Recently Baldilocks argued that while white supremacy in the South was pernicious, the actions of Islamic terrorists is a while nother bag. In response I asked a few questions.
First things first.
When engaged in dialogue about white supremacy in the South, it's crucial that we understand what terror really looked like. When we think about Jim Crow, we usually think about separate facilities right? Separate bathrooms, separate restaurants, separate drinking faucets, separate schools. But imagine if you will a people without protection of the law. Imagine over 200 years of mob rule.
Take a look at the link above. Carefully. See the smiling faces of children? The proud faces of the men? Note also that these activities didn't take place in the dead of night, but rather in the middle of the day. While I don't believe in the Apocrypha about the term picnic, I can understand why some people do.
Now how in the hell could people actually get away with this? How could they go to sleep at night? How could they stay sane? Two words: Judeo-Christian ethic.
What Juliette is arguing is that there are no textual references in Islam that could create an Islamic version of Martin Luther King jr., like there are in Christianity. She is also arguing for a "pure" Christianity that was somehow tainted by racists who used it wrongly. To this I say two things:
1. What do you get when you run a search for "peace" in the Qu'ran?
2. If Christianity was used "wrongly" why did it take 335 years before it was used correctly?
The first question is important because Juliette is making an assumption that the text of the Qu'ran is geared towards violence and war. Passages on concepts like "peace" in comparison should be either difficult to find or narrowly tailored.
The second question is important because Juliette assumes that through a combination of time, and powerful words convincing people to act right, white Americans got their act together. If such a reading is correct, then it still begs the question of why it took so long for this to happen.
Posted by at April 5, 2004 09:51 PM | TrackBack
Good job LKS,although I've read books dealing with lynching;nothing prepared me for this forum.Juliette does not take in account the largest exodus in the World,people leaving the South;although some where white seeking jobs ,Blacks didn't leave in the early 1900 for jobs,My Father (God Blees his soul)with three sisters and Ross and Cora Spence his parents left Macon Ga. to escape terroism.
Posted by: tootsie at April 6, 2004 10:35 AMTootsie