
The concept of Freedom of Religion is one thing, constitutionally. But culturally, the Anglo-Saxon diaspora of this nation is wedded unequivocally to Protestant brands of Christianity that are nationalistically bundled with patriotism and militarism . . . Which is why Christmas, for example, is the only state-recognized religious holiday; and why Congress decreed 1983 as the “Year of the Bible,” proclaiming that Biblical beliefs led to America’s settlement; and why soldiers are mandated by the Oath of Enlistment to “Solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States . . . so help [them] God.”
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who “interprets” the constitution, remarked that “A religious-neutral government does not fit with an America that reflects belief in God in everything from its money to its military.” As such, US Protestantism is politically allied with Judaism and Catholicism, and despite all the hype about religious freedoms, there’s always been an unexpressed yet well-understood “cultural expectancy” and “nationalistic thrust” for all other Americans to conform accordingly.
In fact, another unpopular but frank truth is that, African Americans are largely Protestant – not because of Freedom of Religion – but because Euro-Americans are largely Protestant. Our “style” of worship differs, but because our enslavement was so complete, our religious precepts are mirror replicas of theirs, even though Christianity has various doctrinal distinctions as earlier cited. Due to their rigors, if they hypothetically were Buddhists, the majority of us would no doubt be Buddhists too.
This same thrust of conformity and expectancy is precisely what pressurized President Obama – after he seemingly expressed support for the mosque – to straddle the fuzzy line between “culture and constitution,” by saying he wasn’t commenting on the “wisdom,” but rather the “right” of Muslims to build the mosque.
With the looming Tea Partiers and Glenn Beck idealists, coupled with 20 percent of Americans thinking he’s a closet Muslim, Obama is under a religious microscope like no other president. He must coat each word with caution whenever he speaks about Islam, Israel, or Middle East politics, so that he isn’t perceived as being a “Muslim sympathizer” or veering from the long-held cultural traditionalism that politically synchronizes America’s “faith and foreign policy.”
At core, the mosque controversy isn’t merely about religious freedom. Nor is the Juan Williams matter merely about free speech. And certain criticisms against Obama aren’t mere partisan differences.
On a deeper level, these issues are indicators that the conformed ways of the original paradigms of Americanization are colliding with today’s multiethnic paradigms, causing the erstwhile boundaries of freedom and equality to be stretched to limits that Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries never imagined or intended.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two acclaimed political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The Un-Abolishable N-Word
To pacify society, “Media Band-Aids” are constantly placed on open wounds of unhealed racism as the Shirley Sherrod incident demonstrated. Although the William Morris Agency dropped Mel Gibson for spewing the N-Word among other rants, Leonard Rowe’s new Michael Jackson book shows Morris executives using the N-Word 232 times in emails he uncovered during a racial lawsuit. And Omar Thornton tragically killed 8co-workers and himself after allegedly being fired for stealing at a job where employers called him the N-Word.
While abolishment is preferable, the N-Word won’t just fizzle-away as an isolated expression, devoid of context. In a peculiar historical sense, it is emblematic of a mutating “relationship deformity” between Black and White America, that society has been conditioned to not stare at too long.
The N-Word has festered as a derivative outgrowth from an abusive past that still stains America’s fabric of government and society. It manifests today in disproportionate and dysfunctional Black conditions that require remedies beyond jobs, education, and voting. But there’s mainstream avoidance to delve into the nitty-gritty’s beneath the N-Word’s surface, knowing its core will unveil human flaws and systemic failures that America has yet to racially reconcile.
To begin unraveling the N-Word conflict, you must understand that distinct terminologies just don’t pop in-and-out of a nation’s vocabulary by happenstance. Language is a central element of nationhood. Phrases of both honor and dishonor circulate the political and cultural blood of every nation.
When some world leaders visit the White House, they’ll flex their sovereign muscles by using translators to interpret their native language, even though they may speak English fluently. Whosoever wields sovereign powers over a territory also has subsequent access to regulate words and concepts, as well as make or reshape history, doctrines, and ideologies. Man has probably warred over words and ideals just as much as territory and resources.
Understanding the power of defining and controlling language, it becomes clear why we weren’t permitted to read or write during slavery, nor speak any language other than English. We couldn’t even tap or hum to ourselves. Enslavers would panic, not knowing “the words” behind the tap and hum . . . Herein marks initial concerns to disarm and re-channel the influences of our words and music. Now, under the pretext of “Free Speech,” the N-Word is commercially linked to a billion dollar music-genre that flaunts sex, violence, and prison culture to our children, while we’re powerless to prevent it.
It’s no mishap that we were collectively labeled with derogative terms. Remember in the movie Roots, when Kunta Kinte was barbarically lashed (see video) until he renounced his African identity and surrendered to calling himself “Toby”? Since we were considered “less than human,” logic might suggest that Euro-Americans wouldn’t care what we called ourselves . . . No, No, No.
For submission purposes, captors cannot allow captives to communicate in unfamiliar languages or have unfamiliar names. As such, all “Kunta Identities” had to be deconstructed entirely. “Toby vs. Kunta” represented an epoch identity/ideological struggle where – “winner takes all” – there was/is no second prize.
African names traditionally convey aspects of heritage, history, and virtues. Enslavers didn’t know the meanings, but they knew that African names encompassed more than European names. So “Toby” denoted far more than a typical European name alone. The “act of renaming” was part of a larger process to psychologically transfigure all “Kunta Identities” into domesticated natures that could ultimately be trusted to be “Toby-minded” – even when no one was looking.
Although “Toby” and the N-Word differ in perception, they are similar in function. Yes, the name “Toby” may sting less, but originally and ancestrally, we were/are no more a “Toby” than we were/are a N-Word. Just because we grew accustomed to being called “Tobies,” doesn’t make the “act of renaming” any less unprincipled than being called the N-Word . . . Both were dishonorable and each equally severed and misidentified who we were/are according to our God-given lineages.
From slavery until recently, it was inconceivable that the N-Word would backfire to become publicly off-limits to Whites. Now, with its “redefined” use, young Blacks seize upon this irony by saying it without compunction, which elders regard as a Black-on-Black slap in the face of our own progress and self-dignity.
True, nobody should say it. However, it’s not that simplistic, nor is it a “Black issue” alone. Riddance of the N-Word and its assorted mis-conditions, will require Euro-Americans to therapeutically examine and correct both themselves and Americanization in ways they have thus far been politically and psychologically unwilling, due to their egotism of “Exceptionalism” which supposedly elevates America above other nations.
But the lofty liberties and moralities that Euro-Americans self-profess today, is not something portable that can be retroactively applied to cushion the wrecking-ball impact of “N-Word hardships” that they even codified into law during 3½ centuries of enslavement and segregation which ended less than 50 years ago.
Remember, the N-Word is symptomatic of our unedited historical experience with Americanization . . . Like fingernails raking a chalkboard, it screeches that: “All Has Never Been Well With American Democracy.” So, when you factor the totality of past relationship deformities, combined with all the present un-reconciled complexities that the N-Word figuratively embodies – advising young Blacks to simply “Don’t Say It” is like saying, “hide under the bed,” as a solution to escape a raging house fire.
As with the N-Word and all negativities in its wake; you must not only fearlessly combat every facet and extinguish all embers of raging fires, you must furthermore confront the rudiment causes, and then enact preventive measures for future protection. Otherwise, as in prior centuries, the N-World and all its mutative outgrowths will continue to remain just as un-abolishable throughout this 21st century.
While abolishment is preferable, the N-Word won’t just fizzle-away as an isolated expression, devoid of context. In a peculiar historical sense, it is emblematic of a mutating “relationship deformity” between Black and White America, that society has been conditioned to not stare at too long.
The N-Word has festered as a derivative outgrowth from an abusive past that still stains America’s fabric of government and society. It manifests today in disproportionate and dysfunctional Black conditions that require remedies beyond jobs, education, and voting. But there’s mainstream avoidance to delve into the nitty-gritty’s beneath the N-Word’s surface, knowing its core will unveil human flaws and systemic failures that America has yet to racially reconcile.
To begin unraveling the N-Word conflict, you must understand that distinct terminologies just don’t pop in-and-out of a nation’s vocabulary by happenstance. Language is a central element of nationhood. Phrases of both honor and dishonor circulate the political and cultural blood of every nation.
When some world leaders visit the White House, they’ll flex their sovereign muscles by using translators to interpret their native language, even though they may speak English fluently. Whosoever wields sovereign powers over a territory also has subsequent access to regulate words and concepts, as well as make or reshape history, doctrines, and ideologies. Man has probably warred over words and ideals just as much as territory and resources.
Understanding the power of defining and controlling language, it becomes clear why we weren’t permitted to read or write during slavery, nor speak any language other than English. We couldn’t even tap or hum to ourselves. Enslavers would panic, not knowing “the words” behind the tap and hum . . . Herein marks initial concerns to disarm and re-channel the influences of our words and music. Now, under the pretext of “Free Speech,” the N-Word is commercially linked to a billion dollar music-genre that flaunts sex, violence, and prison culture to our children, while we’re powerless to prevent it.
It’s no mishap that we were collectively labeled with derogative terms. Remember in the movie Roots, when Kunta Kinte was barbarically lashed (see video) until he renounced his African identity and surrendered to calling himself “Toby”? Since we were considered “less than human,” logic might suggest that Euro-Americans wouldn’t care what we called ourselves . . . No, No, No.
For submission purposes, captors cannot allow captives to communicate in unfamiliar languages or have unfamiliar names. As such, all “Kunta Identities” had to be deconstructed entirely. “Toby vs. Kunta” represented an epoch identity/ideological struggle where – “winner takes all” – there was/is no second prize.
African names traditionally convey aspects of heritage, history, and virtues. Enslavers didn’t know the meanings, but they knew that African names encompassed more than European names. So “Toby” denoted far more than a typical European name alone. The “act of renaming” was part of a larger process to psychologically transfigure all “Kunta Identities” into domesticated natures that could ultimately be trusted to be “Toby-minded” – even when no one was looking.
Although “Toby” and the N-Word differ in perception, they are similar in function. Yes, the name “Toby” may sting less, but originally and ancestrally, we were/are no more a “Toby” than we were/are a N-Word. Just because we grew accustomed to being called “Tobies,” doesn’t make the “act of renaming” any less unprincipled than being called the N-Word . . . Both were dishonorable and each equally severed and misidentified who we were/are according to our God-given lineages.
From slavery until recently, it was inconceivable that the N-Word would backfire to become publicly off-limits to Whites. Now, with its “redefined” use, young Blacks seize upon this irony by saying it without compunction, which elders regard as a Black-on-Black slap in the face of our own progress and self-dignity.
True, nobody should say it. However, it’s not that simplistic, nor is it a “Black issue” alone. Riddance of the N-Word and its assorted mis-conditions, will require Euro-Americans to therapeutically examine and correct both themselves and Americanization in ways they have thus far been politically and psychologically unwilling, due to their egotism of “Exceptionalism” which supposedly elevates America above other nations.
But the lofty liberties and moralities that Euro-Americans self-profess today, is not something portable that can be retroactively applied to cushion the wrecking-ball impact of “N-Word hardships” that they even codified into law during 3½ centuries of enslavement and segregation which ended less than 50 years ago.
Remember, the N-Word is symptomatic of our unedited historical experience with Americanization . . . Like fingernails raking a chalkboard, it screeches that: “All Has Never Been Well With American Democracy.” So, when you factor the totality of past relationship deformities, combined with all the present un-reconciled complexities that the N-Word figuratively embodies – advising young Blacks to simply “Don’t Say It” is like saying, “hide under the bed,” as a solution to escape a raging house fire.
As with the N-Word and all negativities in its wake; you must not only fearlessly combat every facet and extinguish all embers of raging fires, you must furthermore confront the rudiment causes, and then enact preventive measures for future protection. Otherwise, as in prior centuries, the N-World and all its mutative outgrowths will continue to remain just as un-abolishable throughout this 21st century.
Friday, July 2, 2010
This July 4th marks 234 years of US independence. And although America’s ongoing “melting pot experiment” is theoretically unbiased to Blacks, Latinos and Muslims, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that hate groups, like the well-armed Hutaree militia, have increased 200 percent since President Obama’s 2008 election.
Texas, the former rebel republic and current headquarters of the Guardians of the Free Republic is now waging new ethnic and ideological battlefronts, by arming schoolchildren with conservative-bent textbooks that re-sculpt some of America’s most traditional outlooks. In Arizona, new immigration legislation now gives a tacit eyewink for police to roundup and shakedown Latinos. And if you didn’t know, the catchy slogan “If you see something, say something” is a discreet way of saying “keep a close eye on all Muslim people.”
The resulting rifts over the civil liberties of US citizens and Obama’s recent speech on Immigration Reform, offer a perfect platform to dissect the definition and discrepancies of “We the People” as spoken of constitutionally and historically.
It was German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller who named the Western Hemisphere “America” in tribute to Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci in 1507. As early as 1782 when colonists were still blasting their British kinfolk with musket balls, J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur posed the question “What is an American?” in his famed book Letters from an American Farmer. So who then exactly are “We the People” in modern terms and times?
Certainly, when these three simple but significant words were first penned in the US Constitution in 1787, the founders didn’t envisage America becoming a vast multi-ethnic society in a world of international laws, where state-sanctioned slavery could have them prosecuted today for the likes of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Certainly, when the ironfisted but seldom-mentioned, President James K. Polk, swiped an unprecedented 1.2 million square miles of territory from Mexico as spoils of war in 1846, it was never intended for millions of Mexicans to sneak across “America’s” border with impunity today. But as the saying goes, “Mexicans aren’t crossing the border, the border has crossed them.”
And certainly, as for Japanese-American citizens, “We the People” became constitutionally meaningless when Franklin D. Roosevelt decreed Executive Order 9066, which unleashed the US military to mass-incarcerate 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
While the malice of the founders and ethnic crackdowns of Polk and Roosevelt do not detract from their “American greatness,” there’s comparative objection from Blacks and liberal Democrats because the new textbooks in Texas place positive spotlights on people like Jefferson Davis and Sam Houston. Based on the outcry, you’d think that Davis and Houston were more crippling to the cause of African Americans, than say, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
If you’ve notice however, there’s an overall process at work to politically repackage the image and ideals of America’s founding history. As such, despite centuries of known ethnic mistreatment and “Whites-Only” privileges, America conversely portrays itself as being uniquely constituted with rights and freedoms that were always meant for “everyone” to partake . . . As though “We the People” signified Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and even Muslims all along.
Sure, this promotes feel-good nationalism, especially during these days of protracted warfare in Muslim countries. But the unedited political truth as cited in Foreign Affairs magazine is that: “For substantial stretches of US history, it was believed that only the people of English origin, or those who were Protestant, or white, or hailed from northern Europe were real Americans.”
Although the founders bequeathed a largely-Anglo nation, what they didn’t politically calculate were a few societal probabilities . . . That demographic shifts could eventuate a “New We the People,” causing Anglo people to teeter on the brink of becoming a minority on American soil, where “one man, one vote” would become an establishment threat. Moreover, that the “New We the People” could send a Black man to the White House in the 21st century.
On the downside, along with secretive hate groups, the “New We the People” has attracted mainstream opposition from Tea Partiers who openly aim to “take their country back,” which among other things is a coded expression of “ethnic displeasure.” The fact that a group like the Tea Party has almost instantly become a fully-financed movement of scale, is a foretelling omen that the “New We the People” can expect continued ethnic resistance well into the future.
So the celebratory fireworks and barbeques on the 4th of July may mask the nation’s racial complexities for 24 hours. Yet the much-hailed ideals that the Declaration of Independence proclaims are still nevertheless A Dream Deferred, given that lingering ethnic prejudges and political contradictions remain endemic 234 years later . . . and still counting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org.
Texas, the former rebel republic and current headquarters of the Guardians of the Free Republic is now waging new ethnic and ideological battlefronts, by arming schoolchildren with conservative-bent textbooks that re-sculpt some of America’s most traditional outlooks. In Arizona, new immigration legislation now gives a tacit eyewink for police to roundup and shakedown Latinos. And if you didn’t know, the catchy slogan “If you see something, say something” is a discreet way of saying “keep a close eye on all Muslim people.”
The resulting rifts over the civil liberties of US citizens and Obama’s recent speech on Immigration Reform, offer a perfect platform to dissect the definition and discrepancies of “We the People” as spoken of constitutionally and historically.
It was German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller who named the Western Hemisphere “America” in tribute to Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci in 1507. As early as 1782 when colonists were still blasting their British kinfolk with musket balls, J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur posed the question “What is an American?” in his famed book Letters from an American Farmer. So who then exactly are “We the People” in modern terms and times?
Certainly, when these three simple but significant words were first penned in the US Constitution in 1787, the founders didn’t envisage America becoming a vast multi-ethnic society in a world of international laws, where state-sanctioned slavery could have them prosecuted today for the likes of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Certainly, when the ironfisted but seldom-mentioned, President James K. Polk, swiped an unprecedented 1.2 million square miles of territory from Mexico as spoils of war in 1846, it was never intended for millions of Mexicans to sneak across “America’s” border with impunity today. But as the saying goes, “Mexicans aren’t crossing the border, the border has crossed them.”
And certainly, as for Japanese-American citizens, “We the People” became constitutionally meaningless when Franklin D. Roosevelt decreed Executive Order 9066, which unleashed the US military to mass-incarcerate 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
While the malice of the founders and ethnic crackdowns of Polk and Roosevelt do not detract from their “American greatness,” there’s comparative objection from Blacks and liberal Democrats because the new textbooks in Texas place positive spotlights on people like Jefferson Davis and Sam Houston. Based on the outcry, you’d think that Davis and Houston were more crippling to the cause of African Americans, than say, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
If you’ve notice however, there’s an overall process at work to politically repackage the image and ideals of America’s founding history. As such, despite centuries of known ethnic mistreatment and “Whites-Only” privileges, America conversely portrays itself as being uniquely constituted with rights and freedoms that were always meant for “everyone” to partake . . . As though “We the People” signified Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and even Muslims all along.
Sure, this promotes feel-good nationalism, especially during these days of protracted warfare in Muslim countries. But the unedited political truth as cited in Foreign Affairs magazine is that: “For substantial stretches of US history, it was believed that only the people of English origin, or those who were Protestant, or white, or hailed from northern Europe were real Americans.”
Although the founders bequeathed a largely-Anglo nation, what they didn’t politically calculate were a few societal probabilities . . . That demographic shifts could eventuate a “New We the People,” causing Anglo people to teeter on the brink of becoming a minority on American soil, where “one man, one vote” would become an establishment threat. Moreover, that the “New We the People” could send a Black man to the White House in the 21st century.
On the downside, along with secretive hate groups, the “New We the People” has attracted mainstream opposition from Tea Partiers who openly aim to “take their country back,” which among other things is a coded expression of “ethnic displeasure.” The fact that a group like the Tea Party has almost instantly become a fully-financed movement of scale, is a foretelling omen that the “New We the People” can expect continued ethnic resistance well into the future.
So the celebratory fireworks and barbeques on the 4th of July may mask the nation’s racial complexities for 24 hours. Yet the much-hailed ideals that the Declaration of Independence proclaims are still nevertheless A Dream Deferred, given that lingering ethnic prejudges and political contradictions remain endemic 234 years later . . . and still counting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org.
Monday, May 17, 2010
- SOVEREIGN EVOLUTION -
MANIFEST DESTINY FROM CIVIL RIGHTS TO SOVEREIGN RIGHTS
(Ezrah Aharone • AuthorHouse • Nonfiction • 301 Pages • ISBN: 978 1438938585)
Rated “24th Best Black Book of 2009” - Inside Black Hollywood Magazine
From emancipation to segregation to integration – from Tubman to King to Obama – the freedom of African Americans emerged from a continuum of political evolutions, each of which is built upon prior legacies and achievements. In advancing the forward flow of this political progression, SOVEREIGN EVOLUTION re-declares freedom and equality in 21st-century terms, using sovereign principles and standards.
“Today’s political world is light years away from both the 1860s when segregation was progress and the 1960s when riding the front of a bus was progress,” writes Ezrah Aharone. “Where you sit on a bus today is becoming relatively cosmetic, considering the wars and webbings of geopolitics that control the chromium, oil, and rubber for its tires. Our conceptions and moral obligations of freedom must therefore continually evolve in direct pace with the demands and circumstances of the political times.”
With “sovereignty” being the highest expression of political authority and accountability of a people, Ezrah applies sovereign ideals in ways that no other work has convincingly or relevantly related to the African American experience. SOVEREIGN EVOLUTION however does not promote a movement for political independence, but rather provides a mirror to show a clearer sociopolitical reflection of our historical development and future potential as a people.
As Ezrah writes, “SOVEREIGN EVOLUTION is both the title of the book and a transformative sociopolitical concept, that offers a new realm of ideals and solutions to centuries-old difficulties.” Each chapter accordingly sets a platform to infuse sovereign awareness and discourse into mainstream domains that span from elders and Hip Hop culture; to Black universities; to church congregations; to Black organizations and government officials.
Ezrah delivers a straightforward political language with evolutionary messages for lasting advancement. His preciseness and originality of political thought, coupled with his international experience in Africa, provides a unique scope of reference that gives SOVEREIGN EVOLUTION uncommon distinction.
Ezrah Aharone is also the author of PAWNED SOVEREIGNTY (A classic alongside Welsing’s Isis Papers and Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro – Rolling Out Magazine). Born in Newark and raised in Passaic NJ, he holds a BS from Hampton University (1980). He has lived and now works in West Africa as a political and economic consultant, where his relationships extend from presidents to everyday people in remote villages. He is also a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement, which is a political think tank institution.
CONTACT: www.EzrahSpeaks.com • Info@theCSA.org • (732) 566-9327
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Lessons from Confederate History Month
By Ezrah Aharone 4/10
Next year in April commemorates the 150th anniversary of America’s Civil War. So under the pretext to “encourage tourism” in Virginia, which has over 100 Confederate monuments, GOP Governor Bob McDonnell dusted-off an old proclamation that declares April as “Confederate History Month.” Not only did he revive it, he removed a clause stating “that slavery was one of the causes” of the war.
President Obama called this “an unacceptable omission,” while members of Virginia’s Legislative Black Caucus said the document was “offensive, one-sided, and a revision of history.” GOP Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who declared April as “Confederate Heritage Month” in a similar proclamation which also excluded slavery, said all the fuss “doesn’t amount to diddly.” But McDonnell apologized and amended Virginia’s proclamation to include and condemn slavery.
The real problem here however, supercedes the omissions and one-sidedness of any single proclamation, including Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. American history is largely promoted with slanted, bravado narratives of nationalism, whereby the means are always vindicated by glorifications of the end. And when it comes to the historiography of slavery, a taboo-blame of racism is transferred upon African Americans who veer from sugarcoated viewpoints.
As such, Americans are made to think that the Civil War was fought to end the Confederate immoralities of slavery. But based on unquestioned racism that lasted well into the 1960s, it’s illogical that millions of Whites would actually fight and slaughter 624,000 of themselves over the rights of Blacks way back in the 1860s. If the Emancipation Proclamation was really predicated upon America’s “goodness of democracy,” why would Democrats and Republicans turnaround and willfully legislate a full century of segregation after so much self-bloodshed?
On the surface, this outlook certainly qualifies for a transferred taboo-blame of racism. But to lend historical validation, consider a quote from President Obama himself. As then-senator, he commented to Time Magazine (June 25, 2005) that: “I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a Military Document than a clarion call for justice.”
Speaking of “omissions and one-sidedness” in proclamations . . . Instead of mandating a unilateral “Military Document” (signed only by him and his Secretary of State), Lincoln and representatives of our forbearers should have jointly agreed and formally signed a binding “Bilateral Accord” that satisfied the ideals and demands of the 4 million “Emancipated” people in question. That would have been the honorable, non-racist, democratic thing for any offending government to do after nearly 250 years of enslavement.
What’s lasting and telling about this affront and disingenuous nature of the Emancipation Proclamation, is the unspoken but undeniable lack of affinity and familiarity that African Americans hold towards it today. Although it presumably represents our long-awaited “triumph over slavery,” it’s hard to find a Black person who can recite a complete phrase from it. Simply ask around and you’ll find proof yourself.
The unedited truth is that Lincoln ended slavery in the Confederacy for the same reason it was instituted – to make capitalism more functional. By the 1860s the Industrial Revolution was in gear. Northern industrial businesses would outperform Southern agrarian businesses, making it necessary to restructure labor, commerce, and capital investments. Paying low wages to Black industrial laborers therefore made better economic sense and great social policy for a more civilized face of government.
But since Southern states stood to lose billions in property (enslaved) assets and wealth, the Confederates sought secession and war became an unavoidable consequence of this industrial shift. While a Confederate victory would have definitely prolonged slavery, this should not be politically misconstrued into the notion that Lincoln’s fight against secession was thereby a fight for the justice of abolition.
To believe that the principal of the Civil War was to “free” Africans from the Confederates is as inaccurate as thinking the current war in Afghanistan is being fought to free Afghans from the Taliban. Although Afghans may eventually be liberated from Taliban influences as a by-product of the war, the underlying purpose and politics of the conflict are immensely more far-reaching. And likewise were the driving circumstances between the Civil War and the by-product of Emancipation.
But since the facts of American history are slanted with narratives to glorify American democracy, the Civil War is framed to unduly credit and equate the Union with noble motives. So it’s acceptable to place taboo-blames of racism on supporters of Confederate History Month, since Confederates resided on the opposite side of the war. Yet, the prevailing mischaracterizations surrounding Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, now cause African Americans to reside on the opposite side of the truth.
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org.
Next year in April commemorates the 150th anniversary of America’s Civil War. So under the pretext to “encourage tourism” in Virginia, which has over 100 Confederate monuments, GOP Governor Bob McDonnell dusted-off an old proclamation that declares April as “Confederate History Month.” Not only did he revive it, he removed a clause stating “that slavery was one of the causes” of the war.
President Obama called this “an unacceptable omission,” while members of Virginia’s Legislative Black Caucus said the document was “offensive, one-sided, and a revision of history.” GOP Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who declared April as “Confederate Heritage Month” in a similar proclamation which also excluded slavery, said all the fuss “doesn’t amount to diddly.” But McDonnell apologized and amended Virginia’s proclamation to include and condemn slavery.
The real problem here however, supercedes the omissions and one-sidedness of any single proclamation, including Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. American history is largely promoted with slanted, bravado narratives of nationalism, whereby the means are always vindicated by glorifications of the end. And when it comes to the historiography of slavery, a taboo-blame of racism is transferred upon African Americans who veer from sugarcoated viewpoints.
As such, Americans are made to think that the Civil War was fought to end the Confederate immoralities of slavery. But based on unquestioned racism that lasted well into the 1960s, it’s illogical that millions of Whites would actually fight and slaughter 624,000 of themselves over the rights of Blacks way back in the 1860s. If the Emancipation Proclamation was really predicated upon America’s “goodness of democracy,” why would Democrats and Republicans turnaround and willfully legislate a full century of segregation after so much self-bloodshed?
On the surface, this outlook certainly qualifies for a transferred taboo-blame of racism. But to lend historical validation, consider a quote from President Obama himself. As then-senator, he commented to Time Magazine (June 25, 2005) that: “I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a Military Document than a clarion call for justice.”
Speaking of “omissions and one-sidedness” in proclamations . . . Instead of mandating a unilateral “Military Document” (signed only by him and his Secretary of State), Lincoln and representatives of our forbearers should have jointly agreed and formally signed a binding “Bilateral Accord” that satisfied the ideals and demands of the 4 million “Emancipated” people in question. That would have been the honorable, non-racist, democratic thing for any offending government to do after nearly 250 years of enslavement.
What’s lasting and telling about this affront and disingenuous nature of the Emancipation Proclamation, is the unspoken but undeniable lack of affinity and familiarity that African Americans hold towards it today. Although it presumably represents our long-awaited “triumph over slavery,” it’s hard to find a Black person who can recite a complete phrase from it. Simply ask around and you’ll find proof yourself.
The unedited truth is that Lincoln ended slavery in the Confederacy for the same reason it was instituted – to make capitalism more functional. By the 1860s the Industrial Revolution was in gear. Northern industrial businesses would outperform Southern agrarian businesses, making it necessary to restructure labor, commerce, and capital investments. Paying low wages to Black industrial laborers therefore made better economic sense and great social policy for a more civilized face of government.
But since Southern states stood to lose billions in property (enslaved) assets and wealth, the Confederates sought secession and war became an unavoidable consequence of this industrial shift. While a Confederate victory would have definitely prolonged slavery, this should not be politically misconstrued into the notion that Lincoln’s fight against secession was thereby a fight for the justice of abolition.
To believe that the principal of the Civil War was to “free” Africans from the Confederates is as inaccurate as thinking the current war in Afghanistan is being fought to free Afghans from the Taliban. Although Afghans may eventually be liberated from Taliban influences as a by-product of the war, the underlying purpose and politics of the conflict are immensely more far-reaching. And likewise were the driving circumstances between the Civil War and the by-product of Emancipation.
But since the facts of American history are slanted with narratives to glorify American democracy, the Civil War is framed to unduly credit and equate the Union with noble motives. So it’s acceptable to place taboo-blames of racism on supporters of Confederate History Month, since Confederates resided on the opposite side of the war. Yet, the prevailing mischaracterizations surrounding Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, now cause African Americans to reside on the opposite side of the truth.
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two political books: Sovereign Evolution: Manifest Destiny from Civil Rights to Sovereign Rights (2009) and Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparations (2003). He is a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)