Sound Off

From Wikipedia-

Because many of the British colonists, such as the Puritans and Congregationalists, were fleeing religious persecution by the Church of England, much of early American religious culture exhibited the more extreme anti-Catholic bias of these Protestant denominations. Monsignor John Tracy Ellis wrote that a “universal anti-Catholic bias was brought to Jamestown in 1607 and vigorously cultivated in all the thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia.”^[11] Colonial charters and laws contained specific proscriptions against Roman Catholics. Monsignor Ellis noted that a common hatred of the Roman Catholic Church could unite Anglican clerics and Puritan ministers despite their differences and conflicts.

Some of America’s Founding Fathers held anti-clerical beliefs. For example, in 1788, John Jay urged the New York Legislature to require office-holders to renounce foreign authorities “in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil.” ^[12]. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government,”^[13] and, “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”^[14]

Some states devised loyalty oaths designed to exclude Catholics from state and local office.^[15]

Anti-Catholic animus in the United States reached a peak in the nineteenth century when the Protestant population became alarmed by the influx of Catholic immigrants. Some American Protestants, having an increased interest in prophecies regarding the end of time, claimed that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation.^[16] The resulting “nativist” movement, which achieved prominence in the 1840s, was whipped into a frenzy of anti-Catholicism that led to mob violence, the burning of Catholic property, and the killing of Catholics.^[17] This violence was fed by claims that Catholics were destroying the culture of the United States. The nativist movement found expression in a national political movement called the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, which (unsuccessfully) ran former president Millard Fillmore as its presidential candidate in 1856.

How many of you would be willing to admit to a bias against people who are Catholic? I’m not talking about the shenanigans going on with the Clergy or the Papacy. I’m talking about your neighbors. Your co-workers.

Also from Wikipedia-

In the aftermath of 9/11, hate crimes against people of Middle-Eastern descent increased from 354 attacks in 2000 to 1,501 attacks in 2001.^[155] Among the victims of the backlash was a Middle-Eastern man in Houston, Texas who was shot and wounded after an assailant accused him of “blowing up the country”^[156] and four immigrants shot and killed by a man named Larme Price who confessed to killing them as “revenge” for the September 11 attacks.^[157] Although Price described his victims as Arabs, only one was from an Arab country. This appears to be a trend; on account of stereotypes of Arabs, several non-Arab, non-Muslim groups were subjected to attacks in the wake of 9/11, including several Sikh men attacked for wearing their religiously mandated turban.^[158]According to a report prepared by the Arab American Institute, three days after the Oklahoma City bombing, “more than 200 serious hate crimes were committed against Arab Americans and American Muslims. The same was true in the days following September 11.”

Funny. Isn’t it? It’s starting to sound awfully familiar.

Now let’s go over this little item from American history:

Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean… Manifest Destiny was always a general notion rather than a specific policy. The term combined a belief in expansionism with other popular ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism, Romantic nationalism, and a belief in the natural superiority of what was then called the “Anglo-Saxon race”…

Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans, since continental expansion implicitly meant the occupation and annexation of Native American land. The United States continued the European practice of recognizing only limited land rights of indigenous peoples. In a policy formulated largely by Henry Knox, Secretary of War in the Washington Administration, the U.S. government sought to expand into the west through the legal purchase of Native American land in treaties. Indians were encouraged to sell their vast tribal lands and become “civilized”, which meant (among other things) for Native American men to abandon hunting and become farmers, and for their society to reorganize around the family unit rather than the clan or tribe. The United States therefore acquired lands by treaty from Indian nations, usually under circumstances which suggest a lack of voluntary and knowing consent by the native signers.

Advocates of civilization programs believed that the process of settling native tribes would greatly reduce the amount of land needed by the Native Americans, making more land available for homesteading by white Americans. Thomas Jefferson believed that while American Indians were the intellectual equals of whites, they had to live like the whites or inevitably be pushed aside by them.^{[citation needed]}, Jefferson’s belief, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, that whites and Native Americans would merge to create a single nation did not last his lifetime, and he began to believe that the natives should emigrate across the Mississippi River and maintain a separate society, an idea made possible by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.^{[citation needed]}

In the age of Manifest Destiny, this idea, which came to be known as “Indian Removal“, gained ground. Although some humanitarian advocates of removal believed that American Indians would be better off moving away from whites, an increasing number of Americans regarded the natives as nothing more than savages who stood in the way of American expansion. As historian Reginald Horsman argued in his influential study Race and Manifest Destiny, racial rhetoric increased during the era of Manifest Destiny. Americans increasingly believed that Native Americans would fade away as the United States expanded. As an example, this idea was reflected in the work of one of America’s first great historians, Francis Parkman, whose landmark book The Conspiracy of Pontiac was published in 1851. Parkman wrote that Indians were “destined to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of Anglo-American power, which now rolled westward unchecked and unopposed.”

Who and what gives us the right? No matter what you think about our current President (and trust, I voted for him, but 100% happy I am not) he said this, and he’s right:

We must never forget those who we lost so tragically on 9/11, and we must always honor those who led the response to that attack – from the firefighters who charged up smoke-filled staircases, to our troops who are serving in Afghanistan today. And let us also remember who we’re fighting against, and what we’re fighting for. Our enemies respect no religious freedom. Al-Qaida’s cause is not Islam — it’s a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists who murder innocent men and women and children. In fact, al-Qaida has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion — and that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11.

Not to even mention the innocent Muslims and other non-Muslim people from the Middle East who were terrorized or killed by our citizens out of fear and hatred afterward.

After 9/11 my mother told me on the phone about a Sikh boy in her school who was being bullied. Boys do not cut their hair in that religion, and it is wound into the turbans they wear on their heads. This boy had not had his hair cut ever, but due to being targeted by misinformed asshat students his parents removed his turban and cut his hair for his own safety.

You can’t tell me that doesn’t suck.

When I was a kid Schoolhouse Rock had a segment called The Great American Melting Pot. When I was a kid I believed it. I was so naive.

My grandmother came from Russia
A satchel on her knee,
My grandfather had his father’s cap
He brought from Italy.
They’d heard about a country
Where life might let them win,
They paid the fare to America
And there they melted in.

Lovely Lady Liberty
With her book of recipes
And the finest one she’s got
Is the great American melting pot.
The great American melting pot.

America was founded by the English,
But also by the Germans, Dutch, and French.
The principle still sticks;
Our heritage is mixed.
So any kid could be the president.

You simply melt right in,
It doesn’t matter what your skin.
It doesn’t matter where you’re from,
Or your religion, you jump right in
To the great American melting pot.
The great American melting pot.
Ooh, what a stew, red, white, and blue.

America was the New World
And Europe was the Old.
America was the land of hope,
Or so the legend told.
On steamboats by the millions,
In search of honest pay,
Those 19th-century immigrants sailed
To reach the U.S.A.

Lovely Lady Liberty
With her book of recipes
And the finest one she’s got
Is the great American melting pot
The great American melting pot.
What good ingredients,
Liberty and immigrants.

They brought the country’s customs,
Their language and their ways.
They filled the factories, tilled the soil,
Helped build the U.S.A.
Go on and ask your grandma,
Hear what she has to tell
How great to be an American
And something else as well.

Lovely Lady Liberty
With her book of recipes
And the finest one she’s got
Is the great American melting pot
The great American melting pot.

The great American melting pot.
The great American melting pot.