Page 22
The
Portland Observer Black History Month
February 9, 2011
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What is Truly ‘Exceptional’ About America?
When words
ring hollow
American context, like those fake
towns of pre-1960s Hollywood B-
movie westerns: all facades with no
substance behind them. The words
ring hollow because they leave
out the complexity of the reality.
R e p re se n ta tiv e M ichele
Bachmann’s recent speech be
fore a conservative gathering in
Iowa offers a prime example of
how fantastical these views are.
Speaking of slavery, the Minnesota
Republican declared that “We also
know that the very founders who
wrote I the Constitution] worked tire-
lessly until slavery was no more in
the United States,” and said at an-
other point:
“How unique in all the world, that
one nation that was the resting point
from people groups all across the
by L ee A.
D aniels
Here’s a sugges
tion: W henever
you hear or read
someone boasting
of
“ A m erican
exceptionalism,”—
the notion that America has since
its founding been uniquely ordained
by God and its own moral character
to lead the world - reach for your
w allet. B ecause, intellectually
speaking, someone is surely trying
to pick your pocket.
The political arena has recently
become awash in simplistic asser-
tions from assorted conservatives
bruiting the purity of the Founders’ world. It didn’t matter the color of
belief in liberty and equality and the their skin. It didn’t matter their lan
projection of a serene, almost be guage. It didn't matter their eco
atific version of the history of nomic status ... Once you got here,
America.
we were all the same. Isn't that re
To recall an old phrase: don’t markable? It’s absolutely remark
believe the hype. Another political able.”
stratagem to question President
One of the many remarkable
Obama s patriotism and his very things about this funhouse-mirror
American-ness? Yes. Another ex- version of American history is that
pression of many conservatives’ it makes Negro slavery abstract,
anxiety about the greater democ- virtually invisible as an activity in-
racy the hard-fought struggle to volving human beings, let alone as
expand opportunity has produced ? what it really was: a criminal enter-
Yes. The truth about American his- prise in which Africans and African
. tory? Not even close.
Americans were enslaved so that
The right-wing, exceptionalist individual whites and the whites-
version of the nation’s history is so only America the 1787 Constitution
scrubbed of reality it s like a constructed could grow rich.
Potemkin Village, or to put it an
That is the mental slight-of-hand
which enables George F. Will to
av o id
a d m ittin g
th at
the
Constitution’s endorsement of Ne
gro slavery most certainly was not
about “emancipating individuals for
the pursuit of happiness,” and that
it was indeed a most perverse use of
the power of the state to allocate
wealth and opportunity.
One should laugh but so freely,
however, at these delusional ac
counts of the American past. Before
the ascendancy of the Civil Rights
Movement in the 1960s, as most any
the vote and true opportunity for
women is conveniently forgotten.
One could go on down a very
long list.
In fact, that list is worth explor
ing in detail, not to damn Am erica
- which, for all its flaws, has been
the modern e ra ’s great hope. It is
w orth exam ining because that
activity underscores what is truly
exceptional about America. That
is its capacity for dem ocratic re
form: to, ultim ately, heed insis
tent demands to fix w hat's wrong
the Civil War.
There, driven by the lesson of
slavery’s terrible injustice but ap
p lie d to e v e ry o n e , C o n g re ss
stated plainly: All persons born
or naturalized in the United States
and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens o f the United
States and of the State wherein
they reside.
The assertion of a right of citizen
ship by birth was as “exceptional”
an idea in the 19th century as the
idea that all human beings had an
“inalienable right” to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness had been a
century earlier; and “birthright citi
zenship” - which continues to make
the U.S. “exceptional” among the
nations of the world — has to
America’s great profit been consis
tently reaffirmed by the Supreme
Court.
A Washington Post reader who
took
e x ce p tio n
to
W ill’s
exceptionalist claims got it just right
when he wrote in a letter to the
editor, “Our birth does not make us
th at co m e from a F re d e ric k exceptional. Our aspirations do -
Douglass; a Samuel Gom pers; a aspirations that we can continue to
Jane Addams; a Cesar Chavez; or improve the present society through
a M artin Luther King Jr. - and, future progress . ..”
more importantly, from the Ameri
It's so revealing that today’s
cans they represent.
American exceptionalists, blinded
Indeed, A m erica’s ability to by their peculiar vision of America’s
correct its flaws and expand the past, can't see that, too.
meaning of the rights of human
¿cc A. Daniels is Director of
beings was never more dram ati Communications for the NAACP
cally stated than in the 14th Legal Defense and Educational
Am endment to the Constitution Fund, Inc., and Editor-in-Chief of
Congress enacted in the wake of TheDefendersOnline.
One of the many remarkable things
about this funhouse-mirror version o f
American history is that it makes
Negro slavery abstract, virtually
invisible as an activity involving
human beings, let alone as what it
really was: a criminal enterprise...
school and college history text from
those decades will show, they were
the “official” view of America’s past.
In the exceptionalist world of
fantasy, Negro slavery is barely
m entioned: the exclusion o f Asian
im m igrants from citizenship for
more than a century is ignored;
the n e ar-ex tin ctio n o f N ative
Am ericans is passed over; the
fierce bigotry white ethnic im m i
grants endured for nearly a cen
tury is suppressed; the denial of
better to the
In the feature report on OM SI’s new exhibit "Mysteries
of Ancient Egypt Unearthed,"(Portland Observer, Jan. 26
issue) it showed four sculptures of women from 2,200 and
2,900 years ago. That is before Jesus Christ and Julius Cesar
and shows that that Egypt at that time was quite advanced.
Over the years many very interesting facts have come to
light about Egypt. I would like to take this time to bring
forward some other facts and present a theory:
Facts:
1. The face on the Sphinx is not an Arab face, it is a black
African face.
2. The inspiration for the Sphinx, come from the "Age
of Leo, the Lion ", from 12,000 BC. Not 10,500 BC as some
have proposed that was the start of the Egyptian Empire.
3. There is an African tribe, the Maasai, I believe. In one
of their ceremonies they dance around on stilts (about 12"),
as they believe that they were taller and had migrated from
Ilfe t-lnrtlanh (Dbsmier
Egypt’s History
the North eons ago.
4. On the Nile River, on the bank there is a six foot
obelisk. That states "From this point North, no black man
shall remain free.”
Theory:
1. The Egyptian Empire started during the "Age of Leo/
the Lion" and progressed over the eons. Over time they one
way or the other acquired slaves and other lower classes of
people. Many of these people were used in the palaces and
temples to perform many of the tasks required of the ruling
Egyptians. And, these people over time adopted the cus
toms and religion of their masters.
2. There was a rebellion at some time and many of the
masters were killed and the survivors were run off. And,
went south.
3. The "Obelisk on the Nile River" was erected to
remind them not to return or else.
Established 1970
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4. After the rebellion, the palace and temple people
knew a good deal and assumed the top positions.
5. Over time the Egyptian culture and religion assumed
an Arab face by the time of Moses.
It is just a theory.
John Sweeney
Southeast Portland
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