During the last American presidential campaign of 2016, two powerful political opponents attempted to discredit the other party’s leader in an attempt to secure the greatest position of power in the United States of America. Both the Democratic and Republican parties provided vivid details and compelling opinions of why the other candidate were not fit to serve as Commander in Chief. Although many Americans found it improper and indecent that each other’s party searched for some form of troublesome and invidious information about the opponent, the objective was to blast news agencies and social media companies in hopes of lessening the other candidate’s chances in winning the election. That behavior can be easily identified as dishonorable and devious; however, in American politics, this has become a common and acceptable strategy to bolster their candidates position.
Ironically, although both sides commonly engage in these tactics, both sides also complain about these shady political practices. The back and forth dirt-flicking between the two parties could easily bring to mind the old maxim that states: “The first to speak in court sounds right—until the cross-examination begins (Proverbs 18:17, New Living Translation).”
The same concept applies to the Black Lives Matter movement. The intent of the movement is to protest injustice; however, opposers to the movement have labeled them as troublemakers and even worse, a terrorist organization. Historically, social justice movements have produced an abundance of results. The granting of federal same sex marriage laws and women having the right to serve in military combat occupations are just a few of those recent outcomes from the efforts of social justice activists.
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Civil rights organizations are important. What would have happened to future generations of children of African American slaves if no one took a stand against the evils of the institution? Most African Americans today are directly benefiting from the actions of their ancestors whose blood was spilled in southern American towns and across America in the pursuit of freedom for their children, grandchildren, and their great grandchildren.
The Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s changed American History forever. However, many of the efforts were directed toward the upholding of civil rights already guaranteed for all Americans and protected under the constitution. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s team, in particular, aimed to extend the rights of citizenship, which had already been guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, to African Americans. These rights had been eroded by southern segregationists that established the vile Jim Crow laws in the southern U.S. states. The Civil Rights movement also sought to strengthen the protection of women and people with disabilities while advocating for the right to vote for African Americans, the right to intermarry with Caucasian people, and the elimination of lynching practices.
Nevertheless, opponents to the civil rights movement viciously attacked their efforts. The marchers and sit-in protesters, both black and white found themselves spat upon, kicked, beaten, arrested, and even murdered. They were called niggers and “coons.” Their white sympathizers were called “nigger lovers.” Ironically, many white Americans in the southern Christian majority region demonstrated the utmost hypocrisy by engaging in the most un-Christlike behavior.
Many white southern Christians participated in cross burnings, beatings, lynchings, and other terrorist acts against protesters and the African American community at large. A blatant irony is that the icon of Christianity; Jesus, never encouraged hangings, torture, or murder of anyone that opposed his viewpoints. In fact, he both modeled and taught the great commandment of loving one’s neighbor as oneself. Somehow, many white southern Christians missed these verses altogether or completely ignored them for the past couple of hundred years.
Today’s African American community continues to struggle from its history of brutal oppression from white Americans. President Roosevelt’s New Deal social benefits elevated many racial groups economically while subtly omitting African Americans and other minorities groups from fully taking part in them. This is discussed in more detail in Chapter Four. Ultimately, African Americans now have much more access to resources in terms of higher education, civil assistance, and employment more than ever in the history of the United States. This is largely due to the work of social justice organizations, activists, and Civil Rights groups. ←22 | 23→Nevertheless, African Americans continue to remain the poorest minority population in America with disproportionately high incarceration rates. There must be a reason? There must be a deeper root.
Reference
Holy Bible. (2015). New living translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
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America’s first African American president, Barack Obama, said around the time of the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown that “America still has a problem with race.” Former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, echoed those sentiments in the following comments on August 4, 2016, at the National Urban League Conference.
I learned when I started to practice civil rights that anybody who is a person of color, frankly anybody who has been a religious minority, you kind of have to learn the ways of the majority as a survival instinct. You have to learn our kind in order to survive the ways of the majority. So often those of us in the majority, we are not forced to learn the ways of anybody else. And we can insulate or wall ourselves off, even without intending to. We have to force ourselves out of our comfort zone to learn about the realities of all the beautiful parts of this wonderful American tapestry (4).
Tim Kaine acknowledges the racial inequalities that African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities experience in America. He acknowledges the need to assimilate into the culture of the dominate majority in order to have a measure of success in the United States. Tim Kaine also acknowledges the superiority subculture thinking of the dominate majority group. This is often referred to as white privilege.
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To further illustrate the plight of black America, Civil rights activist and former school teacher Jane Elliot reported during an interview that “we [whites] have been taught and conditioned that we are superior (7).” Her comments do not, by any means, represent the entire Caucasian community anymore than former extremist, African American leader, Malcolm X, represented the entire black community. However, with the increased racial tension between the Caucasian and African American communities, she makes a valid point relating to the growing tension between the two groups.
G.I. Bill
The history of violence and oppression toward African Americans is vast and exhaustive. The topic is far too great to expound upon in a single book. However, considering the relative nature of the current plight of black America, it is worth noting a few highlights. Planet Earth’s greatest war to date, known as World War II, resulted in approximately thirty-four million deaths among forty-eight nations that were directly involved. The United States accounts for approximately four hundred and fifteen thousand of those deaths. World War II forever affected the Earth’s demographic make-up. After the war, the Soviet Union broke ranks with several nations such as Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and more.
America now has multiple, robust military installations in Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Belgium, and other nations. The Japanese Empire, on the other hand, was once a robust and feared world power. At one point, the Japanese empire conquered the entire Asian peninsula, brutally occupying countries such as Korea and China. Since World War II, it has not engaged in a single military conflict. Nevertheless, despite the glorious and multiple acts