Killing Hope with America’s Symbol of Hate
All of a sudden, the United States reminds me of Apartheid South Africa. But, then ,America has always been a land of discrimination in spite of its venerated visage as the land of the free. What a paradox! While this situation confounds the weak who believe in the goodness of mankind, it is nonetheless painful for those who consider the US the last bastion of democracy and eternal hope for justice and equality. The harm this festering paradox may unleash on the US became so palpable to me yesterday when my thorough bred American friend said to me: “sons of America will destroy this country: not ISIS.”
His words may be read as simplistic when one considers the bile America evokes in the sickened hearts of global terrorists who are determined to obliterate the American flag, eradicate the American culture and establish a different lifestyle in the US when their dream of exterminating the fundamentals of the United States of America has been realized. However, I cannot discard my friend’s naivety that manifests itself through an anxiety wrapped in angst as flimsy because there is a propensity for America to be consumed from within by domestic terrorism. What am I trying to say? Simple: most people living in the US today may not be perturbed by the near zero abilities of ISIS to operate in the US openly as the terrorist group is in the Middle East. Conversely, what makes people living in the US look over their shoulders again and again, today, is the fear of the enemy within! Unfortunately, there seems to be multitudes of enemies within baying at the Statue of Liberty and the Star-Spangled Banner which is the very symbol of America: the flag! Who would have thought that there are Americans who distaste and detest this very land millions of people from other spheres will like to kiss its dust if they ever stepped their feet on its hallowed ground?
One of the enemies within is the Caucasian perpetrator who perished nine black souls at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina recently. Of course, there are black-on-black crimes in America just as there are black-on-white dastardly acts. Therefore, the signification of his act may not be defined by the nature of the colour of his skin in contrast to that of his victims. What made jaws drop, however, is the motive that fuelled his wave of destruction.As reported, this 21 year old landscaper who dropped out of high school is determined to trigger a race war in America!
Echoing the mindset of those who are miffed at the presence of foreigners in this country like xenophobic South Africa, the youngster whose names I will not honour, has been alleged to have stated on a website linked to him and an obnoxious manifesto the following: “Segregation was not a bad thing. It was a defensive measure. Segregation did not exist to hold back negroes. It existed to protect us from them.And I mean that in multiple ways. Not only did it protect us from having to interact with them, and from being physically harmed by them, but it protected us from being brought down to their level. Integration has done nothing but bring Whites down to level of brute animals. The best example of this is obviously our school system.” Do these words remind you of South Africa before Uhuru in 1994?
Unequivocally, they do! In his words I hear those uttered in 1948 by the National Party, the architects of Apartheid in South Africa: “History must be taught in the light of God’s decreed plan for the human race . . . God . . . willed separate nations and peoples. Native education should be based on the principles of trusteeship, non-equality and segregation; its aim should be to inculcate the white man’s way of life … which is the senior trustee.” A distinct leverage for “the senior trustee” was that “education was used to prepare white children for exclusive access to the rewards of a new and wealthy society,” as Walton R. Johnson argues in his essay, “Education: Keystone of Apartheid”. Thus, if the US obliterated this principle of inequality aimed at perpetuating white privilege, do you understand why the young killer form South Carolina is angry at the American school system for making this opportunity commonplace even for “brute animals”? For this fella, he will be at peace with the world, nay America, if the school system will forever operate within a culture that forever amplifies his belief as couched in his alleged manifesto: “Modern history classes instill (sic) a subconscious White superiority complex in Whites and an inferiority complex in blacks.” What an audacity!
The despicable audacity of this individual, who calls himself The Last Rhodesian, threatens the social fabric of the American state, and it rubbishes all that the US has gained during the last four and half decades that made William E. Schaufele, Jr. to triumphantly proclaim in his study on the US relations in South Africa that: “Our history as a people of many races able to live together more or less in harmony can be, within limits, a guide and inspiration to others.” Sadly, in South Carolina, Schaufele’s 1977 declaration that the American experience is the gold standard which South Africa or other nations caught in the web of discriminatory praxis “must travel to overcome the burden of its racial heritage” has been turned upside down by those who are so determined to trump the US as known today.
Today, these ingrates who have forgotten the history of this great nation are advocating apartness which Schaufele posits “enshrines the concept of separateness, without even the leavening thought of equality.” This was a practice the US Supreme Court abolished many generations ago. Unfortunately, this feverish dislike for the current status quo by those determined to destroy the American civilization from within finds expression in a certain monstrosity that has been bestowed on the Confederate flag, which is another ensign contesting supremacy with the Star-Spangled Banner. For the champions of a new apartheid in America, the Confederate flag is the emblem of pure heritage and something that reminds them of those felled by America during the American civil war between 1861 and 1865. But for others, this flag is America’s symbol of hate which emboldens domestic terrorism set to consume in an inglorious blaze the American glitz and glamour.
Today, life in the US may be edgy along racial lines and I am tempted to tarry on one thought as I gaze into my crystal ball: is the rebirth of the KKK near? However, there is a still voice whispering through the land, suggesting that everyone – black, green, white, yellow or red – must remember that: “All of American history is a forgetting and a remembering, in cycles. It’s hard to say whether it’s a good thing or a bad to forget the past. … For the past forty years the United States has been conducting a sociological experiment the outcome of which has yet to be seen. We’re far from being a pluribus unum; we’re still very much Mark Twain’s “damned human race.” If a display of a defeated flag is a snag in the process, pull it down.” Guy Davenport’s words in “The Confederate Battle Flag” rekindle hope, not hatred. America will not kill hope.