(This is an un-published piece I wrote for another outlet this summer, although it’s not the usual R.C. fare, I think the topic still resonates.)
In June of this year, seven men were arrested for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on the Sears Tower in Chicago. CNN reported that law enforcement believe the men are members of a radical Muslim group and at least one of them took an Al Qaeda oath. While this information is consistent with the level of terrorist threats in the United States today, the shocker in this case is that all seven men were black.
According to law enforcement, the plot was still in the early stages — “aspirational” is how they described it — and although the men pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, there was no link found between the Chicago plot and Middle Eastern terrorism. Yet the situation begs a question for African Americans: Are black people less patriotic than other Americans? Has a long history of disenfranchisement and oppression made them more likely to be critical, distrustful and disloyal to the U.S.?
The overwhelming historical evidence says no. At every turn, African Americans have found ways to show a deep love for America even as they were forced to insist on the right to be full citizens.
Dr. Janis San.chez-Hu.cles, Dean of Psychology at Old Dominion University in Virginia, points to the sacrifice blacks made during U.S. war efforts. “African Americans have been patriotic and have always wanted to fight in wars. If you recall in the history of military, African Americans fought to be involved in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I and World War II,” said San.chez-Hu.cles. “I think African Americans have dual consciences — we’ve always wanted to defend the United States. We’ve always been aware on the other levels we fought for other people and we didn’t have the same rights that white Americans have. We were patriotic, but aware that we are second-class citizens in our own country.”
T.J. Crawford, an organizer of the National Political Hip Hop Convention, believes that the plot by the seven men is an anomaly. “I think when you have people who are marginalized and living in poverty … they will be more susceptible …,” he said. “However, black people are very conservative and tend to want to do the right things.” Not to mention the fear of anti-American terror they share with the general U.S. population in the wake of 9/11.
But a more important point is that African Americans developed and carried out one of the most effective, patriotic liberation efforts in history with the non-violent civil rights movement of the 1960s. Because that movement was so successful — particularly compared with the militant efforts at the time — non-violence in the face of oppression is embraced as a core tenet of the African American tradition. Terrorism flies in the face of that tradition.
But even if it’s true that African Americans are unlikely to be part of a covert anti-U.S. effort, does the the fact that all the Sears Tower suspects are black cast suspicion on the black community?
It may, but it should not, said San.chez-Hu.cles. “When we had the bombings in Oklahoma, there was a belief that [the perpetrator] was a Middle Eastern individual from another country,” she explains. “Then we found out that it was a born-and-bred, white American. Would we say that the majority of whites are into terrorism? We would say ‘no.’ We tend to see white violence as more of an exception.”
Not so with blacks, she said. America still has a long way to go to a time when the acts of individual blacks are not seen as a reflection of the whole black community, however that is defined. San.chez-Hu.cles sums up the experience with this observation. “Anything that happens positive that happens to an African-American, people say you’re a credit to your race, I’ve never heard that statement in regard to white people,” she she says.
Black Americans, to the extent that they aspire to make a mark beyond their own families and communities, are as likely as everyone else to aspire to the a credit to their country. The American myths of the fight for freedom and the importance of liberty may not resonate more strongly with any group of Americans than those whose history is so bound up with the tragedy of slavery.
Tags: Patriotism
WHAT NOW?