September 01, 2015

America's Reluctant Racists: Are the Media & Donald Trump to Blame?

September 01, 2015/

UNITED STATES - In my heart I’ve always wanted to believe that racists are simply radicals who comprise a very small percentage of the population back in my native U.S.A. Sadly, that hope has been increasingly hard to hold onto over the years and it looks like 2015 might just be the year I have to admit that I've been wrong. Sure, there are radicals (and extremists and supremacists) who out-crazy even the most fanatical racists but it looks like lies and IGNORANCE are breeding a brand new army of Americans who may not even self-identify as being racist yet.

The Reluctant Racist

When I say reluctant, I really do mean it. First, because someone very special to me back home in California believes a whole lotta wrong at the moment that is turning them into a racist.

Secondly, because I still want to believe that people are fundamentally good and they just don't have enough information to know better at the moment. The right-wing media in the U.S., coupled with the insanely racist (and completely unqualified to be a politician) Donald Trump, are spouting some crazy things that some Americans are buying into because they believe the media and influencers without doing their own homework.

Instead of digging into topics that really matter and sharing facts and data with the American people, most mainstream media seems content to mislead them. In fact, it’s mostly the liberal news channels and journalists who look beyond the superficial story. The liberals also choose NOT to take rare or isolated or extreme cases and turn those into ‘the new trend’ or ‘the direction America is headed’ when reporting, which is how the media and Trump and recruiting their new racist army.

The topic is too broad to attack on all fronts so I’m going to crack into just two issues:

The so-called confederate flag
The negativity surrounding immigrants and the idea of abolishing the 14th amendment

The Confederate Flag

After the race-fuelled mass shooting in a South Carolina church, the U.S. finally rallied to remove the country’s #1 symbol of racism. This important person in my life believes that it is simply a symbol of the South with a rich history dating back to the 1800s. They listened to what the news said without looking into the facts and decided that they are pro-flag. I’m sorry but the only people who should blindly be pro-confederate flag are white supremacists and current or legacy KKK members. But not the people I care about in my life, and certainly not the people in yours.

THE FACTS

The flag everyone is all riled up about is NOT the Confederate Flag
In the 1800s, the real Confederate Flag went through 3 designs. The first design looked too much like the real American flag and soldiers were confused at times who to shoot at so it was scrapped. The second one included the design people believe to be the confederate flag up where the stars are on the real American flag and replaced the red and white stripes with a symbolic field of pure white. The third rendition added a red band on the right side of the field of white. Again, the real Confederate Flag of the rebels is NOT the one Americans are being shown today.
The perceived current confederate flag (which in the 1800s was only used by the army in Tennessee on the battlefield towards the end of the war I believe) went away for the most part and was only resurrected in the early 1940s by the race-driven Dixiecrats, the political party dedicated to maintaining segregation between whites and blacks in the South.
In 1948, the University of Mississippi flew it for the 1st time when white students protested Truman’s civil rights proposals. They hated the thought of being educated alongside black students so this flag became the brand image for racism in Mississippi.
In 1963, it was raised over the state Capitol of Alabama for the 1st time in history. Alabama Gov. George Wallace raised it in protest against desegregation. He wanted to keep whites and blacks apart, definitively turning it into the #1 symbol of racism in modern-day America.
It remains the unofficial symbol of the Ku Klux Klan.

My German friend Rando commented, 'Would it be okay for us to fly the swastika over German town halls on special days as it is certainly part of our history, and under Mr. H pre-WW2 the country boomed economically, the VW Beetle was created etc? The confederate flag stands for slavery.'

Mainstream media doesn’t share the facts above, though. Sadly turning more intelligent and generally caring people into reluctant racists. EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE of the current ‘confederate flag’ being flown in the south has 100% direct ties to racism and oppression. It is NOT a symbol of our fallen brothers in war but that is the bullshit being told by influencers and the media. It doesn’t represent Southern heritage, well at least not one that any American should be proud of. It represents racism and hate, plain and simple. There is no other truth.

Immigration & Foreigners

I was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of a 5th generation immigrant. Our ancestors left their friends, family and possessions behind and came over from Europe in hopes of a better life in the 1860s. Some of our family hails from Ireland and in those times the Irish were despised as the worst sort of immigrants arriving to American shores. During the famous Potato Famine years, close to one million Irish arrived by boat to America. ONE MILLION!

If they washed up in Boston, well that was probably the roughest place to be welcomed to America. English Puritans could trace their lineage back to the Mayflower some 230 years earlier and the city underwent what was described as a ‘social revolution’ because they did not want ‘those Irish people’ in their country.

The Irish didn’t look like them. They wore clothes that were night and day different to the English settlers. They sounded different. They often came over poor and would have to settle into unsanitary conditions. And heaven help them if they only spoke Gaeilge or a Celtic language! All they wanted was a chance to live a better life than was possible in Ireland.

My Mom tells me that our family came over because they ‘wanted to be American.’ To me that means they had hope and ambition and wanted to give their children a better life. They wanted to work hard and live the American Dream. Well, I’ll bet their American Dream didn’t originally include the extra gift-on-arrival of hated and discrimination by Americans who viewed them as outsiders and who wanted that nationality OUT OF AMERICA. Yet they endured, for which I'm thankful because I wouldn't be alive otherwise.

Flash Forward to 2015

Donald Trump and the media tell Americans that today’s generation of immigrants – the new ‘Irish’ if you will – are the worst kind of people. They brainwash Americans to think that ‘those people’ don’t want to be true Americans. The media reports that ‘they’ only want to live for free in America, sucking up hard working taxpayers money, without wanting to embrace the American dream. The media insists that ‘they’ retain their cultural heritage from their homeland, which bugs the hell out of Americans. In fact, the same way it did in the 1800s:

According to one report I read >> 'Wherever they settled, the Irish kept to themselves to the exclusion of everyone else, and thus were slow to assimilate. Americans were thus slow to accept the Irish as equals, preferring instead to judge them by the stereotypes published in newspapers of the day.'

The same way the English Puritans persecuted my own ancestors, today’s cry of ‘go home immigrant’ feels like a 360° loop back around to the 1800s – and again it is turning former immigrants (or the children of immigrants) into a potentially scary breed of reluctant racists. Unless someone is an American Indian, they aren’t natives of the country. U.S. citizens have families who fled their country of origin in hopes of a better life, just like mine did, and just like everyone arriving to our shores today. Why can’t some Americans see that the rhetoric they are espousing is as cruel and unnecessary in 2015 as it was in the 1850s, back when U.S. immigration records indicate that the Irish made up 43% of the foreign-born population?

I’ve lived in Mexico, Spain, India, China and I’ve been living in Hong Kong now for about to a year. I know that the news I read as an expat is different to what Americans back home consume but it’s shocking how many people are jumping on this ‘us versus them’ bandwagon. In fact, the special person in my life who inspired this post has very strong ideas about just how ‘they’ are ruining America, for all the reasons I mentioned the English had (and strangely almost verbatim every single thing in that 'report quote' above!).

Yet the funny thing is that when I asked, the only personal experience with immigrants they've had is beautiful and not hateful or negative. They have Mexican neighbours who emigrated some years back with two sweet children. They applied for and gained their American citizenship and are trying hard to learn English, have just bought their first home, and for all intents and purposes ARE living the American dream, just like my Irish relatives who emigrated in the 1860s.

I just don’t understand why the hearts of some Americans can’t see that these real-life examples right in front of their face are the TRUTH of immigration, instead of blindly supporting the negative view that is never witnessed first-hand but believed because extreme examples are the battle cry of influencers like Donald Trump and the right-wing U.S. media.

Contributing Journalist: @angelacarson
LinkedIn: Angela Carson

March 30, 2012

American Hate Mongers

March 30, 2012/ Ayanna Nahmias

american-nazi-party-marches-against-immigration-photo-by-sean-rayford.jpg

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 13:15 PM EDT, 30 March 2012

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.”

CALIFORNIA & FLORIDA, United States – This past week Americans heard or read news reports of the brutal deaths of two people apparently because of race and faith. Their stories played out on the East Coast to the West, and both deaths are symptomatic of increased levels of xenophobia in a post September 11th America.

We are speaking of the deaths of Shaima Alawadi and Trayvon Martin. Both victims of racists, these two people have fallen prey to the xenophobic fears of their murders.

In the Nahmias Cipher Report we focus on atrocious human rights violations in Africa, India and the Middle East. Because we are based in the States, some people may feel superior to these 'other' people that we write about, as if those cultures lack the appropriate moral fortitude to control their behavior.

In some cases this is true, but in the case of Ms. Alawadi and Mr. Martin, these reprehensible acts of violence bring America in parity with the rest of the world's cultures and countries with abysmal Human Rights record.

In El Cajon, California, Shaima Alawadi was beaten to death in her home by an unknown assailant. Though the identity of the murderer has not been determined, based upon the evidence that the police found at the scene, it appears that this is a hate crime.

Alawadi’s 15-year old son, Mohammed said that recently he came home and discovered a note taped to the front door of their house which read, “This is my country. Go back to yours, terrorist.”

As residents of this quiet suburban community, neither Alawadi, nor her family thought much about the note, instead attributing it to mischievous neighborhood children. Despite her husband, Kassim Alhimidi’s desire to report the incident to the police, Alawadi didn’t feel that it was warranted.

Alawadi and her husband were Iraqi immigrants who have lived peacefully in the United States for 17 years. All five of their children were born in the United States and this is the only country that they have known because they are Americans. Post-9/11 the Alawadis have experienced increased discrimination such as being called ‘terrorists,’ but they shrugged off these slurs as ignorance.

But last Wednesday, Ms. Alawadi was discovered by her 17-year old daughter, lying unconscious in a pool of her own blood. Badly beaten, with a severe head wound, her daughter discovered another note similar to the earlier one, lying next to her mother.

Though the police are reticent about proclaiming this killing as a ‘hate crime,’ many Muslims in the El Cajon community feel that Alwadi’s death was definitely a 'hate crime' because she was easily identifiable as Muslim. Ms. Alwadi wore the tradition Hijab of observant Muslim women, which may have contributed to her being singled out.

Like many communities across America, as war and strife rage out of control in nations across the globe, and particularly as factions fight over resources in emerging economies, the citizens of these countries pay the highest price. In an effort to secure a better, safer future for their families they often leave their countries and immigrate legally or illegally to more stable countries like America or other European nations.

Thus, there has been an increased influx of immigrants from heavily Islamic nations in Africa and the Middle East where America is currently engaged in war. For instance, in Lewiston, Maine, where I went to college, there is a thriving community of Somalis who have fled the strife of their unstable government or lack thereof.

Here in Northern Virginia, there is an equally large community of Middle Easterners from all across the Arab world. In fact, one of my best managers is a Palestinian who immigrated to the States from Jordan nearly twenty years ago.

In Miami, where I lived for nearly a decade, the predominant immigrants are the Cubans, but other South and Central American Spanish speakers have also taken root. This has occurred to such an extent that one can drive through neighborhoods where the signs are in Spanish and many of the people who live there don’t speak English.

Just like these three areas of the East Coast, El Cajon, just northeast of San Diego, was also transformed from a largely white and English-speaking area into a more multicultural and diverse community. Two decades ago, as wars in their homelands increased in intensity, more and more Iraqis and other Middle Easterners immigrated to the States.

El Cajon now houses one of the largest Iraqi communities in the country. Like Miami with the Cubans, El Cajon now has numerous Middle Eastern grocery stores and restaurants, Mosques and other religious centers, and many of the pedestrians can be heard conversing in Arabic.

Yet there are xenophobes in this nation that still believe if you are Middle Eastern then you are not a citizen, and were born outside of America. If you wear a turban, like many Indian Sikhs, then you are a terrorist. And for the purposes of this report, if you are an Iraqis who lives in El Cajon then you are Muslim, when in fact many Iraqis who reside in that community are Christian.

The case of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, harkens back to the racism of the Old South in which Klu Klux Klan members could burn, tar and feather, hang, decapitate, and castrate black men with impunity. That is what makes the case of Trayvon Martin so polarizing.

The fact that his killer, remains free despite police tapes which indicated his culpability, reinforces the stereotype that if you are a ‘black’ male in America then you are a violent criminal who must be subdued at all costs, including deadly force.

George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood ‘watchman,’ shot and killed an unarmed black teenager because he was ‘walking’ in the gated community where the vigilante lived. Zimmerman who claims that he is ‘white’ has been identified as Hispanic, another population which has experienced a great deal of discrimination over illegal immigration issues.

However, this did not stop Zimmerman from singling out Trayvon Martin, 17, and shooting him because he looked ‘suspicious.’ Martin was reportedly on his way home when he was confronted by Zimmerman who asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood. Zimmerman, who was on the phone with the police, could be heard talking to teenager in an accusatory tone.

Since a car had been dispatched to the scene, the police advised Zimmerman to stop following the youth, as they were on their way. Zimmerman pointedly ignored the injunction and continued to pursue Martin. It is unclear what occurred next, but Zimmerman, a man twice the size of Martin, claimed that the teenage attacked him and that he fatally shot the teenager in self-defense.

Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood ‘watchman,’ was taken into custody shortly after the police arrived to find Martin dead; however, he was subsequently released and has remained freed since the shooting, despite nationwide calls for his arrest.

Much like the story of Sub-Saharan Africans who are being targeted in Libya, America’s struggles with race have seemingly digressed since the election of President Barak Obama. One would think, like the election of former South African President Nelson Mandela, another first ‘black’ president; that there would be a more profound paradigm shift in America.

However, the exact opposite has occurred as people so steep in racism and xenophobia feel inspired to act out their racism by deliberately violating the human rights of fellow Americans who have done them no harm. As one reader pointed out, there are just as many good people who are outraged by the behavior of racists, but the fact remains that incidents like these are on the rise.

It remains to be seen if the perpetrators guilty of killing Alawadi will be found, convicted and sentenced to death, a sentence which they unilaterally meted out against her for no just cause. Or if Zimmerman will be charged, convicted, and sentenced to a long jail term for murder; a crime which if a ‘black’ man had committed but the circumstances were in dispute, he would certainly be incarcerated pending the outcome of the investigation.

Shame on these people and as Alawadi’s son said, “There’s only three people that know what happened, God, my mom and the guy who did it.”

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Twitter: @nahmias_report Editor: @ayannanahmias