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How does society decide what is un-American? |
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Written by AL CALLOWAY
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 When groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Nation
of Islam and various other black nationalist organizations appealed
publicly for social justice, they were soundly denounced by white
America as dangerous radicals and militants.
Fed by a national negative media frenzy, law enforcement created a
brutal covert and overt crackdown that included killings, beatings,
arrests and destruction of character and property. These actions
created a fear that shut down many groups.
While civil rights organizations were meted with similar negativity, they had some liberal white press and philanthropy, even white and Jewish members and martyrs. The entire human rights/civil rights/freedom movement era, particularly during the mid-1960s to 70s, witnessed an ever-growing white backlash.
White America seethed with the sentiment that, “If you don’t like America, leave it.” The clear inference was that America is a white nation, and white people cannot be forced to share it with black people. Any value other than those instilled by white America is therefore un-American, socialist and communist.
The Patriot Act was established by the Bush administration, and it is noteworthy that personal criticisms of former President George W. Bush focused mainly on his misuse of the English language, his alleged botched military record and the possibility that he was being led by former Vice President Dick Cheney.
With the Patriot Act still in effect, white nationalists register no fear of calling President Barack Obama a socialist, a Hitler, a Muslim, when it is clear that he is a Christian.
This element of the populace mouths and displays all manner of other inappropriate and unpatriotic slogans.
Is it not un-American to add grist to the mill for our nation’s enemies abroad? Is it not un-American to both directly and indirectly promote the assassination of President Obama? I’d like to have a clear, believable answer to the following question: How does the American citizenry decide what is un-American?
Steaming vitriol spewing from that hodgepodge tea party crowd could possibly spill over as dangerous physical violence. Some very dangerous human viruses are hiding in that gathering movement. Many ultra-conservative groups that spend weekends playing war in the deep woods have attached members to this anti-Obama (actually anti-black) outpouring.
It is quite apparent, from that which we witnessed recently on Capitol Hill, that the Tea Party and Republican U. S. senators and congresspersons are escalating the American divide, reminiscent of pre-Civil War America. It’s all about stopping Obama. Clearly, their wholesale rebuke of the health care reform legislation was/is just an attempt to undermine our president, by any means necessary!
White nationalists called black congressmen everything but the children of God, including the N-word, and even spat on one last week as members of the U. S. House of Representatives were about to enter the Capitol Building to vote on President Obama’s health care reform bill.
The very thought that citizens or non-citizens could behave like that, let alone toward black officials, is a ramification of values taught and reinforced from infancy to the grave.
What should make black Americans doubly wary of the Tea Party fringe and their Republican allies is that they falsely attest to religion, and they are mostly Christians! How can that be? These people operate out of the same warped logic that allowed their mostly Christian forebears to practice genocide across the Americas, create and operate the Trans-Atlantic African Slave Trade, and discriminate against non-white people the world over.
White America is very proud of its criminality, and all school children must be tested on knowledge of discoverers/conquerors, slave masters/presidents, Indian killers/generals, developers/robber barons, et al.
So, what could possibly be un-American? Oh, I know! To sympathize with Muslim/Arab terrorism. Now clearly, that’s un-American. But it’s alright to be involved in terrorizing your fellow Americans, especially if they are non-white?
When the British decided to quell the Boston Tea Party by firing on its leaders, Crispus Attucks, a leader of African descent, was the first to fall, and the American Revolution was on.
Later, we had the Civil War, which was about the injustice of slavery. Now, could it be that the third and perhaps final phase of America’s internal struggle will be about democracy?
Such being the case, I wonder how America will resolve the question: How does society decide what is un-American?
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