United States Independence: unsolved challenges
Independence; White supremacism; critical race theory; institutional racism.
Welcome to a new edition of Sin Fronteras. Today is July 4th and the Independence of the United States is celebrated. So, I invite you to join Craig Hudson and me, on a journey through history and a review of what the African-American people are experiencing today in these complex times.
(10 min read)
In the constitutive stage of the United States as an imperialist power, it had one of its specific historical manifestations in the various wars waged by the desire for domination. From its own birth as a modern nation-state with the war of independence, through the wars for the conquest of the West and the American hegemony, the Civil War, and then the world wars, that of Korea and Vietnam, in all it specifically expressed the “black question”. If historically the United States used the black population for its dominant interests while condemning them domestically to slavery first and second-class citizenship, the black movement deployed multiple forms of resistance against this and strengthened its organization.
Beyond proclaiming the birth of the United States of America, the Declaration of Independence was an authentic declaration of intent that made clear the aspirations of the new nation. Since its enactment on July 4, 1776, the eloquence of its message became a powerful founding myth, the origin of a common destiny revered by the American people.
Today, the Declaration remains a reference for those who yearn to make America the most just and inclusive country in the world. Paradoxically, the Declaration is also an obstacle to achieving that goal.
Drafted and signed by the Founding Fathers headed by Thomas Jefferson, in its second paragraph the Declaration affirmed as “self-evident” truths that “all men are created equal” and that “freedom and the pursuit of happiness” they are "inalienable rights".
The clarity and firmness of these statements are undeniable and their impact has marked the historical evolution of the country. The Declaration is the foundation of the "American exceptionalism" that has extolled the United States as a unique nation, blessed in its creation by democratic ideals and not limited to ancestral ties to a territory.
It is a radical and extraordinarily attractive idea: a nation open to all who want to join that ideal of freedom and equality. Not surprisingly, in a country that proudly identifies itself as a nation of immigrants, the Declaration has been the engine of the "American dream" that has attracted human capital from around the world and has driven the great achievements of the United States.
The text, ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, serves multiple purposes: memorial of grievances against English colonialism, plea against tyranny, and revolutionary proclamation. It’s not the Constitution of 1787. It is rather a declaration of democratic principles but without guaranteed results: “We hold these truths as evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness”.
Credits: Craig Hudson
These unfulfilled promises, as original as they are misleading as they come from minute zero accompanied by the tolerated scourge of slavery, help to explain the accumulation of frustrations that pre-existing the protests that were unleashed after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In the United States, where slavery would mark - since before independence - difficult to reconcile differences between North and South, millions of people were used as captive labor, especially in the speculative cultivation of cotton. By 1860, on the eve of the American Civil War, the value of all slaves in America was greater than the combined value of all the nation's railroads and banks.
In this process, slavery was integrated into the political design of the United States. In order to win the support of the future southern states, with large plantations and countless slaves to cultivate, the accusation that the British monarchy had imposed slavery on its American colonies had to disappear from the Declaration of Independence.
And to carry out the Constitution of 1787 the Three-Fifths Compromise was used. For the purposes of the federal census, a slave would be counted as three-fifths of a free man, which guaranteed the specific weight within the Union of the unequal demographics of the States.
Despite all these attempts to protect and sustain this tragedy described in moralistic terms as America's birth defect, slavery led to the secession of the Southern States in 1861, leading to a civil war that cost his life. 2.5% of the American population, around one million fatalities.
At the end of the destructive conflict, Amendments XIII, XIV, and XV to the United States Constitution were passed. These reforms focused on the abolition of slavery, citizenship, and political rights for slaves. A rectification without compensation that, especially in the South, relegated African Americans to a marginal position.
This historic inequality was the focus of the civil rights struggle in the mid-20th century and despite the progress made, it still affects a large part of American society.
This is how many questions arise: How is it possible to live with slavery for 89 years after having solemnly declared that “all men are created equal”? How is it possible that, in 1965, one hundred years after slavery was abolished, interracial marriage was still a crime in almost half the states of the country?
To understand these paradoxes a deeper reading of the Declaration is necessary. The historical context sheds light on what the Founding Fathers meant, beyond what the Declaration says verbatim. Many of its authors, including Jefferson, were slave owners and, obviously for them, the black man, being his property, could not be his equal. Native Americans are only mentioned in the Declaration as "wild Indians" and were also excluded from the rights described in the Declaration.
As time went by, the descendants of the authors of the Declaration (some with enthusiasm, others reluctantly and others so reluctantly that they provoked a civil war) gradually expanded the circle, granting rights to “outsiders” groups. , not just blacks and indigenous people. Jews, Catholics, Italians, Chinese, Irish, Hispanics, etc. they have suffered discrimination on religious grounds or because they are perceived as “culturally different”. Some groups like those of Italian and Irish descent have fully entered the circle of white America. Other groups such as Muslims or Hispanics continue to suffer today the discrimination and attacks of xenophobic nationalism that Donald Trump knows how to exploit masterfully.
The current racial outbreak in the United States must also be understood as part of the corrosive inequality crisis exacerbated by the pandemic.
African Americans (and Hispanics as well) are the ones who are disproportionately suffering from it. Either in their condition as victims of the virus or victims of the subsequent economic crisis.
Racist rhetoric is based on inciting fears similar to those that sparked other racist outbursts in US history - for example, in the 1920s the country adopted the racial hierarchy ideas of eugenics. Promoted by the formidable American university machine led by Yale and Harvard, these ideas justified racism, established white supremacism, and produced overtly racist policies such as blocking immigration of "undesirable" ethnic groups, segregation, forced sterilization and criminalization of interracial marriage. The objective was to appease the fear of what President Theodore Roosevelt called "racial suicide", that is, the diminution of the dominance of the Anglo-American or Nordic race, considered the master race.
Trump has consistently fueled a cultural civil war through provocations more befitting a rising on social media than the president of one of the world's most racially diverse nations.
Of course, Donald Trump is not the first occupant of the Oval Office to attempt to politicize America's racial problem.
International discredit, extreme violence, an overdose of fear and uncertainty, economic decline, political polarization, racial protests and unleashed populism.
History doesn't repeat itself but 2020 looks like 1968, the year that has never really ended for the American giant and that has become the last source of electoral inspiration for Donald Trump.
And for this, it’s key to understand that racial transformation is being the trigger for these hate speech.
The electorate that remained loyal to Trump longs for a past that transcends the last four years. It evokes a mythical country from the 1950s, a reality prior to the declaration of civil rights.
A lot has changed since then.
American society is more secular, women no longer vote like men, income distribution is more unequal, and American workers see their jobs disappear. But perhaps the most profound change is racial transformation. The white population, 90% of the country in 1950, today represents about 60%. The electorate is more diverse today than ever.
Every time a political change subverts the rigid American racial order, a conservative president emerges to resist the historic transformation.
In the 19th century, after the civil war and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson delayed the rebuilding of the southern states and empowered the white elite. In the 20th century, after the civil rights movement, Richard Nixon came to power claiming to represent the "silent majority." In the 21st century, after the rise of Barack Obama, the first Afro-American president in the country's history, Donald Trump promised to “Make America Great Again”.
Presidents exploit their constitutional powers to the limit. It is no accident that Johnson, Nixon and Trump have faced impeachment in Congress. Nixon resigned before being tried. Johnson and Trump survived the Senate vote, betting their re-election on all or nothing. Johnson was replaced by Ulysses Grant, general of the armies of the North. Trump defended his position against Obama's vice president, Biden.
And the big loser in this fight - in addition to the African-American community - has been the Republican Party itself. Trump's personalist project prevented republicanism from modernizing to capture a changing country. The hard core of his electorate is represented today by a white man, elderly, evangelical and without higher education. Young people, women, racial minorities, sexual dissidents, and the upper-middle-class suburban electorate are increasingly distancing themselves from the party.
The future of democracy is not based on the definitive defeat of the Republican Party and its discourse that magnifies white supremacism, but on the revitalization of democracy, social inclusion and effective representation of all citizens in all levels of government.
Today the Biden administration has a huge task ahead and has already given many winks to the African-American community, this July 4 will be celebrated with the first African-American female vice president and descendant of immigrants in history in the White House, with Juneteenth (date that celebrates the end of slavery) declared a national holiday, with George Floyd's killer in prison, but still not enough.
The Opposition and Challenges Remaining: The issue of reparations remains a controversial issue in the US, including the lack of support for reparations, particularly in communities like Tulsa, fierce opposition to critical race theory , Ongoing cultural struggles over the removal of Confederate monuments Ongoing voter suppression legislation passed in the Republican states.
This was all for today, I hope you liked it.
See you next week!
Florencia & Craig.