American History

Some things to consider about American history:

1. Civil War: (1861 – 1865).
   1. Union victory in 1865 gives some 4 million slaves “freedom”.
2. Reconstruction: (1865 – 1877).
   1. Institution of the black codes: a reassertion of white control by enforcing the pass system, which “required blacks to carry a pass and present it on demand” if they wish to travel or work.

 

• Black codes were created to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans.

• Black codes were a means of criminalizing free blacks.

 

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” –  Amendment XIII to the United States Constitution

1. Muslims as exception to the law.
2. Reconstruction (1867): newly enfranchised blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.

 

• Reconstruction: drafted by President Andrew Johnson. States’ rights to “govern themselves”, meaning the federal government had no right to interfere on the state level: land that had been confiscated by the Union Army and distributed to the freed slaves by the army or the Freedmen’s Bureau reverted to its prewar owners (whites).

 

1. 1868: “whites across the South strained to accept the apparently inevitable ignominies (shame/disgrace) descending from the [Civil] war”.
1. Why were whites upset?
   1. Loss of fortune/economics;
   2. Humiliation;
   3. Fear that former slaves would “vote and rule governments and perhaps take their [former] masters land.

“Stereotyping was the basis for winning political campaigns during the Jim Crow era.” – Khalil Gibran Muhammad

On Liberalism

Malcolm X said, “being friendly and being a friend I think are two different things”.

We must discern and know there are those who

1. oppose us due to blind hatred,
2. those who oppose us on principled critique of Islam and Muslims,
3. and those who are just leery because the only articulation of who we are that they know is what “exotic” cuisine we have to offer.

Dealing With Adversity

Finding out that God isn’t Santa Claus can be one of the most traumatic events an adult can go through.

• White liberals were willing to put aside their so-called values and vote for a candidate who mocked the disabled, spewed racist rhetoric towards Mexicans and exhibited violence towards women. Think about that.

We must admit, like an addict who has come to the terrible conclusion that he has a life threatening problem, our condition must change. We have become addicted to dysfunction.

Behind the Mask of Chivalry by Nancy K. MacLean.