Losing A Providential Idea

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A TRIBALIZED SOCIETY

The word tribe derives from the Latin word tribus, meaning a division of people. Contrary to common perception, tribes are not necessarily, and are rarely, uniquely comprised of only descendants of particular or common ancestry. In the first century, and in the period before and after that era, tribes were commonly social groups made up of numerous and disparate families, clans or generations, including slaves, dependents, and immigrants (adopted strangers). Later in history, perhaps, even in contemporary times, a tribe would be a social group made up of people that have a common character, interest or culture.

Therefore, tribes are not necessarily societies, organized only on the basis of kinship, but, perhaps, more so, on common interests, such as economic, security, other social and political exigencies, or any combination of those. Nowadays, the term tribe has been practically and functionally replaced by the term "ethnic group", even though ethnic group often encompass tribes and much more. Hence, for the purposes of this book the term tribe reflects the broader context of ethnicity. Tribalism, similar to ethnicity and even sectarianism, is a social concept rooted in the idea of societal groups marked by shared tradition or cultural characteristics.

Following the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that, perhaps, ushered in the notion of the nation-state and sovereignty, tribes, even ethnic groups became part of a larger social and political entity—the state or country through a combination of voluntary and forced amalgamations. Members of a tribe possess strong in-group consciousness or loyalty that often precede or surpass their loyalty to the nation-state that they are part of. Such groups have strong exclusive traits, including a separate language, separate cultural identity, ethnic consciousness, divided loyalty, increased group rights, and diminished individual rights.

For the purposes of this book, the term or concept "tribalizing" would have the same essential dynamics, in its implication, as "sectarianizing"• hence both concepts are implied in the thesis of this essay. "Tribalization" is a social process more than it is a phenomenon. It is a social evolution, which takes many years, decades, and even centuries to materialize or become evident as the basic social structure in a larger society. There is evidence to indicate that the tribal social concept and structure developed as groups of people established strong ties on the basis of common ancestry, beliefs, ideals, commerce, practices and other interests (e.g. customs, religion, needs, threats, etc.). These beliefs, ideals, and practices are often different from those held in general by the nation-state in general, that the tribe is part of. This is evident in older societies such as countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and perhaps some parts of Europe. Even the native inhabitants of much of North America had tribal social structures, albeit, arguably, not as part of a nation-state, but as disparate competing social entities.

Compared to the older societies in those other regions mentioned above, America is still a very young society. The process of tribalization may not have reached a critical stage to be evident in America yet. But in the absence of conscious efforts to address and counter such social evolution, which is rapidly taking root in America, perhaps a hundred to two hundred years from now, America could become more like any one of those other societies. What I am at least suggesting is that the United States of America is now faced with the same conditions or comparable conditions, and is, perhaps, going through the same or similar phases (social processes) that led to the fractional composition of many older societies, such as can be found in Africa, Middle East, Asia and Even Europe. These conditions are evident in the fact that America is now home to people from at least 200 countries. Many of these people represent distinct tribal or ethnic groups and cultures that exist in their ancestral homelands. These cultures are now being established in America as parallel cultures, thanks to multiculturalism and political correctness.

The problem does not lie in the fact that people come to this country from other societies with different cultures, that has always been the case. Rather, the problem is that many of them are more inclined not to integrate than to do so. Such people are more predisposed to transform America or parts of America to become more like the societies from which they came. They are more committed to replicating the cultures of those societies in America, than they are, to modifying or transforming them to become part of the greater American culture, as true composite cultures.

This tends to create an environment of cultural polarization. Such a tendency undermines unity and is prone to fragmenting a nation, as is evident in other societies. People with such inclinations are opposed to integration. Rather than strive to become more American, they strive to make America become more like them or more like where they came from. This tends to lead to self-exclusion or isolation, tribal or ethnic mentality and culture clash, which tend to weaken the cohesion of the whole nation.

These tendencies are sometimes marked by several indices, including (but not limited to) preference for languages other than English as the primary and main choice of language, distinct or exclusive cultures that have not become part of the broader American culture (infused with the core American ideals), and ethnic consciousness. These tendencies can also be identified by traits such as subscription or deference to group rights more than individual rights, for the benefits of a subculture, inherent and perceived mistrust of other ethnic groups, ideals diametrically opposed to the core American principles, and active dual or multiple nationality status. America ought to remain true to Theodore Roosevelt admonition. Roosevelt said in 1907, "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... we have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is the loyalty to the American people."

Surveys of the so-called British Muslims, all of them British citizens by birth or by naturalization, show that they do not regard themselves as "British", but as Muslims who are British citizens and living in Britain. So far, a similar sentiment has not yet manifested in America. But two recent articles published in the New York Times, perhaps, underscore an emerging situation that could be a harbinger to something similar. Oscar Casares, in his article "Crossing the Border Without Losing Your Past," wrote, "Like many Americans whose families came to this country from somewhere else, many children of Mexican immigrants struggle with their identity, as our push to fully assimilate is met with an even greater pull to remain anchored to our family's country of origin."

In another article in the New York Times, published on September 7, 2003, Muqtedar Khan, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, conceded that Muslims in America strive to make America more Islamic, rather than becoming more American. He expressed the difficulty Muslims in America have with integration, even a mere semantic modification of the label by which they distinguish themselves from other Americans. He wrote, "Muslims in America. American Muslims. The difference between these two labels may seem a matter of semantics, but making the transition from the first to the second represents a profound, if somewhat silent, revolution that many of us in the Muslim community have been undergoing in the two years since Sept. 11." He said further, "On its face, this shift would seem to threaten the very core of Muslim identity and empowerment. After all, in the decade before the events of Sept. Il, Islam was one of the fastest-growing religions in North America. Mosques and Islamic schools were going up in every major city. Groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations and the American Muslim Alliance established chapters in nearly every area with a Muslim population."

The ambivalence, and in many cases, the unwillingness of some immigrants to integrate into the American society is evident in the desire to establish alternative cultures. It is also the reason why some have established alternative official languages to the English language, which has since the founding of America, has been the official language of the nation, albeit tacitly.

Language is perhaps the primary element of a society and the primary method of communication among people in a society. It is a very powerful tool; that can unite or divide to the same degree. In fact, it is said in the Bible that God caused confusion and disunity among the people who sought to build the tower of Babel by making them speak different languages, thereby thwarting their efforts and foiling their conceited ambitions.

The starting point or foundation for social integration is perhaps a common language. Without it, the process would be as making bread, bricks, or concrete with little or no water. In a sense, language is equivalent to the arteries and veins, perhaps, in another sense, like the blood, in the human body, through which the essential elements are distributed, the essence (life) sustained, and the body maintained. Building a society on multiple languages, indeed any form of social engineering that does not emphasize a single common language in a particular society, is imprudent. The former is a recipe for disaster and the latter is an exercise in futility.

Language is the most basic and common way to exclude and alienate people (or to be excluded and alienated). It is also the most basic and common way to include and integrate people. A common language establishes the initial element of trust between people. It is the initial sign of acceptance amongst people. Language is indeed the true passport to any country or society. When people cannot communicate in the language of the society in which they dwell, they are excluded by default, seriously hampered and marginalized. Studies show that, often such people remain poor and heavily dependent on government assistance, and frequently resort to self-imposed isolation. In the final analysis, they are more likely to be unable to help themselves in a meaningful way and attain their full potentials; they become resentful, prone to exploitation and can only contribute marginally to the society. Ultimately, these lead to the conflict in communality resulting from identity crisis.

Studies show that poverty and lack of opportunity, particularly among the immigrant population in many Western societies, is largely due to their inability to communicate in the common and official language of the society. This is second only to their failure to fully integrate culturally into those societies, which in some regards is still due to language problems. The English language has become the official language of global commerce, science, technology, and art; it has indeed become more or less the global language of transaction. All over the world, people are recognizing this fact and seeking education in the English language.

Studies also show that the demand for American-style education (universities, etc.) and television programming is increasing rapidly around the world. This is in part due to the realization that the English language is fast becoming the world's language of choice by necessity. Hence, it is puzzling that America, which is largely responsible for this emerging global consciousness, by virtue of her economic dominance, seems to fail to see what the rest of the world, ironically, sees in her. This is borne by the fact that America has continued to actively promote multiple official languages by teaching students and conducting official businesses in languages other than the English language.

All over the world, students who are unable to come to the United States of America for their education are increasingly attending American schools in many regions of the world, such as Sophia (Bulgaria), Beirut (Lebanon), Cairo (Egypt), Tokyo (Japan), Beijing (China), etc. This trend was highlighted in a program that was aired recently on the National Public Radio (NPR). In the NPR radio program, a lady from Hungary talked about her early recognition of the efficacy of American-style education, her desire for it and her experiences, which included going to Bulgaria to attend an American university and how the education she received practically transformed her life.

Poverty and lack of opportunity among immigrants are exacerbated by the inability or unwillingness of many immigrant groups to integrate into their new societies. The Rockefeller Foundation, a respected philanthropic institute, in a study conducted recently, noted that "Poverty weighs more heavily on minorities and non-English speakers—a quarter of all African Americans and a fifth of Latinos are poor; half of the foreign-born are poor." The study also noted that "an estimated third of public schools that are failing to teach effectively, are in central cities, and teachers continue to report that they are unprepared to teach growing numbers of minority and new English-language learning."

This observation underscores the urgent need for a bold and comprehensive plan to prepare and adequately equip American schools to meet this challenge, instead of the current approach, which inhibits the potentials of those children by taking the easy way out—teaching them ineffectively in their native languages, or not teaching them at all.

A few years ago, in California and Florida, and more recently in Germany, many public schools were faced with serious difficulties because languages other than the common national language were directly or indirectly encouraged. In the Netherlands, the situation is no different.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch MP, said about the problem, "To prevent alienation, the government should also insist on teaching all children in Dutch, not in their own languages."

The importance of a common language cannot be over emphasized. This importance has been underscored in many timeless phrases, aphorisms, and figures of speech; common ones being "we speak a common language," or "we speak the same language" to indicate that people understand one another. Another example; is when people say, "to communicate effectively, you have to speak a language that people understand." In short, a common language is key to unity.

Language can as easily arouse suspicion, misconception or misperception, when it is not spoken or understood by all, just as it arouses comradeship when spoken or understood by all. Having or promoting multiple common or official languages in a society is counterproductive. Not only is it very limiting and wasteful, it is redundant and divisive. It is like running in different directions at the same time. It encourages or creates unnecessary division among people and undermines social integration and unity in diversity. The United States spends $300 million every year in bilingual education, in spite of clear evidence that children learn better when thought in English.

I am not by any means advocating or even suggesting that people, of whom I am one, who happen to speak other languages, should be prevented from doing so. However, I am saying that they should not be encouraged to do so to the degree of instituting those languages in competition with the Language of the nation—the English language. Doing so entails an enormous waste of resources and creates barriers between people within the American society. Instead, they should be encouraged, and perhaps, required to also learn and use the English language as first language. Of course, there is a place for second languages in America, but it should not be in rivalry with the English language. The same should apply in any other country, for example, France, Poland, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Germany, China, and Spain, where the English language is not the traditional and official language of the society; the English language should not be established in rivalry to the traditional and official language of those societies.

I strongly believe that a major factor, perhaps next to their belief in the American ideals and their commitment to those ideals, for the successful integration of the earlier immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, was the fact that they were not aided by the government of the United States to establish their native languages in parallel to the English language. Immigrants from Sweden, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Russia, and Spain, in spite of the languages of their cultures, have all fully integrated into the American society and culture.

Of course, it would have been convenient to speak their native languages rather than learn English. Many of them, in fact did so, but not with any involvement or aiding by the United States government. They later realized their extreme limitations and disadvantages because they could not speak English. This realization led them to make the necessary adjustments to overcome those limitations. Many of those who could not change lanes in the middle of the race, so to speak, were left behind and forced to return to the places from which they came. And very often, they did so with fewer possessions than they had prior to coming to America, being that many of them sold whatever they had to make the trip to the New World.

In addition, even though the predominantly Swedish communities in Chicago and Minnesota, and the Polish community in Chicago, as well as other non-English-speaking immigrants in other parts of America, spoke their own languages and engaged in strong ethnocentric activities, their vision and commitment to the ideals remained undiminished. According to Ulf Beijbom of the House of Emigrants in Växjö, Sweden, "Although ethnocentric activities absorbed quite a lot of energy, the main field of the Swedish activities was America."

Many immigrants who contributed significantly to the greatness of this country all had to first overcome either language barriers or the cultural barriers of their ancestors —people like Carl Sandburg, Charles Lindbergh, Eric Wickman, Wendell Anderson, Glenn Seaborg, John Ericsson, and Casimir Pulaski, to mention a few.

One major factor and problem that has hampered democracy in almost every country in Africa, many countries in the Middle East, and perhaps some parts of Europe and Asia, is multiplicity of language and its inherent barriers. The people literally do not speak a common language. This has fostered mistrust, disunity, and politics of ethnicity, which are indeed exploited by corrupt and dubious politicians, who deceive and take advantage of their people, and shirk their responsibility to be accountable to their people. In most countries in Africa, as well as some parts of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, it is common for corrupt politicians to dubiously arouse ethnic sentiments among their people in order to hold on to power and to undermine efforts to hold them accountable for their actions.

It is true that these cultural inhibitors are preexisting conditions that existed prior to the advent of democracy in these societies; hence, there is a fundamental difference between these societies and the United States. This is evident in the fact that, while democracy was introduced into Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and even Europe, long after those societies had been established and had existed for centuries, America was virtually born in democracy. In fact, the foundational and fundamental principle upon which America was established is democracy, as the Declaration of Independence clearly shows.

It must be recognized that the preexisting condition of having many tribes (with different cultures) and not having a common language undermines democracy in many countries of the world (particularly African countries). Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the effort to build a united Europe (in the likeness of the United States of America) is lack of a common language. It must also be recognized that the preexisting condition of a common language in America at her birth (at least among the founders) was critical in successfully establishing the nation and the principles upon which she was founded. It could be said that the founders were able to build a "tower of unity" because they spoke one language, while the builders of the Tower of Babel failed because they lacked a common language. Of course, this analogy does not suggest that the idea called America is in any sense akin to the Tower of Babel. Nevertheless, the point to be made is that, perhaps America would never have been possible without a common language.

Yet, there is nothing to suggest that anything—not a nation of many years of democratic existence such as America, not even an idea or principle such as democracy—is beyond erosion and destruction. To that end, no one should be under any illusion as to take for granted the threats posed by the issues of many competing common national languages. After all, just a few years ago, Canada was faced with a crisis that threatened her existence (and almost split her in two). The primary cause of that crisis was perhaps her dual national languages (and the attendant problems thereof), which inevitably created similar barriers as we have seen in less developed and less democratic countries.

In fact, to many Canadians and people outside Canada, there is a tacit assumption that there are two distinct national entities within Canada: the "English Canada" and the "French Canada." Perhaps, someday, America will have a similar situation, where there will be a tacit assumption that two national entities, for example, the "English America" and the "Spanish America", exist within the United States of America.

Many other countries faced with similar situations have not been as successful as Canada in dealing with and resolving the situation, at least so far. Countries such as Afghanistan, Indonesia, Burma, Bosnia, Turkey, Macedonia, Kosovo, Iraq, and most countries in Africa are all dogged by the problems engendered by multiple and competing languages, among other problems. In fact, the absence of a common language is the most prevalent way to create and preserve division, thereby perpetuating cultural polarization, which in turn leads to fragmentation and disunity in a nation.

Ethnic consciousness is the social expression of preferring one's ethnic group to others or exalting one's ethnic group above others. It gives first and greatest allegiance to one's ethnic group, without regard for one's country or national interest (and even at the expense of one's country). It advocates and projects a mindset that implies, "if you are not of us, then you are not for us, and if you are not for us, then you are against us and you are our enemy and we are against you." Ethnic consciousness fosters corruption, nepotism, and disunity, and undermines authentic democracy. This is the biggest obstacle to democracy in most countries in Africa, parts of Asia, the Middle East, and perhaps parts of Europe. America faces the danger of a compromised democratic system, very different from what the founders envisioned or intended, and far from what is held as self-evident by the spirit of the Constitution.

It is unrealistic and unwise to think that the problems cited above cannot obtain in America. People are sentimental beings by nature and by conditioning, and those sentiments do not necessary change simply because people's locations have changed. Before September 11, 2001, it was far from many people's thoughts, perhaps inconceivable, that such incidents as took place in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, could happen in this country. I would like to emphasize the word inconceivable and wish to note that it does not imply impossibility.

If Americans had really thought about the prospects of terrorist attacks on American soil, they would have known that it was possible, perhaps, even imminent, and in all likelihood, they would have been better prepared for it, at least mentally. Before September I l, 2001, most Americans perceived terrorism as something that happened in other countries and in Hollywood movies. This perception persisted, in spite of harbingers such as a series of bombings that destroyed a couple of American embassies in Africa, American military barracks located in Europe and the Middle East, a U.S. Navy warship, and a previous attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993.

On that day of infamy, it became clear that the intelligence profile of Middle Eastern terrorists was a misperception, an imaginary and essentially feel-good notion that ultimately proved perilous. The idea that life in America is too strong a temptation and too good an alternative, and that it will inevitably dissuade and alter the mindset of any terrorist, weaken his or her resolve to do America harm, and thus keep America safe is preposterous; indeed, a perilous premise. In fact, contrary to the expectations of the West, surveys continue to show that many western educated Muslims and Muslims dwelling in Western societies, including naturalized citizens and their descendants, are more resentful of the West than even Muslims in Islamic countries. Their diatribes and incendiary comments are clear signs of danger that have gone unheeded, but now bearing fruits by way of home-grown Islamic terrorists, whose teeth are now, so to speak, set on edge because they have been fed the sour grapes of hatred that bears from an ideology that have come to be known as Islamo-fascism. In the name of Islam, many of them have indeed taken up arms against their Western countries and actively seek their destruction. Worldwide surveys consistently show that Muslims, many of them citizens by birth, in Western countries, particularly Britain say that terrorism is justified, even against their own countries, in matters where they feel Islam or Muslims has been offended by the West, whether it is a result of foreign policy or "cultural insensitivity.

The incredulity that was at display over the fact that the London suicide bombers were home grown terrorist, is at best, naïveté and at worst, acute denial. The idea that assimilation is politically incorrect has led to the self-isolation of Muslims in European society and has encouraged the hostility towards the West that has emerged. Moreover, the added notion that life in the West is too good an alternative, and that it will inevitably dissuade and disable the intent of fundamental Islamists and terrorists, weaken their resolve to carry out the biddings of "Islamic holy edicts" ("fatwas") issued by clerics and regarded as the very word of Allah, is a perilous feel good notion

There is no evidence to suggest that people with strong ethnic or religious sentiments from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe or any other part of the world for that matter, would automatically transform and jettison their deeply held beliefs and the attendant emotions upon coming to America. Along with the change of environment, a change of perception, prospective public policy, public sentiment, and education are crucial in re-orientating and redirecting such people to fully integrate into the American society. This task is even more difficult, with respect to Muslims in the west, because Islam inhibits and prohibits the exercise of individual freedom through the consummation of free play of the intellect (ijtihad). This accounts for failed expectations in Western society, of Muslims, who have lived in Western societies for so long, especially from their second generation onwards, yet disdain the West so deeply. Islam only allows imitation (taqlid); that is why many Muslims born in Western societies are no different from their parents, who are no different from their parents and grandparents, in their views and attitudes towards the Western societies and cultures. They are completely denied innovative thought or independent thinking outside what is prescribed by Islam through the so called "revelation and religious authority".

To people in the West, this is a paradox, but to Muslims, it is a cultural legacy. The reality is that ideologically, many Muslims are caught in a catch-22, in the sense that they perpetually exist in a problematic situation for which the only solution (personal freedom and tolerance) is denied by the circumstance inherent in the problem posed by their culture and by the rules that established their culture. The result being that the more extreme ones among them, either perish as a result of the rule, or perish to affect the rule itself; that is the reality of the making of jihad. In fact, resistance to the Western ideals and Western way of life is in itself a jihad—it is indeed, viewed in light of the second and most important jihad, because it is regarded as an inner and personal struggle, in devotion to Islam. This is what the West has failed to understand, as they remain incredulous to the growing crisis of identity amongst Western born and homegrown Islamic terrorists.

I am not suggesting that people should be brainwashed; nevertheless, people who wish to come to America and become citizens thereof or dwellers therein should be expected to truly integrate into the American society. In the least, they should not be encouraged to seek otherwise, and should not be rewarded for not integrating. There is a certain minimum requirement to ensure mutual benefits to the individual and the country (i.e., everyone else) that they seek to become part of.

Consider the following hypothetical illustration of a real condition. Suppose you knew, for certain that people who seek to become part of a good and thriving idea, on which everyone's well-being depended do not have the basic attributes or inclination necessary to support, achieve, and perpetuate that idea. Suppose that not only is the preceding condition true, but in addition, the people in question are not willing to acquire those social necessities, even when they have been offered all the help to enable them to do so.

Suppose that not only are the two preceding conditions true, but in addition, the people would rather seek a contrary idea, which will in effect destroy the good and thriving idea. Would you still entrust them with the good and thriving idea, in spite of the potential and imminent outcome? If you have offered to accommodate someone in your house, would you not expect him or her to respect the rules that govern your house? Would you honestly say that it's perfectly all right for the person to make his or her own rules, even when those rules are in direct conflict with the established rules in your household (by which your household has thrived) and would ultimately violate the sanctity of your home and jeopardize the well-being of your loved ones'?

Some people may be concerned about the possible unintended implication of the preceding analogy, such as its potential to be abused and to encourage discrimination against people perceived to fit the profile of those deemed unlikely or unwilling to integrate. A possible argument might be: How does one know that people will or will not integrate unless they are allowed to actually live in the United States? That is a legitimate concern, which must be addressed sincerely and fairly in the overall process of immigration.

One way to do that is to require applicants for permanent residency and citizenship, who are less than forty years of age, to take real proficiency-compliance tests for English, civics, and other attributes necessary for successful integration into the American society. In some special circumstances, where people already reside in the United States, they should be encouraged or required to acquire the proficiencies necessary for successful integration. Adequate social support systems to enable them to successfully do so should be established to back such a requirement.

Whether we admit it or not, immigrating to America (or any country for that matter) is like seeking or getting a new job—one should either possess the skills necessary to perform the job or be prepared to acquire them on the job. Any immigrant can testify to this. In the latter case (which is indeed of direct applicability to the recommendation), at least a reasonable effort should be required. Continuing with the job analogy, in the absence of the necessary skills or the willingness to acquire them, one eventually becomes a liability rather than an asset to the society, thus undermining the efficiency of the whole system.

Another argument that could be made against this proposition is that other immigrants (for example, from Sweden, Poland, Italy, Russia, Germany, Spain, Portugal, etc.), who came in the early stages of the American history, went through a period of strong ethnocentric activities.

Those activities tended to create enclaves with strong in-group loyalties and tendencies, but the immigrants later became fully integrated into the American society. This is an argument with some validity, but it must be recognized that virtually every one of those people believed in the ideals of America, and, in spite of the obstacles (cultural, lingual, etc.), were willing to fight for those ideals. Examples of such people are Gustav Unonius, the Swedish civil servant who emigrated in 1841 and founded the first Swedish settlement in Wisconsin; and the farmer Peter Cassel and his group, who left Sweden in 1845 and landed in New Sweden, Iowa. Also, in this group are the 1,500 religious dissenters from Central Sweden who arrived in Bishop Hill, Illinois, from 1846 to 1850.

These people, though faced with perilous obstacles, were willing to die for the ideals of America, which they believed and sought. Ulf Beijbom, in his article "A Review of Swedish Emigration to America," spoke of those obstacles as follows, "They sailed 'on top of the cargo' of a bark or a brig from a Swedish harbor, spending months on the sea and finally, more dead than alive, landing in New York."

The Africans, stolen from their homelands and forced into slavery, after nearly 250 years in bondage and over 350 years of combined oppression, in spite of the injustice and cruelty brought to bear upon them by their oppressors, still believed in the ideals of America. They were convinced that their oppressors did not represent the true values and principles upon which America was founded. Led by people likes, Fredrick Douglas, W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others, they were determined to fight for those ideals. These heroes indeed fought for those ideals because they believed in them, and died because they were committed to those ideals, in spite of the obstacles.

It is preposterous and imprudent to go into a relationship with someone who is not willing to make any adjustments for the sake of the success of the relationship. It is very unwise to go into a relationship just to be in one or just because one is expected to. For any relationship to be successful and beneficial to all in it, it must be defined and clearly understood to be in the interest of all. An onerous relationship weakens the host or partner that bears the brunt of it and a hostile relationship leads to a gradual but certain inviability of the accommodating partner(s) or host. Such relationships are undesirable. What is desirable is an equitably beneficial relationship in which everyone benefits fairly, and not to the detriment (or at the expense) of others.

It is in this regard that I believe the Constitution has been hijacked, almost in the same sense that those airplanes were hijacked on September Il, 2001, for the sole purpose of destroying them, their occupants, and their owner—America. There are people who came (or seek to come) to this country and became citizens, not because they love this nation, but because of what they stand to gain or hope to gain by doing so. They are like a man who lied to and deceived a very beautiful woman for the sole purpose of taking advantage of her, or like a woman who lied and deceived a very wealthy man for the single purpose of taking advantage of him. Some of them are even worse, because they are like one who tricked another into friendship for the sole purpose of entrapping and destroying him or her (the Trojan horse syndrome).

I hope I will not be misunderstood when I say that it is naïve to think that everyone who seeks to become part of this great nation of liberty and opportunity does so with the sole and expected intent to truly become a part of her. It is simplistic to think that everyone who seeks to become part of America does so in full embrace of the core ideals of America and with the sole purpose of living in it and helping to preserve, maintain, and perpetuate liberty and opportunity for all. Having said that, I must also say that not everyone who seeks to become part of this great country of freedom and opportunity has the intent to take advantage of her or harm her. It is safe to say that an overwhelming proportion of immigrants do indeed come with good and noble intentions, and do indeed strive to preserve, maintain, and perpetuate the principles upon which America was founded and upon which she thrives. (Read more in chapter two, "The Dilemma of Immigration.")

Politics of ethnicity is another characteristic of a tribalized society. This is not a good type of politics. It is a type of politics devoid of truth, fairness, objectivity, and legitimacy. A common trait of this fraud lies in putting more emphasis on group rights and less emphasis on individual rights. This happens when those rights accorded to a group do not translate to individual rights; it is a fraud and it tends to exploit people's fears and other sentiments. It leads to an aberration of the democratic process. I call it "politics of numbers." (Read more in chapter five, "Excessive Group Allegiance.")

Quite often, people that constitute ethnic-conscious groups are pressured into giving up what is in their own individual interests and the interest of the nation at large. They are pressured into sacrificing those interests for the interests of their particular groups, to the extent that their leaders (in the name and supposed "interests" of their groups) often exploit them by capitalizing on their fears and sentiments. This is the case when people are pressured to vote in a particular way or for a particular politician purely on ethnic sentiments or for any other reason beside merit.

Politics of ethnicity is inimical to the development and advancement of true democracy in which fairness, justice, unity, peace, and prosperity for all abound. It makes nonsense of egalitarianism. It is to be recognized, that there is a strong perception and belief (and perhaps rightly so) that politics by its nature is devoid of truth and fairness. There is an abundance of evidence to suggest or support that notion—with every politician on the left and on the right cashing in on the sentiments, misgivings, and deficiencies of ethnic groups for the sole purpose of securing votes, winning elections, staying in power, and gaining more power. However, politics is the road for the vehicle called democracy by which we can arrive at the destination called peaceful coexistence to which we have all set out to find in the journey called life on earth. (Read more about politics of ethnicity in chapter five).

THE DILEMMA OF IMMIGRATION

From 1620 to the present, immigration to America has been borne out of two basic and fundamental necessities: liberty and life. In practice, one sometimes precedes the other, but in principle, both are often inseparable. To have freedom, one must have life, but to live life, one must have freedom. The pilgrims and founders came primarily for liberty; but they must have believed that greater liberty would ensure better life.

The primary cause of immigration to the United States, from the early 1800s to the present was a combination of factors such as social crisis, political discontent, religious discontent, and economic hardship. The degree to which these factors were the causes of immigration varied among immigrants. Nevertheless, they were fundamentally the same. These factors were the dominant reasons behind the unprecedented, perhaps, unequaled waves of immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany, which began in the mid-1820s and increased steadily until 1860.

In the mid-1840s (the fatal years of the potato famine and cholera epidemic), the mass migration from Ireland, which had begun at the turn of the 16th Century, increased more than twelve-fold. It was said that at least four out of every five people who left the shores of the "old country" to try their fortunes in the new were Irish. In fact, throughout the first half of the 1800s, the majority of the immigrants that came to America were from Ireland, Great Britain, and Germany. By 1860 and up to 1890, immigrants from the Scandinavian countries had also joined the great migration from the old world to the new world.

With the influx of immigrants from the Nordic regions, came the tidal wave of Swedish immigrants, which also began in the mid-1840s and lasted until 1930. This was also triggered by population pressure, economic hardship, agricultural hardship, social crisis, political discontent, and religious discontent. By the 1870s, the steady stream of immigrants from Europe had expanded to include immigrants from Canada and China. Between 1890 and 1910, the majority of immigrants coming to the United States had shifted to those coming from Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Russia. From 1920 to 1930, more immigrants came from Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. In the 1940s, Jews fleeing the Nazi persecution in Europe joined the wave of immigrants to America.

From 1965 to the present, immigrants from the rest of the world (who had been previously excluded) were allowed to join the great migration to America. This was made possible by the Immigration Act of 1965, with provisions that granted asylum to refugees, favored immigrants with desired job skills, and allowed families to reunite.

What is the point of this chronology of immigration? Well, it is necessary in the attempt to establish the invisible but real and ever-present force that draws and binds immigrants to America. It is also necessary in order to establish the commonality of that invisible force everywhere and with every immigrant. Benjamin Franklin expressed that force in these words: "Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world that the prospect of an Asylum in America for those who love liberty gives general joy, and our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind...We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature."

As the wave of immigration shifted from region to region, one thing remained constant: the motive for immigrating—liberty and life. America is a nation conceived in those ideals and born of those ideals. Indeed, the fundamental principles upon which America was founded rest on these ideals, the same way a strong house rests on a solid foundation and is given support by pillars of steel and concrete.

The ideals that gave America birth are the essence of the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, which inspired the United States Constitution that followed. And the constitution states it clearly as, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall deem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

It is in the light of the legacy of the United States Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights that many oppressed and dispossessed people around the world have come to see America as a haven, even as a paradise on earth. This notion is practically immortalized in the famous proclamation on the Statue of Liberty in the words: "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." It is fair to say that, the saying "be careful what you wish for" appears to hold true in this case. Well, the world took America at her word and is giving America her tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Nevertheless, it must be recognized also that the world is not only giving America her downtrodden, but also her best and brightest.

However, America has struggled to honor this commitment ever since it was made. This is evident in her ambivalent attitude towards immigrants. It appears that America tries very hard to convince herself that she is not who or what she is, but never succeeds. Ironically, the situation could be illustrated by the case of an illegal immigrant woman who has presented a false identification; she has to constantly be on guard so that she does not inadvertently give her true name (or disclose her true identity) when asked. But however much she tries; she frequently forgets and gives her real name. In the same manner, however much America tries to suppress or deny her true identity (or essence) as a guardian of liberty and an inspiration to the oppressed, frequently her true self (her ideals) gets the best of her. This is evident in the history of immigration legislation in America from 1790 to the present, which has been one of, I guess you could say "to be or not to be", if I may borrow a phrase from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

Throughout this period, immigration legislation has been characterized by ambivalence—often seeming to discourage immigration yet allowing it. It seems that measures to discourage immigration have always been reactionary and often preceded by public discontent supposedly borne out of fear of losing jobs and prosperity to new immigrants, and perhaps also for fear of losing the "American character" as a result of the infiltration or infusion of alien cultures.

Ironically, the fear of losing jobs to foreigners still persists today, perhaps even more than ever, only this time it is not just to immigrants but also to workers in countries where labor is cheap, the biggest of which are China and India. Greater irony lies in the fact that in 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to prevent or curb Chinese immigrants from coming to America, after citizens and workers expressed fear for competition from foreign contract laborers. Now the Chinese don't even have to come to America to still pose a "threat" to American workers. They can just stay home (in China) and still be a threat to American workers because American corporations are taking the jobs directly to their backyards.

Since 1882, there have been legislations to a impose head tax, exclude certain persons, admit certain persons, etc. (See table I below for chronology)

• Year: Purpose of Legislation
• 1885: Excluded contract laborers
• 1888: Expelled aliens
• 1903: Excluded polygamists and political radicals
• 1906: Required knowledge of English
• 1907: Increased head tax on immigrants; excluded people with physical or mental defects or tuberculosis, children unaccompanied by parents, and Japanese people
• 1917: Excluded illiterates, persons of psychopathic inferiority, men and women entering for immoral purposes, alcoholics, stowaways, and vagrants
• 1921: Established quotas based on nationality
• 1924: Established first permanent quota law
• 1943: Importation of workers from North, South, and Central America; repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act
• 1946: Established procedures to facilitate immigration of foreign-born wives, fiancés, husbands, and children of U.S. armed forces personnel
• 1948: Adopted first U.S. policy to admit persons fleeing persecution; permitted 205,000 refugees, later increased to 415,000, to enter United States over two years
• 1952: The various legislations governing immigration and naturalization were consolidated into one comprehensive statute. It reaffirmed the quota system, limited immigration from Europe, established preferences for skilled workers and relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens, and tightened security and screening procedures and standards.
• 1953: Modified the 1948 law by increasing the number of refugees allowed into the United States by over 200,000
• 1965: Abolished the national origins quota system, but maintained the principle of numeric restriction by establishing 170,000hemispheric and 20,000-per-country ceilings
Established a seven-category preference system that favored closed relatives of American citizens and permanent aliens, people with desired occupational skills, and refugees from the Eastern Hemisphere, and a separate 120,000 ceiling for the Western Hemisphere
• 1976: Applied the 20,000-per-country immigration ceiling and preference system to the Western Hemisphere countries
• 1978: Combined the separate ceilings for Eastern and Western
Hemispheric immigration into one worldwide limit of 290,000
• 1980: The refugee act removed refugees as a preference category and established clear criteria and procedures for refugee admission. Reduced the worldwide ceiling from 290,000 to 270,000
• 1986: The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA); legalized aliens who had resided in the United States in an unlawful status since January l, 1982; established sanctions prohibiting employers from hiring, recruiting, or referring for a fee aliens known to be unauthorized to work in the United States; created a new classification of temporary agricultural worker and provided for the legalization of certain such workers; established a visa waiver pilot program allowing the admission of certain nonimmigrants without visas Separate legislation stipulated that the status of immigrants whose status was based on a marriage be conditional for two years, and that they must apply for permanent status within 90 days after their second-year anniversary. A bill adjusted from temporary to permanent status certain nonimmigrants who were employed in the United States as registered nurses for at least three years and met established certification standards.
• 1990: Comprehensive immigration legislation (1) provided for increased total immigration under an overall flexible cap of 675,000 immigrants beginning in fiscal year 1995, preceded by a 700,000 level during fiscal years 1992 through 1994, (2) created separate admission categories for family-sponsored, employment-based, and diversity immigrants, (3) revised all grounds for exclusion and deportation, significantly rewriting the political and ideological grounds and repealing some grounds for exclusion, (4) authorized the attorney general to grant temporary protected status to undocumented alien nationals of designated countries subject to armed conflict or natural disasters, and designated such status for Salvadorans, (5) revised and established new nonimmigrant admission categories, (6) revised and extended through fiscal year 1994 the Visa Waiver Program, (7) revised naturalization authority and requirements, and (8) revised enforcement activities.
• 1996: Immigration Reform Act of 1996, also known as the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, was passed with provisions to drastically curtail immigration to the United States. This legislation was very unpopular because it appeared to also unfairly target legal immigrants by seeking to remove some of their rights and benefits.
Along with the welfare reform act of the same year, this immigration legislation greatly scaled back the eligibility of legal immigrants for an array of federal benefits, including food stamps and welfare payments. It also expedited the deportation of illegal immigrants and those convicted of crimes. Congress later rolled back some of the benefit restrictions. To cut down on the number of impoverished immigrants sponsoring poor family members for immigration, the act disqualified people earning less than 125 percent of the poverty level from serving as sponsors of immigrants.
• 2002: HR 3162, also known as The USA PATRIOT Act, enacted to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes. It incorporated provisions of two earlier anti-terrorism bills: HR 2975, which passed the House on 10/12/2001; and S. 1510, which passed the Senate on 10/11/2001. Provisions of HR 3004, the Financial Antiterrorism Act, were incorporated as Title Ill in HR 3162.

Table 1: Chronology of United States Immigration Legislation, 1885— 2002 The dilemma is that at birth, America made a pledge to the world to be a guardian of liberty, a protector of the oppressed and provider for the dispossessed, but that promise is very difficult, perhaps, impossible, to keep. Abraham Lincoln once said, "We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot." It appears that his premonition has come true.

Since America cannot take in everyone who wishes to come to America, what then, should be done? Should America break her promise and jettison the identity that she assumed at conception and birth, and that has given her substance and character, or should she continue to accept "the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses of the world, yearning to breathe free"? America must address this issue urgently and honestly. In addressing the problem, it is important to distinguish what is real from what is perceived, what is right from what is wrong, what is good from what is bad, and what is beneficial from what is detrimental. It is crucial to approach and address the problems with a clear head, fairness, and objectivity.

Fair and just actions must be taken to address the problems associated with immigration. America must decide; either say to the world, "Give us no more, your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," or choose to honor her commitment to deserving newcomers, recognizing that immigration has always benefited America economically and reaffirmed and strengthened the ideals upon which America was founded, as we have seen, from the 17 century to the 20 century.

If America chooses the latter, she must more than ever demand from the newcomers the virtues that made America great. As Abraham Lincoln said, "I like to see a man proud of the place he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him." At the same time, America must ensure that immigrants are not treated as aliens and second-class citizens in their own country. To do so would make integration very difficult for immigrants and would drive them to apathy and resentment toward America and, worse still, it will drive them to develop in-group tendencies, nostalgia for failed ideologies, and allegiance to other nations and ideals.

America has often been described as a nation of immigrants. It is therefore fair to say that every time there is resentment toward immigrants, it has always been by other immigrants (that is, those who came earlier, or their descendants), even though the new immigrants came under the same or similar circumstances, in search of liberty and better life, as did those who had come before them.

The same fears expressed so long ago in the 1890s by some, to justify their resentments of immigrants are still expressed today. Yet, since then till now, those fears have never come to be. This emotion is, perhaps, comparable and can be illustrated by Jeremy Paxmann's unsentimental rendering of the "dark secret" about the so-called "thoroughbred Englishman", in his book, The English (A Portrait of a People). In the book, he points out that every one of those "firebrands" who has made a career and fame off the issue of immigration, is himself an immigrant, of sort. Indeed, from the early seventeenth century to the present (with the exception of September Il, 2001), America has always benefited from immigration, both idealistically and economically. With every wave of immigrants, America grew stronger and richer, because new immigrants come with great zeal, a hunger for liberty, and an intense quest for prosperity. This hunger and zeal have a renewing effect on America.

As has been said, people have various reasons for seeking to be part of this great country. Until September 11, 2001, those reasons had always remained the same. They can be categorized into three broad groups. The first group is comprised of those who come for the great ideals of life, liberty, and justice upon which this nation was founded and on which her greatness rests. They include the founders and all those whose accounts have been given earlier on. They are people hungry for freedom and justice, which they were willing to seek out and become part of, and for which they are willing to sacrifice—they are those who seek a better life, for which they are willing to work very hard.

They come, not looking back, but looking forward, and determined to be an integral part of that great providential experiment in human history called America. They come because they believe in the idea—America. They come not with divided or diminished loyalty, but with singleness of heart and mind. They come committed, determined, and willing to make sacrifices to uphold the idea and to help perpetuate it. They come with zeal, gratitude, and goodness in their hearts and goodwill for their neighbors. They come seeking what they have been denied in the places they come from.

They come knowing that the sky is their limit. They are given wings by their hopes and dreams and by the goodness and kindness of the land to which they have come. They are convinced that success (the American dream) is within their reach. They come with plenty of good to give and knowing that good awaits them. They are prepared to sow, so that they may reap, and to reap that which they sow, to their good and to the good of all. To them, home is the land in which they now dwell. They are true Americans in spirit and indeed.

The second group of immigrants, come to this country primarily for the same reasons—social crisis, political discontent, and economic hardship, as did immigrants who arrived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The major difference between this group and the immigrants that came earlier is that they are not particularly interested in completely and permanently settling in America. They don not quite regard the United States as their home. They are essentially "merchants" and "transient inhabitants". Their motives for immigrating to America predispose them to view or regard America as their temporary homeland (or country). This is the group that is, for the most part, relevant to the subject in this review, because they are more inclined to congregate and segregate along ethnic, religious, or other lines than to completely integrate into the American society (culture).

In their minds, they are still active members of the places and cultures from which they came and they often (consciously and unconsciously) seek to replicate those environments in America. They tend to segregate themselves along ethnic (tribal and sectarian) lines and typically maintain the same idiosyncrasies (tribalism, nepotism, etc.) that exist among those "tribes" in their ancestral homelands. People in this general category typically maintain dual nationality and often passively resist or oppose integration. There is no conscious or concerted effort to uphold or acquire the values that made America great, and they often return to their ancestral homelands after many years in America, with the same ideals (and to the same ideals) that made them leave their homelands in the first place.

The majority of them are law-abiding and hardworking citizens. They tend to play by the rules, but some of them simply see America as a land with inexhaustible resources, in much the same sense as a commercial fisherman sees and exploits the sea—with some, but not much, regard or concerted effort to preserve it. In some regards, they are like the Europeans, during the colonial era, who went to Africa primarily to exploit her for her abundant natural resources or like the oil baron who exploits the land for its crude oil—with very little concern or regard for the land. He has much more regard for the oil than for the land from which it came. Naturally, there is a desire that the sea remains abundant with fish and the land remains abundant in crude oil. Yet, he never does much (perhaps cannot do much by virtue of the position he has taken) to bring about that desire. In fact, it is only a matter of time before the sea and the land run out of fish and oil.

One may argue that the prospector in this analogy could not do much to prevent the depletion of the sea or land even if he wanted to, except play by the rules. In the same sense, some members of this category argue that because of their position in the society, their participation in the civic and political process would amount to little or nothing and would invariably be of no effect. They believe they have not been, and can never fully be, accepted by the greater American society—hence, the divided loyalty that is often associated with them. In light of this perceived limitation, the American ideals and patriotism become somewhat peripheral to them (out of cynicism and apathy). In support of this hypothesis, some argue that that America has excluded and marginalized these people and has little or no regard for their political participation or input. Hence, their lack of allegiance or divided loyalty; they argue that, after all, nationality is a legal relationship between the state and the citizen, which involves protection on the part of the state and allegiance on the part of citizen—a relationship that is essentially one of give and take.

Nevertheless, it remains a fact, that people who seek to be part of America for the freedom and opportunities America provides must be willing to help preserve and perpetuate that freedom and those opportunities by consciously maintaining the cohesive structure of the ideals upon which America was founded. The criteria for allowing new immigrants into America should not only be to give people opportunities to escape political, social crisis, political discontent, religious discontent, and economic hardship in their homelands or for the sake of diversity, rather it must be based on their inclination to, or affinity for the American way of life and value systems (the American ideals). By way of analogy, you don't just give a man who is out of work any job; you give him a job he is willing and able to do. People who have no desire for the American values system or way life and would seek to exploit or destroy it are not good for America and should not be allowed to come here. The same goes for people who are not interested in truly becoming Americans by becoming assimilated but would seek to establish parallel and competing values or cultures in America, and people that hold divided national loyalty; partial allegiance is worse than no allegiance at all.

I recognize that I run a risk of making this statement sound redundant, but the essence and great import of Theodore Roosevelt's admonition on the issue, in 1907 warrants emphasis. Hence, I again find it necessary to quote Roosevelt, as saying, "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is the loyalty to the American people."

There is a lot of flag waving going in America nowadays, but it is not only the American flag that is waved, many times the America flag is not even waved at all. There is now an incessant clamor to make room for more than one language and to make the English language all but America's one and only language and the American flag all but America's one and only flag.

The Ibo people of Eastern Nigeria have an axiom that says, "Where one dwells is where one is duty bound to uphold and protect." America on her part must be willing to encourage this group of immigrants to fully integrate. As has been said, one must be proud of the place in which one lives and live so that the place will be proud of him or her. The people of Mmaku (my ancestral homeland) have a proverb saying, "May the guest bring no evil upon his host, and when he leaves may no evil befall him. But if the guest seeks to bring evil upon his host, may evil be upon him and never depart from his own home."

The third group of immigrants has a bizarre philosophy, one that is very similar to fascism. Some observers and scholars have characterized it as Islamofascism. Members of this particular group, commonly known in America as jihadists, come for both the ideals and the opportunities in America, but with the intent to use the opportunities to destroy the ideals. They come primarily for the same reasons (social crisis, political discontent, and economic hardship) as the previous groups, but those reasons are also accompanied by a fundamental religious imperative (Islamic expansionism). This group is made up of mainly people from Islamic states, particularly the Middle East, South East Asia, Central Europe, North Africa and East Africa. They come with a religious mandate to conquer America by Islamization (a part of the overall goal to conquer the Western world for Islam). This mandate has been viewed by some of them as a call to arms (jihad) against the United States, to ultimately destroy her, by destroying her core ideals.

They see America as a land to be taken (conquered for Islam), and the best means to achieve that end is to attack America from within, by using her own strength against her, by exploiting her civil liberties and wealth to her detriment. They believe itis only a matter of time, before America is brought into the fold of Islam, considering the moral decline of the American society and the great apathy and cultural relativism that now grips the once dominant American Christians. In fact, it is said that they have set a goal to plant a Mosque in every twenty square miles of this land and they make no apologies for that ambition. The intermediate goal is to establish all-Muslim communities all over the United States, from which to carry out their plan. One of such community, called Dar al Islam, is already in existence in New Mexico.

Since there is no law in the land to stop this from coming to pass, the only thing that would stand in the way of achieving this goal is money, but even that has also been eliminated, thanks to the deep pockets of the oil rich so-called America allies—Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which have put forward 7 billion dollars towards achieving the goal of spreading Islam in America, which is nothing short of state sponsored cultural invasion of the United States of America.

They strongly believe that the greatest weakness America has is her ideals—openness and freedom. They come because they believe in a contrary idea and in contrary ideals, and they are determined to institute the contrary idea and impose the contrary ideals on America—by exploiting the Constitution and civil liberties. They seek to use the ideals of civil liberties inherent in the Constitution and the laws of the land, and the resources that abound in America to achieve their purposes.

In recent times, it has become clear that a new group—political Islamists or Islamo-fascists, Islamic terrorists or "Jihadis" has joined the wave of immigration to the United States. This reality became very evident following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Fortunately, this group is still a relatively very small minority. Nevertheless, their modest number is over-compensated by their lethality. All in all, they hold the same fundamental religious imperative as the all Muslims, but with a large dose of the additional dimension brought to bear by Wahabism—a sect of Islam founded by Abdul-Wahhab, which teaches its followers that Islam is hostile to non-Muslims, particularly Christians, Jews, and even certain Muslims. For example, the Shiites that have been brutally repressed during Sunni Arab rule of Iraq under Saddam Hussein and indiscriminate killing of Shiites in Iraq by Sunni and al Qaeda sponsored attacks.

This is the type of Islam endorsed and practiced by Saudi Arabia, which for decades, has not only actively taught children, through academic curriculum, textbooks, and culture, to hate Jews, Christians, and the "infidels", but has also actively funded the global spread of that ideology. This has produced the likes of Osama bin Laden and the new generation of Islamic terrorists. This perhaps explain why at least fourteen of the nineteen hijackers that attacked America on September Il, 2001, were Saudi citizens and the rest were products of Madrasas funded by Saudi Arabia.

However, I must emphasize that not Muslims jihadists, though they possess the same basic religious imperative. Just as the great commission for Christians is to make disciples of every nation through love, the great commission for Muslims is to conquer the world for Islam through Jihad. Hence, as many Christians are merely standing on the sidelines and are not in the forefront of that commission, but would rejoice over a world where people of every nation are made Disciples of Christ, so would Muslims who are not necessarily in the forefront of the great Islamic commission, as it is being carried on today, should the world become "conquered for Islam" by Islamists, through their Jihad.

The Islamic extremists come with diabolical intents and are cheered on by the voices of their comrades within and without, many of whom; are "ordinary Muslims". They are given purpose, direction, and wings by their extreme views and strength by the hands of those that support and harbor them. This new group (terrorists and their allies) comes to America with treachery, by which they exploit the system and the people of America to their detriment. These terrorists come with zeal and undivided and undiminished loyalty to their purpose (i.e., destruction of America). They come committed, determined, and willing to shed the blood of many innocent people and sacrifice their own lives, as "martyrs", destined for glory and great rewards in paradise, to destroy the idea called America and the ideals that go with it. They come with hate and evil in their hearts, upon which they meditate to preserve their zeal.

Some of them dwell among us as citizens and residents, appearing to be ordinary hardworking and law-abiding people while aiding others— the foot soldiers whose intent is to sow evil and to wreak havoc on the innocent, caring, and unsuspecting people of the land. They are the silent killers, and, in reality, are no different from the foot soldiers. Both are driven by the same objectives and are determined to show no mercy to those who had shown them kindness, who, out of goodness, have welcomed them and given them succor.

They don a mask of the face of ordinary folks and pretend to "do good", and they seek to learn the ways of the land, with the sole aim of using them to cause harm to America and her ideals. They are like parasites that will eventually destroy the host, if allowed to thrive, even when it means destroying themselves in the process. Their kind is the terrorist group that attacked America on September Il, 2001, and those who identify with their cause and those who support them. They hold a view of Islam that "requires them to engage in jihad (i.e., wage Islamic holy war) against the unbelievers ('infidels') until they are either converted or destroyed." We are told that they do not represent Muslims and Islam. Perhaps this assurance presents a comforting feeling.

However, I must say that, as one who comes from a land perpetually marred by religious intolerance by Muslims, deeply rooted in another jihad, which was led by a Muslim clergyman (Shehu Usuman dan Fodio) in 1804, I remain a cautious optimist. Dan Fodio's approach was best summed up in a passage from his Ta'alim al-Ikhwan ("Instruction of the Brethren"): "The designation of people as believers is a tradition, whose roots are in the Revealed Law of Islam: according to consensus there is no place in it for free play of intellect nor any way into it for analogy". It was on the basis of this designation that dan Fodio embarked on his jihad.

In Degel, before their migration, dan Fodio orchestrated an oath of allegiance to galvanize his followers and motivate them to wage jihad against their enemies. He invoked the memory of the prophet Muhammad's own migration in 622 (hijra) that had been preceded by an oath his allies had taken to wage jihad by his side, an oath remembered in Islamic history as Second Aqaba. In following Muhammad's example, dan Fodio utilized the established Islamic practice of taqlid ("imitation") in much the same way the Abbasid rebel al-Bukayr had done in the eighth century, Mervyn Hiskett wrote.

According to Mervyn Hiskett, "By appealing to 'tradition, Usuman made it clear here that he intended to appeal to taqlid ('imitation') alone, and, that he disdained all use of ijtihad, or, 'free play' of the intellect. That is to say, innovative thought or independent thinking was forbidden. But he went further in also ruling out any place for qiyyas ('analogical reasoning'). In so doing, Usuman paved the way for appeals to qiyyas based on revelation and on religious authority." It is a well-known fact that the same approach is adopted by the Wahabi sect of Islam (a version of Islam practiced by Saudi Arabia), in which Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda members were raised and to which they subscribe. It is also known that some members of the category of immigrants in question are Al-Qaeda members and sympathizers. Many of them were educated in Saudi-funded Madrasas all over the world.

Following in Usuman's path, Islamic leaders in Nigeria have continued to seek to impose sharia (Islamic law) and to declare Nigeria— a supposed democratic country of over 130 million people (of which, arguably, half are Muslims), an Islamic state. Their efforts include several covert attempts to make Nigeria a member of the Organization of Islamic States (OIC). Muslims continue to kill Christians and destroy their properties in predominantly Muslim populated regions of the country in what is clearly systematic religious cleansing. Sources say that following the 2003 Nigerian presidential election, in which a candidate (a Muslim) lost to another candidate (a Christian), the Muslim candidate called for jihad to overturn the election. It must not be forgotten that the brutal Nigerian civil war from 1967 to 1970, which led to the loss of over one million lives, was rooted in the killing of Ibos (a predominantly Christian tribe) by Muslims in Muslim-dominated areas of the country (a practice that continues even today). A similar situation has been playing out in Sudan for over twenty years and has resulted in unspeakable atrocities and the loss of over 1.5 million lives

In 1801, two months after the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson as president, Tripoli (now Libya) which was forced by the Ottoman Empire to become an Islamic nation, nearly two and half centuries prior (1535) declared war on the United States because the Americans had refused to pay tribute to raiding Arab corsairs. The ambassador from Tripoli had explained to Jefferson in Paris in 1786 that Muslims considered such raids their duty according to both the Qur'an and the Hadith, and that they were therefore bound to wage attacks (jihad) on all who refused to acknowledge Muslim authority.

Based on rules taken from the Qur'an (Koran) and from the tradition that was ascribed to the prophet Mohammed, a legal system was developed that permitted Jews and Christians to live under Islam, provided they paid a poll tax and accepted humiliation and Islamic superiority. Jews and Christians living under Islam are still being humiliated to this day (as is the case in Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the whole of North Africa and some Sub Saharan Africa, and the whole of the Middle East—except Israel). Muslims that convert to Christianity are imprisoned and tortured, driven out their homelands, their properties confiscated, and they are frequently put to death. As recently as March 20, 2006, a 41-year-old Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, faced execution under Islamic law for converting to Christianity sixteen years earlier. According to the British newspaper—The Guardian (Guardian Unlimited), the Islamic Court Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada said the accused was charged with rejecting Islam. The Judge said, "We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law." "It is an attack on Islam", the Judge was quoted as saying. According to Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, "Shariah law states that any Muslim who rejects Islam should be sentenced to death". Hence, repeated attempts to impose a jail sentence were barred, Mr. Hakim said. The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said he offered to drop the charges against Mr. Abdul Rahman if converted back to Islam, but he refused. The prosecutor said, "He would be forgiven if he changed back. But he said he was a Christian and would always remain a one." Mr. Wasi said further, "we are Muslims and becoming a Christian is against our laws. He must get the death penalty."

The fact is that the mind of most Islamic leaders, perhaps most Muslims, is set on worldwide Islamic domination. This mindset is primed on the Qur'anic teaching that "Allah sent Mohammed with the true religion so that it should rule over all the religions." Muqtedar Khan in his article published in the New York Times (referenced earlier), wrote, "Many religious and community leaders were convinced that Islam would manifest itself in its truest form in this country. Some even proclaimed that one day America would be an Islamic state." He noted that Islam had been one of the fastest growing religions in North America in the decade before September Il, 2001. He said, "Mosques and Islamic schools were going up in every major city. Groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and American Muslim Alliance established chapters in nearly every area with a Muslim population." He lamented the decline in the growth of Islam in America since the events of September 11, because "both sources of Islam's growth—immigration and conversion—are now in jeopardy" as a result of the passage of the USA Patriot Act and antiterrorism measures.

Whether Americans chose to believe it or not, the fact is that the Islamic is a fiercely proselytizing religion, unlike Christianity, intimidation and violence are sanctioned by the Islamic religious empowerment, which calls for Muslims to covert the world to Islam. The refusal of Muslims in Western society to accept or integrate into those societies is indeed the result of that Islamic empowerment, which very much views resisting the Western ideals or way of life as the second Jihad—struggle with one's inner self.

The same recurring theme is heard in Europe and around the world. In 1983, in a speech marking the dedication of an Islamic Center in Stockholm, Sweden, an Islamic leader declared, "In the next fifty years, we will capture the Western world for Islam. We have the men to do it, we have the money to do it, and above all, we are already doing it." In December 2002, a leading Sunni sheik, Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, in a fatwa posted on the website http://www.islamonline.net (in response to a reader's question), wrote of the "signs of the victory of Islam," citing a well-known Hadith:

The Prophet Muhammad was asked: 'What city will be conquered first, Constantinople or Romiyya?' He answered: 'The city of Heracles will be conquered first'—that is, Constantinople.... Romiyya is the city called today 'Rome,' the capital of Italy. The city of Heracles [later to become Constantinople] was conquered by the young twenty-three-year old Ottoman Muhammad bin Morad, known in history as Muhammad the Conqueror, in 1453. The other city, Romiyya, remains, and we hope and believe [that it too will be conquered]."

Sheik Al-Qaradhawi went on to say "This means that Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice—once from the South, from Andalusia, and a second time from the East, when it knocked several times on the door of Athens." He qualified his statement thus: "I maintain that the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology . . ." (Source: Vancouver Independent Media, http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/23883.php).

Since the establishment of the Islamic empire in AD 634—two years after the death of Muhammad (632)—Muslim forces have conquered lands stretching from the borders of China and India to Spain's Atlantic coast. All of these conquered lands were compelled by force to embrace Islam, and as a result, many (if not all) have become Islamic states. In his book Islam and the West, historian Bernard Lewis notes, "For almost a thousand years . . . Europe was under constant threat. In the early centuries, it was a double threat—not only of invasion and conquest, but also of conversion and assimilation. All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast majority of the first Muslims west of Iran and Arabia were converts from Christianity. North Africa, Egypt, Syria, even Persian-ruled Iraq, had been Christian countries, in which Christianity was older and more deeply rooted than in most of Europe. Their loss was sorely felt and heightened the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe."

Encouraged by the complete, perhaps irrational, embrace of secularism and the unprecedented decline of Christianity and morality in the West, Islamic leaders, now convinced that the "war" for Europe is all but completed and won for Islam have turned their attention to America as the next and the final frontier for Islamic domination. So far, they have done very well, until the events of September 11, 2001. Many observers believe that those events albeit committed in the name of Islam were as much a setback to Islam in its pursuit to dominate America, as they were to America. This is because while those events brought economic setback to America and limited the freedom and sense of wellbeing Americans once had, they also (inadvertently) slowed the Islamization of America by limiting immigration and conversion (the preferred approach).

The fact is that Islam is a religion that has mainly been advanced by violence and intimidation, from Prophet Mohammed's Hijra in A.D 622 and A.D 630, through Islamic expansion by the Ottoman Empire, to present day Wahabism, notably Al Qaeda and Taliban. It is important to remember that the very essence of Islam precludes it from coexisting with any other religion, particularly Christianity or perception of it. The fact that any Muslim who converts to Christianity in most Islamic countries would be killed or run out of town is a reminder. The notion of coexistence let alone assimilation is antithetic to the Islamic empowerment; the notion that Allah gave Mohammed Islam to rule over all other religion.

The very essence of Islam precludes it from coexisting with any other religion, particularly Christianity. Hence, every country on planet earth with a significant Muslim population is either an Islamic state (intolerant and undemocratic) or has Islamic groups, fighting to make it (or portions thereof) an Islamic state. It is interesting that many Western states are facilitating the laying of the essential foundations for the same to become of their societies in the future. In the name of multiculturalism and political correctness they have put the future of their children and grandchildren in serious jeopardy, as they have essentially ensured that their children and grandchildren will inevitably have to deal with Islamic extremism in their societies.

Therefore, it is reasonable to predict that this will eventually be the case in America; it would be irresponsible not anticipate it, especially when it has already emerged in European societies. This tendency is primarily rooted in the separatist ideology that is the Islamic empowerment, as Muqtedar Khan (the author of the article cited earlier) seems to note. America cannot afford to be on that list of countries tormented by Islamic extremism and must not be on that list. It is estimated that five to seven million Muslims now live in the United States and that by the year 2018, it is projected that the Muslim population in America will double.

I must emphasize that the concern is not that Muslims are immigrating to the United States in proportions that perhaps rivals the great European migration to the new world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; it is not even that over 70 percent of these Muslim immigrants come from Islamic countries. Rather, it is the inclination to Islamic separatism, which is characteristic of Muslims in those countries from which that 70 percent came. Increasingly many of these immigrants in America, as has been with Muslims in Europe for the past two decades have been sending their American and European born children to Pakistan for "intensive Islamic education", which is nothing but serious ideological indoctrination in the same madrasa (Islamic schools) that every Islamic terrorist that has attacked America and West was educated. Many of these American and Western born Muslims have returned to America and Europe completely transformed and often with deep seated resentment for the West and a feeling of self-alienation that they never had prior to their "intensive Islamic education" in the Pakistani madrasas. Already, this tendency, marked by increasing demands for ideological separatism and accompanied by open confrontation, is beginning to manifest in many parts of Europe, and is increasingly accelerating toward a crisis point.

This inclination has fostered a culture of intolerance that is contrary to the fundamental American ideals of freedom, self-determination, and patriotism. For example, non-Muslims and people of other faiths are extremely persecuted in most (if not all) of those Islamic countries. Moreover, in many of these countries, the West is synonymous with Christianity (or vice versa), hence democracy, being a "culture of the West", and one with its roots in Christian ideals, though now largely appropriated by secularism, is still viewed by Muslims as a culture entrenched in Christianity or Judeo-Christian principles. Therefore, it must be vigorously fought against by the Islamic "faithful" as a religious duty, in defense of the "values of Islam."

Many people in those Islamic countries hate America and bring up their children to hate America. Many of them openly celebrated the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001 and are eager to celebrate when their children blow themselves up with explosives in suicidal acts of violence to kill other people they view as enemies of Islam.

Some immigrants from these cultures are an essential part of the system from which they came and have participated in the persecution of non-Muslims in their homelands. Moreover, they still tacitly or actively support the culture of intolerance and repression in those countries. They have not seen fit to transfer to those cultures (or impress on them) the fundamental American ideals of liberty, self-determination, and tolerance for all, which they very freely enjoy and very fiercely demand in non-Islamic countries (particularly Europe and America). They are very aggressive in transferring Western education, resources, technology, and business knowhow to those cultures, and equally aggressive in keeping Christians and non-Muslims out, and preserving their old ways. Hence, Muslims from Islamic countries are emigrating to America and other Western societies in unprecedented numbers while those Islamic countries (their homelands) are becoming increasingly hostile to the West and non-Muslims, particularly Christians and Jews who are nearly completely run out of these countries. Muslims do not accord Christians and non-Muslims in Islamic countries the reciprocity for the goodwill and freedom that Muslims enjoy in Western societies. In fact, many of these Muslim immigrants to the America and other Western countries, have indeed brought with them, the same hostilities towards Christians and non-Muslims, which obtained in their countries of origin, as they have frequently turned against their societies in support of the their homelands and the ideological principles of their homelands.

Many of them are not willing to integrate or fully embrace those fundamental American ideals, even while living in America as citizens and residents. This unwillingness is rooted in their separatist ideology and predisposition—a model that has greatly inspired and influenced groups like the Nation of Islam (under the leadership of founder Elijah Mohammed and the current leader Louis Farrakhan) and other groups now emerging in Europe.

In concluding this chapter, I must emphasize that the overwhelming majority of immigrants mean no harm or ill toward America. On the contrary, they are good and decent people, hardworking and law-abiding citizens and residents, committed to the good and wellbeing of America. Many of them have indeed laid down their lives to protect America, and many have died for America, working very hard and fighting to protect America and her fundamental ideals.

The truth is that many people, immigrants and non-immigrants alike, take this country for granted; they don't really know what it means to be American. Of course, people tend not to know the real value of something they did not fight for or work for, or something that seems to be in abundance or free. I strongly believe that only those who have fought to defend America; veterans of wars, those who have fought to become Americans (some immigrants), and, to some degree, those who know what it is like elsewhere, truly understand and appreciate what it means be an American or what it takes to become an American.

In the final analysis, Americans must be careful to avoid overreaching generalizations that would cast all immigrants, including progressive Muslims who mean well for America, in the light of the views and actions of those that mean America harm and have done her harm. Americans must temper their sentiments toward immigrants with fairness and prudence. Nevertheless, Americans must remain vigilant and discerning. Ben Franklin once said, "Love your neighbor; yet don't pull down your hedge."

History is an account of the past to guide or shape the future. Those who do not know their history, and those who forget their history have essentially committed themselves to wandering forever. Those who do not know where they are coming from will not know where they are going. Americans must not, in the abundance of signs of warning, lack knowledge and good judgment. They must not be like those who, in the abundance of forewarning, perish because they refused to heed them.

THE AMERICAN DREAM

Abraham Lincoln in 1858 said, "The prosperity of the United States is not the result of accident. It has a philosophic cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something; is the principle of 'Liberty to all'—the principle that clears the path for all—gives hope to all—and, by consequence, enterprise and industry to all".

The principle of liberty has equal symbolic significance but not equal practical significance, to all citizens. It must be recognized that the substance of liberty, of which Abraham Lincoln spoke, and which clears the path and gives hope and, by consequence, enterprise and industry, does not apply to all as he meant it. Too many citizens now believe that the American dream (freedom and prosperity) is just that, only a dream! In fact, for too many people, that dream is increasingly turning into a nightmare, as they are neither free nor prosperous, and appear to have no hope of ever becoming so. Nowadays, the American dream is all but an elusive and abstract concept to too many Americans.

Fewer and fewer people possess more and more of the nation's wealth and resources, and more and more people are getting caught in poverty and lack of opportunity. According to new data from the Internal Revenue Service, released on June 25, 2003, the average income of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers was $174 million in 2000. This figure does not include tax-sheltered earnings, which are often ten- to a hundredfold higher than the adjusted gross income declared on their individual tax returns.

At the same time, the wealthiest Americans are not paying a fair share of income tax. In fact, most are paying little or no tax at all. In another report, issued by the IRS, the number of Americans with high incomes who pay no taxes anywhere in the world is increasing rapidly. According to a New York Times article published on June 26, 2003, "In 2000, there were 2,022 Americans with incomes of more than $200,000 who did not pay tax anywhere in the world, up from just 37 in 1977, when the report was first issued.'

While millions of Americans are experiencing a serious decline in real wages and losing their jobs, astronomical increases in executive compensation have created a new American aristocracy (made of greedy and dubious corporate executives). Some of these executives are rewarded with hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars just for putting Americans out of work by so-called "downsizing" and "off shoring", or by moving their headquarters overseas.

I believe that America is producing a huge population of permanent lower-class citizens. That lower-class population is growing increasingly disillusioned and frustrated and is losing hope. Many of them don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Some observers worry that if the trend continues unabated, it will create a situation similar to the French situation just before their revolution. This enormous permanent lower class may one day turn against the smaller upper class.

In his speech on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in reference to the Bill of Rights said, "It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check that has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.' Forty years later, "the Negro still lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity, and still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land." The Negro is still largely as he had been in 1963 and one hundred years before Dr. King's speech. Only now, others have joined him—Americans of all colors, who also have been given a bad check that came back, marked "insufficient funds.'

The Economic Research of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a report released in 2001, stated, "Eighty-nine percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year 2001. The rest were food insecure at least some time during the year, meaning they did not always have access to enough food for active, healthy lives for all household members because they lacked sufficient money or other resources for food. The prevalence of food insecurity rose from 10.1 percent in 1999 to 10.7 percent in 2001, and the prevalence of food insecurity with hunger rose from 3.0 percent to 3.3 percent during the same period. This report, based on data from the December 2001 food security survey, provides the most recent statistics on the food security of U.S. households, as well as on how much they spent for food and the extent to which food-insecure households participated in federal and community food assistance programs."

Based on the USDA economic research data, Share Our Strength, one of the nation's leading anti-hunger, anti-poverty organizations, noted that, "More than 33 million Americans—one in ten households—cannot afford enough food to meet their basic needs. These 13 million children and 20 million adults live on the edge of hunger because they lack sufficient resources for life's necessities. Though most poor families in America are working families, the low wages earned by millions of Americans are not enough to cover the cost of housing, medical care, childcare, transportation, clothing and food. Employment is simply not enough to safeguard against hunger and poverty." It is tragic that even employed and hardworking Americans cannot earn enough to feed their families.

The organization goes on to say that, "Even though all workers from the highest paid to the lowest—contribute to our economy, the income gap between the rich and poor is at its widest point in decades. In the last year, the number of full-time, year-round workers with incomes below the poverty line increased by nearly half a million people." In recent data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans without health insurance coverage rose by 2.4 million to 43.6 million between 2001 and 2002. The number leaped to nearly 75 million when Americans without health insurance for short periods were counted. According to the census report titled Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2002 the number of Americans not covered by health insurance rose from 14.6 percent in 2001 to an estimated 15.2 percent of the total U.S. population during all of 2002. A total of 64.8 million children or 88.4 percent of all

U.S. children remained uninsured in 2002. The United States spends more than twice as much on health care costs as the next highest spender, among all industrialized nations. Yet the World Health Organization (WHO) ranks America thirty-seventh in the world in quality of health care, not because the U.S. lacks the technology, but largely because America can't take care of her own people.

The Center on Hunger and Poverty, in its own analysis of the federal data, stated that, "Food insecurity and hunger are concentrated in low-income households. In 2001, households with incomes below 130% poverty line, had food insecurity prevalence 3 times the national level. Nearly two-thirds of households reporting hunger had incomes under 185 0 0 of the poverty line."

The Center's analysis noted that, "Female-headed households showed the highest levels of food insecurity and hunger, with 32% reporting food insecurity and I in Il experiencing hunger." It also stated that, "Black and Hispanic households had food insecurity and hunger rates that were nearly 3 times those of White (non-Hispanic) households."

The Rockefeller Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization, recently noted that: "Despite sustained U.S. economic growth throughout the 1990s, one in every eight persons remains in poverty. Income inequality in the United States is the highest among all industrialized nations, due, in part, to the decline in real wages of low-skilled workers." The Foundation also noted that, "Poverty is primarily an urban phenomenon: three-fourths of the poor live in metropolitan areas, and central U.S. cities are home to half of the nation's poor. Poverty weighs more heavily on minorities and non-English speakers—a quarter of all African-Americans and a fifth of Latinos are poor; half of the foreign-born are poor." It also stated that "An estimated third of public schools that are failing to teach children are in central cities, and teachers continue to report that they are unprepared to teach growing numbers of minority and new English-language learning."

How is it that the richest and most powerful nation on earth has so many hungry and hopeless people? In a recent four-part NPR News series titled America Seen Through European Eyes, one European described America as a country where some people have everything, and some people have nothing. What went wrong? The frightening thing about the situation is that, hopes and dreams, which had always been the balm that soothes the wound of poverty and lack of opportunity, are now also scarce, and seemingly beyond the reach of those caught in poverty and lack of opportunity.

If history and events all over the world have lessons to be learned, they would be that people who have nothing to believe in will believe in anything, and people who have nothing to live for will die for anything. As famous recording artist and philosopher Bob Dylan once said, "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.”

Poverty creates despair, despair creates violence, and violence creates destruction. Because violence is often devoid of rational thought, those who act out of despair and in violence are viewed as (and believed to be) incapable of rational thinking and conduct and are further marginalized through punitive measures. Statistics show that crime is highest in the inner cities of the United States, and that poverty is the number-one cause of crime in the inner cities all over the United States. Therefore, there is a direct correlation between poverty and crime, at least in the cities of America.

The essence of the principle of liberty, that clears the path, gives hope, and, by consequence, enterprise and industry, of which Abraham Lincoln spoke, is capitalism. The major problem with capitalism is extreme unequal distribution of wealth. This is partly but undeniably due to unequal access to wealth and opportunities. The unequal access to wealth and opportunities is perhaps best illustrated by the cardinal rule of equality (or inequality) for all animals in George Orwell's classic The Animal Farm, which stated, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

The contextual implication of the preceding illustration is that all citizens have liberty, but some have more liberty than others. As I have noted, the concept of liberty is both symbolic and substantive, and both must be present for liberty to be meaningful. Symbolic liberty makes substantive liberty possible, while substantive liberty gives meaning to symbolic liberty. Without the means (access to wealth and opportunities) to exercise liberty, it becomes meaningless and worthless in application to those who possess it.

Winston Churchill aptly expressed this inequality when he said, "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." By its very nature, capitalism guarantees unequal distribution of wealth among citizens, and in our time the essence of capitalism appears to be "winner takes all". In the game of capitalism there are no consolation prices. Nevertheless, in spite of its inherent problems, capitalism remains the best economic system available. As Abraham Lincoln said, "That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise."

In my opinion, the greatest good in capitalism is expressed in the sentiment echoed in the foregoing statement. In light of this, those at a disadvantage, as I am, must be keen and diligent, to seek out the small doors when the large ones are closed to them, for in so doing they might, through many small doors, open a larger door. They must not become like those who, in the abundance of water, remain thirsty. Alexander the Great said, "There is nothing impossible to him who will try."

However, as with every idea, a careful balance must be maintained to ensure that people do not lose control of capitalism (however good it may be) and that people don't end up being controlled by it. An idea is like an automobile. It can get you to where you need to go, but you have to maintain good control of it at all times, else it will take control (by your losing control), and you'll wind up in a place you did not intend or want to be. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Drive thy business, or it will drive thee." It is ludicrous and dangerous to claim (or argue) that capitalism is a free-market economic system (which humans invented, by the way), where market forces determine the ultimate outcome of humanity. How is it that we (humans) created a system, only to become slaves to it? It is contrary to reason to say that a system created by us (humans) has become our master (and god) that ultimately determines our fates without any input from us. I say this claim is a bold-faced lie told by those who have the power and means to manipulate the capitalist system and who benefit exclusively from it.

Any idea that comes to bear on all the inhabitants of any society (particularly a democratic society) must be implemented in fairness to everyone. When those who have wealth, or access to it, are predominantly of a particular ethnic group and those who do not are predominantly of a different ethnic group or groups, a certain perception is created among those who do not have wealth. That perception implies that there is a concerted effort to exclude them from sharing in the wealth and privileges of the country. Whether the perceived exclusion is through nepotism, competitive advantage, or sheer coincidence, is irrelevant to their views. On the other hand, among those who have wealth, a different perception is created. That perception implies that those who do not have wealth are incompetent and undeserving. As everyone knows, perception can and does become reality.

A report published in February 1998 by the United States Conference of Mayors found that minorities are more likely to be discriminated against when seeking mortgage credit than are Whites. According to the report, "Only 43.6 percent of African Americans and 41.7 percent of Hispanics own homes, compared to 71.3 percent of whites." Another report published in February of 1997, by the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington, found that 36 percent of blacks and Hispanics faced discrimination when trying to purchase a home in Washington, D.C., area."

A study result published in October 1996 by The Urban Institute found that minority-owned businesses receive far fewer government contract dollars than would be expected based on their availability. The report also said, "As a group, minority-owned businesses receive 57 cents of each dollar that they would be expected to receive."

If it is perceived by those on the downside of the economic scale that the distribution of the country's wealth and power is entrenched or hitched to race or ethnicity, this will undoubtedly create discontent among the disadvantaged. In fact, many people believe this to be the case. This dissatisfaction will drive the disadvantaged to seek alternative means of gaining access to wealth and power, such as crime. They may also congregate along ethnic, religious, or other lines that they perceive to be typical or common among the disadvantaged. It has been said, "Misery loves company." This perception may in turn lead those at a disadvantage to develop strong in-group tendencies that will inevitably create tensions between groups, fragment the country, diminish unity, undermine democracy, threaten the nation's prosperity, and invariably weaken the nation.

There is no question that the starting line is not the same for everyone. This is to be expected, but the variance must be reasonable. It is also to be recognized that people possess different abilities and will achieve different results, even when the starting point is the same for all. As has been duly noted in the civil rights strategy (a proposal) to achieve equality, "The Constitution promises equal opportunity, not equal results." However, to pretend or argue that everyone has equal access to opportunities and wealth or that the situation will sort itself out through the free-market economic system is disingenuous; this argument only benefits those who are at an advantage. Indeed, only those who already have access to the wealth and opportunities of the nation (and with the power to manipulate the system) present and advance this view.

While there are those who began from an unfavorable starting point but have successfully broken through the barrier and caught up, to some degree, with those who began from a more favorable starting point, they constitute a very small and insignificant proportion. The fact remains that the playing field is still not level for everyone. The majority of the people need some concession and even help, to some degree, to get them started and up to speed. I know this is not the spirit of capitalism, but again, referring to my earlier analogy, the question is: Who is in control, the driver (i.e. the people) or the vehicle (i.e. the idea of capitalism)?

Not too long ago, the inequalities that existed (and that still exist) in this nation were recognized, and efforts to address some of them were articulated in policies such as affirmative action. The policies affirmed that the inequalities that exist in America are a result of direct and indirect actions of some people that then marginalize other people. It also prescribed some remedies, of which the most notable and most controversial are the school desegregation and affirmative action laws. All these remedies have been constantly derided, challenged in court, overturned or seriously weakened (one way or another).

Sadly, these policies that were intended as remedies and unifying gestures for past injustices have become as painful and divisive as the "wounds" they were meant to heal. Affirmative action primarily recognizes the situation of inequality in the nation and its causes, and secondarily makes recommendations for how to resolve the problems associated with that situation. Affirmative action has been defined as a program designed to compensate for past discrimination through hiring goals, preferential consideration among otherwise equal candidates, or active recruitment of women or minority workers by making requirements equal so they can get jobs that they were once denied. The fact that these recommendations may not be prudent enough to satisfy everyone, and risk appearing to encourage the same thing (i.e., discrimination) they sought to correct, does not deny the fact that the situation they were meant to resolve exists.

I am personally opposed to any form of quota system, which affirmative action, in its true ideal, is not. The United States Supreme Court recognized this ideal in a recent ruling regarding the University of Michigan Law School admission guidelines. In a legal brief for the majority on the ruling, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "It is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity." I would like to emphasize the word "visibly," because, in my opinion, it is an allusion to the determination of a fair and level playing field for all, to ensure a truly equal access for all who are visibly and potentially capable.

There is an essential philosophical implication in this ruling. That implication can be understood in the context of Aristotle's integrationist view toward understanding the varied phenomena of nature (of which we humans are part). According to an article by the Comprehensive Conceptual Curriculum for Physics (C3P) at the University of Dallas, Texas, "Aristotle believed that some aspects of a phenomenon could not be understood simply by the interaction of parts. For example, to focus on the atomic structure of an acorn ignores the acorn's potential to become an oak tree."

Similarly, to predicate a person's capability on what is currently visible about the person is to ignore the person's potential, since potential is defined as the possibility of becoming something contained in the being of that "something". Hence, Benjamin Carson, perhaps, the best neurosurgeon in world, who became the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 33 years of age, could not have become one of the world's leading brain surgeons, had he not gone to college and had only his background been considered in determining his capability or innate abilities. It would have been concluded, perhaps, it was concluded, based on his background, that he could never become a doctor, let alone the type of doctor that he became.

In Aristotle's physics, potential plays a central role, and so should it in the context of affirmative action. It must be recognized that potential is only realized through some action—like going to college to study medicine. The process of realizing potential involves motion or equally, change. In continuation of the analogy to the oak tree, "the acorn will actually become an oak if it is germinated." In the same manner, people will only become all they can be if they are given a fair chance. Barack Obama, a man described by many, as an American political phenom, since JFK, one that seems to embody America's hope for the future and future generations, perhaps, expressed it best when he said, in an interview with the Time magazine, the October 23, 2006 issue, "If you feel good about me, there's a whole lot of young men out there who could be me if given the chance."

It is completely dishonest to identify what might be wrong with any system that was genuinely intended to correct the harm done to a group of people (as established by the spirit of the affirmative action), in the effort to eliminate the system without seeking a better alternative to replace it. If the nation and her leaders are sincerely committed to ending the inequalities that exist as a result of past and present injustices, they must be fair. A genuine sense of fairness is the moral compass for what is just, right, and fair remediation to a problem. One of the cardinal principles of Christianity, by which the founders of this nation were greatly influenced, and upon which the laws of the land are largely based, is to do to others as you would want done to you. In essence, this is the ideal of justice.

Perhaps a good place to start in so doing (i.e., ending inequalities) is to draw from the three leading solution strategies: the civil rights strategy, the affirmative action strategy, and the equal opportunity strategy. Drawing from these strategies will serve as substrate for a comprehensive solution to the problem. In so doing, it must be recognized that government social programs should not be "the end"; rather, they should only be the means to an end. The end should be a truly equal access to the wealth and opportunities that abound in the nation. In the least, it should be more access to wealth and opportunities, through the creation of an environment that fosters greater capabilities to increase personal wealth and opportunities, for those at a disadvantage.

An excerpt from the United States Declaration of Independence states, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." For this ideal to be "self-evident" and true to its meaning, the society must do whatever is necessary to create an environment that promotes, enhances, and harnesses the potentials of every person, regardless of ethnicity or race. This can only be achieved through equal recognition, equal access to education, and equal access to the opportunities and wealth that abound in this great nation.

The majority of the people at a disadvantage are still left very far behind. It is not that they are not trying hard enough. For most of them, the situation can be likened to a man caught at the bottom of a sand dune. Though he tries very hard to climb up the sand dune, his efforts yield very few results. Indeed, the harder he tries, the less he accomplishes. Eventually, he is exhausted and unable to make any more efforts because his energy is spent. With nothing left to draw from, he gives up and resigns to his eventual demise by his circumstance.

This social condition can be illustrated to some degree by Newton's first law of motion (also known as the law of inertia). This law states that "an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, with the same speed and in the same direction, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." There is a propensity for those who have access to wealth or opportunity to gain more wealth or opportunity through the employment of the wealth and opportunities they already possess.

Similarly, there is an equal propensity for those who lack wealth and opportunity to continue to lack, simply because there is nothing at their disposal to create or increase wealth and opportunity. I call it, the law of neediness, and it can be illustrated by the fact that those who have needs are often denied the very things they need, just because they tend to lack much of what they need. This is somewhat of an oxymoron in that if they had what they are in need of, they wouldn't have that need in the first place. This is the dictate of capitalism. Those who have get more and those who do not have get nothing, and even what they have will be taken from them, because in the absence of increase, the little they have is soon exhausted. This perhaps better expressed in the poem, the Adversity of Scarcity, which reads:

Besieged by scarcity
they have fallen,
fallen into adversity
the adversity of scarcity

The rainfalls
yet their seeds aren't growing
There is plenty
yet their belly is empty

They are the fallen
downed by adversity
the adversity of scarcity
Plenty to go around
yet a morsel, they get not
They are muzzled
for they have no muscle

To get a bite
they've got to chip in for the tart
But, they have to take a hike
for they can't get astride
they' have fallen
fallen into adversity all because of scarcity

They have lost steam so they are short on esteem They get not
'cos they've got not
so they get none
that's the law
the law of neediness

To get about
they need a clout
yet no crowd about them
for they are not of the in crowd

They're down
and left out
out of the crowd

Now they're without and they do without
all because of adversity
the adversity of scarcity

For the sake of illustration, if you have money, the banks will eagerly give you more money by way of loans or interest dividends and the Congress and the government of the United States will give you more money by way of tax cuts for capital gains. But if do not have money, you cannot get a loan or earn dividends and you cannot partake in the tax cut, because chances are you have no collateral or investments and you did not pay much in taxes or gain much capital.

People who need love and support are often denied the same, simply because no one loves or supports them (as it were), while those who are loved and supported by many (e.g. the celebrities) are loved and supported by yet many more people. According to the "priests of capitalism," these are the demands of the "mighty" capitalism, the god that must be obeyed by all its loyal subjects (everyone), else human existence and innovation will come to a crashing halt.

This, according to the "priests of capitalism," is why we must be slaves and worshippers of the god (i.e., the capitalist system which we created), obeying all its rules and constantly sacrificing humans to it, by denying people access to basic needs and a better life. This is deeply rooted in the age long sadistic philosophy of "the survival of the fittest". In fact, it is no less than social Darwinism.

Let me be clear, I am not against capitalism. Indeed, I am an advocate for honest capitalism. It is an integral part of democracy, which must be maintained and promoted. What I have written against is social Darwinism or "nihilistic capitalism". As with every system designed by humans, the purpose of capitalism is to serve (and benefit) all humans—not for humans to serve it. When the latter becomes the case, it is evident that the system has been hijacked and the purpose altered; such system has lost its way, and by implication, has lost ultimate legitimacy. Abraham Lincoln said, "If we Americans cultivate our inner lives and our moral selves as industriously and productively as we cultivate the material world around us, he said, then perhaps we of all peoples can long endure."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Socialism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social." Any society where material things are valued higher than people cannot be altogether healthy and cannot be considered a rational society. Such a society is like a person who has lost the essence of food (or eating) and lives to eat, instead of eating to live. In fact, it would be like a husbandman engaged in the rearing of livestock, who starves or kills his children (people) to make feed for the livestock.

He has forgotten the purpose of his enterprise, which is ultimately, to feed people with his produce. Being that he has sacrificed or fed people (i.e. the end users of his produce) to his livestock, his enterprise and produce no longer have value. In the same sense, any society that emphasizes absolute (or extreme) individualism has forgotten the essence of humanity and the purpose of human existence.

All that is required for people to attain their potentials and the American dream is fair access to the wealth and opportunities that abound in the country—not apparent access and definitely not charity, but real access to wealth and opportunities. True liberty must guarantee equality for all. As Napoleon Bonaparte (before he was corrupted by power) once said, "My motto has always been; a career open to all talents, without distinction of birth.... A man should have the chance to rise on the basis of his ability."

The liberty guaranteed for all by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has not guaranteed equality for all Americans. This is creating a sense of desperation, hopelessness, resentment, and invariably a divided loyalty among an increasing number of Americans between the nation and their ethnic, racial, or religious groups. There is evidence of decreasing fondness for America and decreasing allegiance to America amongst many Americans because they feel denied and excluded from the American dream. Others are increasingly giving up hope and embracing another idea called apathy, which is contrary to the American idea innate in the spirit of the Constitution. The scale of justice is tipped against many Americans who, as a result, are increasingly losing faith in the American idea and ideals.

Discrimination and nepotism have denied many Americans access to opportunities and excluded them from the prosperity of the nation, effectively turning their American dream into a nightmare from which they cannot seem to wake up. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, "in the year 2000, the median-income of year-round, full-time workers, by sex and race or ethnic origin of people 15 years old and older, were least for Blacks and Hispanics." This income disparity is largely attributed to lack of good education.

In April 2002, the National Center for Education Statistics counted public school students, staff, and graduates. The counts found that enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, by race or ethnicity from 2000 to 2001, were as follows: 61.2 percent for Whites, 17.2 percent for Blacks, 16.3 percent for Hispanics, 4.1 percent for Pacific Islanders/Asians, and 1.2 percent for American Indians/ Alaskan Natives. Evidence shows that the low enrollment in public schools among minorities is largely due to the failing condition and poor performance of those schools. In essence, public schools (particularly in the inner cities and poor localities) are failing to teach children, hence leaving children discouraged and disenchanted. This situation, in consequence, has led to very low student enrollment in public schools.

Federal initiatives (most recently, the No Child Left Behind Act) instituted to solve the problem of failing public schools seem to fall short, at least so far. In fact, evidence shows that the new law may have inspired serious unintended consequences, in that it may indeed have compounded the problem, not in its intentions, of course, but in its implementation. The federal funding for the program (established by the act) is tied to school performance, which, in turn, is based on student test scores. In view of this, schools are forcing out low-performing students in order to raise or maintain test scores. This act of gross cheating (and injustice against disadvantaged students) committed by unscrupulous school administrators has resulted in an increase in the dropout rate in public schools and has in essence turned the initiative against itself by deliberately leaving children behind. In fact, in some cities and communities, "The No Child Left Behind Act" has essentially become "The Leave Some Children Behind Act". For example, a recent study done in Chicago shows that the dropout rate has jumped to more than 17 percent since Congress passed the bill establishing the No Child Left Behind initiative. On the other hand, many states are opting out of the program entirely, claiming that the expectations it sets are unrealistic, considering the inadequacy of funding for the program.

The problems associated with lack of education in America's children and youths cannot be overemphasized. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 82 percent of prison inmates are school dropouts. Studies show that only 16 percent of school dropouts get jobs. Studies also show that school dropouts are more likely to abuse alcohol, use drugs, join street gangs, commit crimes, go to prison, and become useless to society.

Statistical data by the U.S. Census Bureau consistently show that income, home ownership, unemployment rates, and poverty rates are directly related to educational attainment or lack of it. The data show that income and home ownership are lowest among Blacks and Hispanics, while unemployment and poverty rates are highest among the same groups. Violent crime victimization rates are also highest among the same groups and are directly linked to the hopelessness and despair created by the situation underscored by the statistical data.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States' 106th Congress (1998) was made up of only one American Indian (0.2 percent), five Asians/Pacific Islanders (0.9 percent), twenty Hispanics (3.7 percent), and thirty-nine Blacks (7.3 percent). The rest; (471 or 87.9 percent) are Whites. The scale is just as tipped for U.S. businesses. The "1997 Economic Census" released in July 2001 by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that American Indian/Alaskan Native, Black, and Asian/ Pacific Islander categories own 0.9 percent, 4 percent, 4.3 percent, and 5.8 percent, respectively. Whites own the rest (83.2 percent) of all businesses. This disparity has been directly linked to discrimination and lack of access to capital (i.e. institutional racism). Banks and lending institutions often discriminate against the minority groups, particularly Blacks, in lending. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that government institutions, private institutions, and businesses discriminate against the minority groups in awarding contracts. These practices, along with other factors, are responsible for the disproportionate business ownership that exists in the United States. This has been documented in several studies and documentaries.

In spite of efforts by the United States Government and Congress through the Equal Opportunity Acts, such as the Fair Housing Act and Equal Lending Act, there is evidence to show that the tide of discrimination against people of particular ethnic backgrounds by banks and lending institutions continues unabated. This has created a new set of industries that target and take advantage of the same people who have been victimized and excluded by the mainstream institutions. These industries—armed with a new set of unethical business conducts such as predatory lending practices (e.g. universal credit defaults, unbearably high interest rates, high interest rate markups, etc.), property repossessions, hostile business takeovers, and extortionate business practices—drive disadvantaged people further into poverty and hopelessness. The Urban Institute, in a study titled A National Report Card on Discrimination in America, published in 1998, noted that "it is clear that discrimination in everyday transactions imposes significant psychological costs on the its victims and is a clear violation of our civil rights laws."

Discontent and violent uprising is imminent, if, in the midst of abundant prosperity, many people are directly or indirectly denied access to the prosperity all around them, to the extent that they live in perpetual abject poverty and hopelessness. In some ways (perhaps not directly), such may have been a catalyst for the American Revolution in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789. In recent times, there are emerging parallels to these eighteenth century situations in many countries of the world, because the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; it is a dangerous path that could only drive people to develop in-group loyalties and ideas that would lead to division, weaken the nation, and threaten democracy.

Sir Winston Churchill once said of mankind, "If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another." Extreme unequal access to freedom, justice, and prosperity, particularly along ethnic lines, drives people to develop in-group tendencies, which, in turn, divides the country, threatens democracy and prosperity, and weakens the strength of the nation.

In concluding this chapter, I again invoke yet another timeless utterance by Abraham Lincoln: "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." This maxim does not appear to hold true anymore, since many hardworking Americans can no longer earn living wages and can no longer succeed by hard work, while others who barely "lift a finger", reap all the benefits of their hard work. The latter are like the "Old Man River". They don't plant taters, they don't plant cotton, and "dem that plants them are soon forgotten".

It is now as portrayed by Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) in the movie Wall Street. It is all about greed (an age long malady of mankind) served on the platter of the Darwinist evolutionary theology. It is no longer a matter of "how much money or profit is enough"; it is all a game of winners and losers, primed by the philosophy of "the survival of the fittest". For most American companies, profit is all that matters, and the idea of corporate citizenship and responsibility has been replaced with an irrational attitude marked by a tunnel vision, where nothing else matters, except maximum profits.

Gekko proclaimed, "Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit." To Gekko, and perhaps the leaderships of many major American businesses "Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge," and I might also add, greed for power, "has marked the upward surge of mankind. Greed drives things forward in nature and in man." Well, that may be so, but to what ultimate end?

Nevertheless, it must also be recognized that there are people in this land of plenty (abundant wealth and opportunities) that have chosen to do nothing to improve their own lives (at least, as much as that aspiration depends on them). "You can take a horse to the river, but you cannot make it drink from it.'

These people are like those who remain thirsty even in the abundance of water. They would rather leave it to someone else to change their situation. In essence, they want someone else to do the "pursuit of happiness" for them. Perhaps they don't desire or deserve that American dream of a better life. They have made a decision and must be prepared to live by it. They should be prepared to "lie on their bed as they have made it."

RACE AND RACISM

The contemporary concept of "race" and "racism" is rooted in the Darwinian theory of evolution. In the early 1800s, before the theory of evolution became widely accepted and popularized, the idea of race mostly referred to groups of people only on the basis of their culture; for example, the "English race," the " Irish race," the " Chinese race," the "Japanese race," etc. Although a marginal group of scientists and philosophers in the West also viewed race differently and in terms of "civilized" and "uncivilized" people, the concept of race changed when Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. The Darwinian theory of evolution, which teaches that different groups or "races" of people evolved at different times and rates, is inherently a racist philosophy. This is the concept that has defined modern-day racism . . . the essential foundation of racism, as we know it today.

Darwin's philosophy, which claims that humans evolved from apes, maintains that some groups (races) are more like their "ape-like ancestors" than others. The Australian Aborigines, for example, were considered the missing link between an ape-like ancestor and the rest of mankind. This notion resulted in horrible prejudices and unspeakable atrocities committed against the Australian Aborigines and Africans. Racist attitudes, primed by evolutionary thinking, were responsible for the Holocaust, the massacre by Belgians of Africans in Congo, the enslavement of Africans in Europe, America, and Arabia, and the display of an African pygmy along with an orangutan in a cage in the Bronx Zoo.

It is also the main reason for the prohibition of interracial marriage (in recent history) and the general disapproval of such a union, even in present times, among many white Americans.

Dr. Carl Wieland, Ken Ham, and Dr. Don Batten, in Where Did the 'Races' Come From, wrote, "As a result of Darwinian evolution, many people started thinking in terms of the different people groups around the world representing different 'races,' but within the context of evolutionary philosophy. This has resulted in many people today, consciously or unconsciously, having ingrained prejudices against certain other groups of people."

There will always be perceptible physical and cultural differences among people ("races" or ethnicities), even a certain measure of "race' and cultural (or ethnic) awareness, just as there will always be apparent differences between men and women and a certain measure of gender awareness. However, it is important to categorically state that this is not the same as racism. Superficial physical appearance (e.g. skin color, hair type, hair color, eye color, etc.) and cultural (ethnic) awareness entails recognizing the fact that there may be some external physical and cultural differences between people. In its ideal form, this recognition is and should be passive (not an active) recognition of such differences.

In fact, scientists admit that, biologically, there is only one race of humans. It is quite an irony, that "evolutionary science" classifies all human beings in the world today as Homo sapiens sapiens. Dr. Carl Wieland et al., in the text cited previously, quoted a scientist at the Advancement of Science Convention in Atlanta as saying, "Race is a social construct derived mainly from perceptions conditioned by events of recorded history, and it has no biological reality." The scientist was also quoted as saying, "Curiously enough, the idea comes very close to being of American manufacture." Some aspects of history are, like Napoleon Bonaparte said, "[a] set of lies that men have agreed upon." The origin and chronicle of the concept of race is fundamentally of such.

The Science Page of the ABC News website (reporting on research done on the concept of race) stated, "More and more scientists, find that the differences that set us apart are cultural, not racial. Some even say that the word 'race' should be abandoned because it's meaningless." The article went on to say, "We accept the idea of race because it's a convenient way of putting people into broad categories, frequently to suppress them the most hideous example was provided by Hitler's Germany. And racial prejudice remains common throughout the world." Racism entails racial prejudice and discrimination; it is an active and zealous pursuit of extreme views. It is now essentially based on the racial differences and biases established by the Darwinian theory of evolution and other institutionalized prejudices that derive from that theory.

It is hypocritical and silly to pretend that people are blind to the external physical and cultural differences that may exist between them. It is quite natural to perceive those differences, whether it is height, weight, color of skin, color of hair, color of eyes, name, or gender, just as we do with everything else around us—color of leaves, cars, flowers, clothes, clouds, etc. However, it is completely wrong to base one's relationship with another on those differences rather than on mutual respect and common decency.

It must be recognized that these differences should not matter in much the same way that differences in people's names do not matter when they are not hitched to their race (or ethnicity). A person's name may be different from another's, yet both serve the same role and possess the same significance. Similarly, people of the same family know that there may be some differences among them. Such differences may be in their first names, hair color, eye color, skin color, gender, height, weight, dentition, voice, age, or personal interests, yet each individual has the same worth and significance as the others, in spite of those differences.

This brings us to the issue of respect. Respect for another human being is not a charity to be given out of sympathy, guilt or the mere constraints of political correctness. It is a privilege and a right due to every human being. As a foundational principle of humanity and civilization, every human being deserves the respect of other human beings. In some regards, and to some degree, respect must be earned, in order for it to be deserved, and it must be paid in full when earned and deserved. The latter concept of respect relates to individual accomplishments or material worth. In principle, it is secondary to the former, but in practice often transcends the former. Humans generally find their identity in what they possess or what they have accomplished (individually or by association) and measure their worth or esteem against those of others by comparing their material possessions or accomplishments with those of others to determine the measure of respect they believe is due them or due others.

In my experience as a student of history and current affairs, and as a recent immigrant, I have found racism to be pervasive and insidious in America; yet many Americans are not racists, at least not individually or overtly. I have also observed that the term racism often implies historical and active racial discrimination by people of European descent (white people) against African Americans, Native Americans, and other minority ethnic groups. The reason for this notion is quite obvious and understandable, considering the history of race relations in the United States, particularly the atrocities (slavery, segregation, and racial discrimination) committed against Africans in America and the near extermination of Native Americans.

However, the notion, while largely true, may not be entirely accurate. In fact, most white people that I know personally since coming to the United States (and indeed, those I have read about) are among the best people I have ever known. They are not only just and kind to people of other races, they are 'truly" respectful of them. I emphasize the word "truly," because, too often, respect to African Americans and people of other minority groups had been patronizing (done out of charity, sympathy, guilt, political correctness, and the duress of blackmail). These people are by no means or measure racist. Indeed, they are perhaps among the most decent people on earth.

Nevertheless, this is not to say that all white people are likewise. In fact, many are indeed racist. But it is unjust to make a generalization that depicts all white people as racists based on the views and actions of some who are racist, however many there may be. To do so, would be morally equivalent to racism itself and unfair to the many people who are not racist. I believe that people (including Caucasians) "should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Unfortunately, the natural principle of cause and effect (action and reaction) also applies to this sad human relation. The belligerent philosophical racist views and actions (unprovoked racism) of some "white people" tend to inspire defensive racist views (reactionary racism) among some Americans who have suffered by it. Nevertheless, we must strive to overcome evil with good, to ultimately break the vicious cycle of racism.

In the country I come from, the equivalency (albeit low-level equivalency) to racism is tribalism, which is equally pervasive. Many people are indeed tribalistic, but it is unfair to categorize everyone as such. In the final analysis, there are good people and there are bad people in America, as in anywhere else. It is irrational and unfair to fault everyone because of the views or actions of some. Nevertheless, this perspective gets very difficult when it comes to institutional racism, because of the scope and dynamics involved. Such scope and dynamics establish collective responsibility, which is difficult to argue for or against.

All evolutionists (Darwinists) are racists (by inclination or by implication). They have committed their lives to perpetuating a lie that started so long ago, and they do so at all cost. Nearly two centuries ago, they were the likes of Sir Richard Owen, Sir Arthur Keith, Charles Darwin himself, and many top European evolutionists, such as the German evolutionist Amalie Dietrich (nicknamed the "Angel of Black Death") and other American scientists and museum curators, such as Edward Ramsey, curator of the Australian Museum in Sydney from 1874 to 1894. It is known that "Four weeks after he requested the skulls of Bungee (Russell River) blacks, a keen young science student sent him two, announcing that they, the last of their tribe, had just been shot." In the 1880s, Ramsey was said to have complained that newly passed laws in Queensland to stop the slaughter of Aborigines were affecting his supply of "specimens." Many museum curators all around the world, at that time, also belong to this group.

These people (if they rationally can be called that) inspired the gruesome trade in "missing link" specimens, which began with early evolutionary (racist) ideas and was accelerated by the Darwinist evolutionary theory. In fact, evidence shows that perhaps 10,000 dead bodies (mostly of people deliberately killed to provide "specimens" for evolutionary research) of Australia's Aboriginal people were shipped to British museums in a frenzied attempt to prove the widespread belief that they were the "missing link." According to a leading Australian weekly, The Bulletin, cited in an article titled "Darwin's Body snatchers" by Dr. Carl Wieland, "US evolutionists were also strongly involved in this flourishing 'industry' of gathering specimens of 'subhuman.' The Smithsonian Institution in Washington holds the remains of 15,000 individuals of various races."

Darwin and his followers changed the world for the worse by inspiring the worldwide racism that continues to plague the earth. Their legacy has continued to inspire generations of racists, who continue to perpetuate the ideology popularized by Darwin and the injustices it generates. "History is a set of lies that people have agreed upon," Napoleon Bonaparte once said. "Even when I am gone, I shall remain in people's minds the star of their rights, my name will be the war cry of their efforts, the motto of their hopes." This ominous statement aptly describes the legacy of Charles Darwin and his co-conspirators.

The philosophy of biological evolution (or Darwinist philosophy), and, by implication, racism, is a true "axis of evil" that has created a social mutation that endows (or predisposes) some humans with infinite propensity and capacity to commit evil acts against other humans. This is the fundamental and biggest threat facing the world today.

The new generations of racists (inspired by the Darwinist philosophy) are those who would not and will not give respect, though it has been earned and deserved by those to whom it should be given. In spite of the denials, it is very clear who they are, what they are, and why they are. It is not that they are incapable of recognizing truth and reason; rather, it is that they are incapable of accepting truth and reason. They are like those who would choose to deny the significance of their right or left arm, or the significance of the bridge they are standing on, just to be negative and defiant or just to be disagreeable. They are unreasonable in their reasons for being what they are and for the views they hold. Like their ancestors, they are committed to making truth out of a lie.

The most venerable statesman to grace this land—Abraham Lincoln—described racists and their position in a letter on August 24, 1855, thus: "I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can anyone who abhors the oppression of Negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that, 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except Negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'All men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

Racists are incapable of objective thinking or reasoning. They are slaves to prejudice, and refuse to be emancipated by common sense, truth, and reason. Hate and prejudice have blinded their sense of reason. Their minds are like the black hole: no matter the amount of light that is beamed (shined) into it, it will remain dark. They are like inanimate objects that will not respond to conversation, dialogue, or reason, simply because they are incapable of doing so. These are people who have chosen to tell themselves, and others alike, lies. They then spend their whole lives trying to convince themselves and others that those lies are truths. The tragedy is that they do it long enough to forget the truth, so much so that they eventually believe those lies and often die for them. They have become pathological racists. There is nothing more tragic than dying for a lie, especially one's own.

There are those who believe that racism is a "just" cause, to be fought for and preserved at all costs, and they indeed dedicate their lives to that foolish and tragic cause. It is reasonable to say that without deliberate, active, and concerted effort to preserve or perpetuate an idea (or anything for that matter), it will not survive or last for a long time. Racism in America seems to be a legacy, which has been handed down from generation to generation, in one form or another. Perhaps, this explains the result of a survey done by CBS News in February of 2000, which states that "half (50 0 0) of Americans say there will always be racial prejudice and discrimination in America.'

In another survey, done in spring of 2001 by the Washington Post, the Kaiser Foundation, and Harvard University, the majority—49 percent and 47 percent—said that there is some discrimination against African Americans and Hispanic Americans, respectively. Twenty-five percent and 19 percent said there is a lot of discrimination against African Americans and Hispanic Americans, respectively; and 16 percent and 23 percent said there is only a little discrimination against African Americans and Hispanic Americans, respectively. The Gallup Organization, in a poll conducted in May of 2001, asked Americans how they would rate the state of race relations in the United States these days. Three percent of those polled said "very good," 43 percent said, "somewhat good," 22 percent said, "neither good nor bad," and 25 percent said, "somewhat bad" (Source: Public Agenda Online).

Racism creates discrimination, friction, tension, conflict, and division among the citizens of this nation, in much the same way as tribalism (or ethnicity) does in Nigeria, Iraq, Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Turkey, Kosovo, and many other countries where tribalism exist. The only exception is that racism is much more spiritually (psychologically) damaging than tribalism, given that racism attacks (and tends to destroy) the very essence and substance of the victim. The fundamental difference between racism and tribalism is that tribalism does not attempt to establish any one tribe as superior to another. It is purely a politically motivated effort to exclude others from political power and limit their access to resources, whereas the whole purpose of racism is psychic domination and absolute exploitation. The effects of tribalism are very evident in most countries of the world where democracy is failing or has failed. As I have said, in the United States, the symbolic equivalent of tribalism is racism. Racism is an issue that cannot be adequately covered in this book. It would take volumes to fully address the issue. However, it is necessary to reflect on the problem, for the purposes of understanding how it fits into the overall subject matter addressed in this book.

Racism has been defined as "institutionalized oppression of a person or a group of people, which is engendered either by direct personal experience or through information." Indeed, the most insipid way racism is perpetuated in America and indeed throughout the world is through institutional racism (i.e., racial profiling and discrimination), which is rooted in the definition and identity imposed on the person. This definition is derived directly from the racist evolutionary theory propagated by Charles Darwin and his followers (evolutionists).

The foundation of racism is in the definition of the victim, and the Machiavellian genius of the idea is in basing the definition on a scale of good and evil—with white representing good and black representing evil. Once established, it became easy to associate good with those defined as white and evil with those defined as black. Over time and through the process of cultural and behavioral evolution, those defined as white became synonymous with everything good, and those defined as black became synonymous with everything evil or bad.

This completely altered the psyche (the sub-consciousness) of the perpetrators and their perception of the victim and to some extent, altered the psyche of the victim. Hence, heinous acts committed by those defined as white against those defined as black (or non-white) could only be viewed in the context of the struggle of good versus evil (light against darkness). This notion created an atmosphere that subjugated the conscience of the perpetrators and minimized and justified their evil acts against other humans; for example, the atrocities committed against the Australian Aborigines, African slaves, and Native Americans.

Consequently, a transformation of the consciousness of the society ensued, as expressed in arts, literature, religion, and relationships. Expressions such as blackleg, blacklist, blackmail, black sheep, black hand, black plague, black horse, black widow, black day, black magic, dark side, etc., were used to portray and cast the so-called "black people" in the same moral and spiritual domain implied by those expressions. Religious arts and artifacts depicting angels in white and demons in black legitimized the notion and the mindset of the perpetrators of racism, in ascribing or associating the essence of those expressions with those defined as black, thus reinforcing the belief established by the definition and its content. This effectively put the "black face" or "blackness" on every social malady, from poverty, crime, and ineptitude to dishonesty, ugliness, and low self-esteem. Similarly, sickness, disease, witchcraft, and death were all expressed by blackness.

I strongly believe that the definition of the black man is the primary reason for the victimization, general lack of respect, and even disdain for people with dark skin in America, and indeed all over the world. To escape this plight some of the so-called "black people" would do anything to lighten their complexion, in the belief that it would make them more acceptable to the society, hence increasing their self-esteem and -worth. Even people who are not technically defined as black but have somewhat dark skin engage in this despicable exercise, it is true in America, Africa, India, Arabia, and many other places.

The essence of the idea of racism is psychic domination (mental colonization and mental slavery) and the material and spiritual exploitation of the person. The psychic domination and spiritual exploitation are in using the victim as backdrop for creating a sense of personal or racial superiority, to enhance the perpetrator's self-esteem and personal worth. The material exploitation is in relegating the victim to the position of servitude and permanent lower class to the extent that the victim begins to see him or herself as depicted by the perpetrator. The biggest perpetrators of racism are the media, law enforcement authorities, academic institutions, and legislative/legal institutions. If racism were a stool, they would be the four legs of the stool. Ironically, these are the same, perhaps, the only, institutions that can effectively eradicate racism.

Studies show that individual racism (i.e., a person's racial bias toward another person) is based on the general perception or image presented by those institutions. In two separate surveys conducted by the Joint Center and Gallup/CNN/USA TODAY, in April of 1997 and June of 1998, respectively, both Blacks and Whites said that race relations are better in their own communities than in the nation as a whole. This underscores the point that when people interact with each other on a personal level (i.e., on a person-to-person basis, and understand one another as such), race relations improve dramatically. When all they know about each other is essentially a composite sketch or picture presented by those institutions mentioned previously, racism becomes entrenched and very visible.

A recent study titled Minding the Gap by the Human Relations

Foundation of Chicago, in collaboration with Loyola University's Center for Urban Research, found that, while individual Americans may not consider themselves to be racists and in truth may not be racist, institutional racism is alive and active, and has continued to inhibit the progress of minorities, thereby marginalizing them. Moreover, almost every major study on race relations and social wellbeing of the American populace show institutional racism —systematic racial profiling and discrimination to be the fundamental reason for disparities in education, income, home ownership, self-esteem, and belief in the American ideals.

Racism is primarily perpetuated through academic and research propaganda programs, social constructs, and perceptions influenced by such programs. These programs continue to strive without success through anthropological and evolutionary education/research, cognitive psychology, and subjective statistics; to convince society that one race is superior to all others, in an effort to justify the definition and classification that established racism.

In his paper Darwinism and the Nazi Race Holocaust, Jerry Bergman cited a publication in the American Scientist magazine, "There is little doubt that the history of ethnocentrism, racism, nationalism, and xenophobia has been also a history of the use of science and the actions of scientists in support of these ideas and social movements. In many cases it is clear that science was used merely as raw material or evidence by ideologically interested political actors as proof of preconceived notions."

The author of the publication cited above also wrote, "The history of ethnocentrism and the like has also been the history of many well respected scientists of the day being quite active in using their own authority as scientists to advance and support racist and xenophobic political and social doctrines in the name of science. Thus, if the scientists of the day used the science of the day to advance racism, it is simply a form of Kuhnian amnesia or historical whitewash to dismiss concern with a possible contemporary abuse of science by a claim that the past abuse was mere pseudoscience."

In the White House tapes (secret recordings of phone conversations of three American presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Richard M. Nixon) recently made available to the public, Richard Nixon expressed this sentiment and prejudice, based on such a study. His statement that Africans lack discipline and "just can't run things," as well as his statements elsewhere that implied that "Negroes" possess lower intelligence than Whites, were perhaps influenced by a conversation with Pat Buchanan, Nixon's speechwriter, who dwelt on such propaganda.

In a memo Buchanan sent to Nixon on August 26, 1971, which recently became public, he cited an article claiming that heredity determines intelligence. He wrote: "If correct, then all our efforts and expenditures not only for 'compensatory education' but to provide an 'equal chance at the starting line,' are guaranteeing that we wind up with the intelligent ones coming in first. And every study shows blacks 15 1.Q. points below whites on average. If there is no refutation, then it seems to me that a lot of what we are doing in terms of integration of blacks and whites—but even more so, poor and well-to-do—is less likely to result in accommodation, than it is in perpetual friction—as the incapable are played consciously by government side by side with the capable." This absurdity was recently revived and re-ignited by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their book The Bell Curve.

Harvard University's Stephen Jay Gould, referring to Darwin's On the Origin of Species, in his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny, wrote, "Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory."

Paul G. Humber, in his article "The Ascent of Racism," noted that long before Hitler's brand of evolution unfolded, American biologists had been fervently active in the racist movement. Prominent among them was Edwin G. Conklin, professor of biology at Princeton University from 1908 to 1933 and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1936 — the year of Hitler's Berlin Olympics. Conklin wrote, "Comparison of any modern race with the Neanderthal or Heidelberg types shows that all have changed, but probably the Negroid races more closely resemble the original stock than the white or yellow races. Every consideration should lead those who believe in the superiority of the white race to strive to preserve its purity and to establish and maintain the segregation of the races, for the longer this is maintained, the greater the preponderance of the white race will be."

Conklin's contemporary, Henry Fairfield Osborn, was a professor of biology and zoology at Columbia University. For twenty-five years (1908—1933), he was president of the American Museum of Natural History's Board of Trustees. Osborn wrote, "The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolians, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characteristics but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens."

Darwin's disciple, T. H. Huxley, wrote, "It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men, but no rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man... The highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins...

One could say that these men, among others like them, were the American equivalents of Francis Galton (the founder of eugenics and Darwin's cousin), Konrad Lorenz, Hans F.K Gunther (professor of "racial science" at the University of Jena and on whom Hitler and the Nazi party depended to define the "superior race"), and Ernst Haeckel (the chief German advocate of evolution). They all inspired and fueled racism in America, an idea that spawned the American apartheid (segregation).

This is the premise on which many academic disciplines have been founded to continue the biggest lie ever conceived by man, a lie that has plagued the world ever since it was introduced and has sent and continues to send tens of millions of people to their deaths. Eugenics, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary anthropology, etc., all exist to serve the purpose of advancing that lie. There is no doubt that the foundation of modern-day racism, which spawn hatred, violence, and destruction, is a direct result of evolutionary teaching that has permeated the psyche of the society.

This is the sentiment out of which Nixon and Buchanan spoke; it was the platform, on which Nixon developed and launched his infamous (Machiavellian) political strategy—the so-called "Southern Strategy" and it is the spirit that moves hate (racist) groups all over the world.

In his examination of the links between the "science" of Darwinism and the practice and ideology of Nazi racism, Jerry Bergman wrote, "Leading Nazis, and early-1900s influential German biologists, revealed in their writings that Darwin's theory and publications had a major influence upon Nazi race policies. Hitler believed that the human gene pool could be improved by using selective breeding similar to how farmers breed superior cattle strains. In the formulation of their racial policies, Hitler's government relied heavily upon Darwinism, especially the elaborations by Spencer and Haeckel." Bergman wrote, "As a result, a central policy of Hitler's administration was the development and implementation of policies designed to protect the 'superior race.'

This required, at the very least, preventing the 'inferior races' from mixing with those judged superior, in order to reduce contamination of the latter's gene pool. The 'superior race' belief was based on the theory of group inequality within each species, a major presumption and requirement of Darwin's original 'survival of the fittest' theory. This philosophy culminated in the 'final solution,' the extermination of approximately six million Jews and four million other people who belonged to what German scientists judged as 'inferior races'." He concluded that, "Darwinism justified and encouraged the Nazi views on both race and war.'

Racism in the American experience, marked by discrimination and segregation, stemmed from the same essential principles that inspired and motivated Hitler and the Nazis. Bergman noted that, "the primary reason that Nazism reached to the extent of the Holocaust was the widespread acceptance of Social Darwinism by the scientific and academic community." A similar conclusion could be drawn for the American experience of racism, in that the only reason slavery, segregation, and racial discrimination were widespread in America was the acceptance of Social Darwinism, particularly in the South.

The only reason that it did not progress to the proportion of the German experience was the United States Constitution, even though the original document establishing the United States Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, before it, presumptively did not recognize or include the so-called "Blacks". This was a sentiment that many of the framers and founders also expressed in various ways and which the Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, expressed ardently. Nevertheless, it retained a moral framework rooted in Judeo-Christian principles, and an implicit inclusivity, which eventually led to the abolition of slavery. One could say that America still had some remnants of conscience left in the descendants of the Pilgrims, who still remained committed to the ideals for which their forefathers left their homelands—for freedom and the right to worship God (practice Bible-based Christianity).

Even America's greatest morally inclined leader (and one of my heroes), Abraham Lincoln, who was largely credited with freeing the slaves, could not completely rise above this sentiment. In a response perhaps reminiscent of the Apostle Peter, he said: "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the Negro should be denied everything."

Racism is also perpetuated through punitive actions (public policies) enacted by state and federal legislators and instigated by the news media through stereotypical (racial) profiling. Mikal Muharrar, in his article "Media Blackface: 'Racial Profiling' in News Reporting" (published in the fall of 1998), cited a study titled "Crime in Black and White: The Violent, Scary World of Local News" conducted by two UCLA professors, Franklin Gilliam and Shanto lyengar. The study, which was published in the spring of 1996 in the academic journal Press/ Politics, found, through content-analysis of local station KABC in Los Angeles, that coverage of crime featured two important cues: "crime is violent and criminals are non-white.

Commenting on the study, he said, "The real revelation, however, was that television viewers were so accustomed to seeing African-American crime suspects on the local news that even when the race of a suspect was not specified, viewers tend to remember seeing a black suspect." He went on to say that "moreover, when researchers used digital technology to change the race of certain suspects as they appeared on the screen, a little over a half of those who saw the 'white' perpetrator recalled his race, but two-thirds did when the criminal was depicted as black." Professor Gilliam said, "ninety percent of the false recognitions involved African-Americans and Hispanics."

Muharrar's article noted that Howard Kurtz, a Washington Post media correspondent, in his coverage of the study (on April 28, 1997), wrote, "Support for punitive law-enforcement policies was highest when the stories featured black suspects or provided no information about race and was lowest when the suspects were white." The article also stated that he went on to essentially underscore the status quo by saying, "This is not the first complaint about coverage of minorities and crime, and most local stations have not seen fit to change their approach."

My personal observation is that whenever a person who happens to be African American does something bad, the media makes it a point to link such an act to African Americans in general by giving individual and specific detail to the person's ethnic background. A case in point was the NPR interview with New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines, regarding former Times reporter Jayson Blair, who was accused of plagiarism and fabrication. The interview, which aired on Thursday, May 8, 2003, gave another indication of how the media, even NPR, has been used to propagate and perpetuate racial profiling.

During the interview, the host of the program could not resist the impetus of conceit and bias and the sensationalism elicited by linking Jayson Blair's behavior to his ethnic group. Anyone who had listened to the interview and had no prior knowledge of the reporter in question, would not have been able to tell his racial background, as I could not. Not until the very end of the interview, when the host insinuated that Jayson Blair was allowed to keep his job at the New York Times because he was African American, in spite of what "should have been obvious deficiencies as a reporter"

The interview concluded with allusions (by the radio program's host) to a speech made by Mr. Raines to the NAACP, expressing his company's commitment to affirmative action. The host suggested (albeit in the pretext of a question) that Jayson Blair was allowed to keep his job at the New York Times in spite of his high error and correction rate because he is African American and because of the company's expressed commitment to affirmative action. This effectively shifted the issue from the conduct of one man to African Americans and affirmative action. In my opinion, this is a terrible insult to the hundreds of dedicated and distinguished journalists all over this country that are African Americans and to African Americans in general. What this characterization appeared to do is portray African Americans as lacking the intellect and substance (honesty and discipline) required for the profession of journalism and for journalistic excellence.

A week later (May 14, 2003), NPR featured a story about Regina Carter, a jazz violinist who became one of the few people in the world to play violinist and composer Niccolo Paganini's prized instrument on stage. According to NPR, the instrument, known as "The Cannon" for its "huge sonorous sound" was handcrafted more than 260 years ago and is closely guarded in the Italian city of Genoa. Unlike the interview about Jayson Blair, which NPR had featured one week before, there was no mention of the fact that Ms. Carter is African American. Not that it was (or should be) necessary to do so, but since it seems the practice is to associate African Americans with the misdeed of anyone who happens to be of that background, failing to do so when the deed of another is positive and redeeming can only be seen in the least as disingenuous or racist. Perhaps, the reason for not specifically associating Ms. Carter with African Americans, the way Jayson Blair was, was because the story did not fit the profile that media establishments have imposed on African Americans. The proof of my assertion quickly became evident in the commentary that immediately followed Ms. Carter's interview.

Soon after the piece on Regina Carter, came a commentary on Jayson Blair by commentator Marvin Kalb. The commentator again, as would be expected, though rather quickly, chose to make the issue Jayson Blair the African American and affirmative action, instead of Jayson Blair the person and his conduct. The late Martin Luther King, Jr., in his now well-known speech said, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Apparently, that dream remains unrealized, at least thus far.

This pattern of media racial profiling of African Americans by the same radio station was also exhibited in July 2002, when Allen Iverson had some issues with the law. In that instance, the host of the program appeared to suggest that the cornrow hairstyle is synonymous with gangsterism and thuggery. What these radio hosts have succeeded in doing in the instances cited above is pollute the minds of citizens by leading them to believe that African Americans do not have what it takes to be newspaper reporters, by virtue of affirmative action, therefore they cannot be trusted or expected to be good journalists. Secondly, that anyone with a cornrow hairstyle must by implication be inclined to criminal tendencies or likely to be of criminal predisposition. These types of views and utterances by respected media personalities have set the stage for racial profiling and prejudice by law enforcement and the general public. In my opinion, disingenuousness and prejudice in journalism are as despicable as plagiarism and fabrication; none should be tolerated. Like adultery, the practice of racial profiling and prejudice by the media is the product of inclination and opportunity. The media has both and has acted accordingly.

Abraham Lincoln once said, "I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him." On that premise, he who makes an assertion against a people, knowing that it is false (whether it is believable or not), acts in prejudice and malevolence, and is guilty of crime against humanity.

It is noteworthy, that a poll of children in a study titled A Different World: Children's Perceptions of Race and Class in the Media, commissioned by the child advocacy group Children Now, found that young people clearly recognized that racial stereotyping was rampant on television. Even more revealing is the finding in the study; that children also recognized that the news media was a far worse perpetrator of racial stereotyping than television entertainment programming. The study reported, "Although children think that all races are shown doing 'both' good and bad things on the news, they agree that the news media tends to portray African American and Latino people more negatively than White and Asian people."

Quite telling was the choice of an African American for the role of a criminal in a casting exercise done in the study. A young White female who participated in the exercise, speaking on the choice of the character (African American) for the role, said, "Like the news and everything, you always see Black people doing drugs and carrying around drugs, shooting people, and stealing things and everything." According to the study, when children were asked to choose from a diverse group of photos of aspiring models who they would likely see on TV in a series roles, a younger "White boy" chose the picture of an African-American man, for the role of "criminal". The young "white boy" in the study said, of the African America, "he looks like the type of criminal that would probably steal or something." Another "white boy" in the study agreed, saying, "Black people are mostly like robbers. Yeah, robbers and gangsters." The study also noted that children also chose Latinos for the criminal, saying that the Latino man "looked mean" or "like he could kill someone." The presumption in the statements attributed to the children in this study, who are "white" points to the pre-suppositional framework about African Americans that has effectively been instituted by Western television programming.

The study found that, "Across all races, children are more likely to associate positive characteristics with white characters they see on television and negative characteristics with minority characters." A teenage white boy succinctly described this perception as follows: "You really don't see many Black people portrayed as smart people...They don't really have a steady job. They try to get girls and stuff and they are really laid-back." It also noted that, "children of all races agree that the news media tend to portray African-American and Latino people more negatively than white and Asian people, particularly when the news is about young people."

The study noted further that the children expressed frustration over the extremely negative images of minorities, especially African Americans and Hispanics. The children said they would like to see television reflect the realities of their lives; that is, to feature more teenagers and be real, and, most importantly, show more people of all races interacting with each other, as is truly the case in local communities all over America.

Some of the children in the study believe that adults—especially of other races—formed impressions of them from the news media. The study noted that when asked whether news about teenagers is fair, a young white girl responded, "Well, I don't think so, because the news makes it seems like most Hispanics are bad. And most Blacks are bad because that's what the news is—about their robberies. They don't have a lot of bad stuff about Whites, so I don't know. It doesn't seem fair." One teenage African American boy polled in the study in Newark said, "Be more realistic,

stop showing everything we do negative and start showing the things we do positive." Another young white boy said, "And like they should have. . a mixture and that they should stop making all the Black people always be the ones who are bad." On the ABC News program Nightline, featured on May 6, 1998 (and based on the study done by Children Now), the guests on the program (mainly children) again perceived that the news media were the worst perpetrators of racial stereotyping.

The greatest tragedy in all this is that children's views on other races are shaped largely by the media, and by the time they become adults they have become so saturated with exposure to racial stereotyping in the media that it becomes part of who they are—because they have been corrupted and co-opted by their environment (i.e., the media). The study concluded that, "Today's children will be the first generation to come of age in an America where racial minorities are the numeric majority. Our future will depend upon their ability to develop positive racial identities and appreciation of diversity. To help build bridges across racial lines, children need to expand their conceptions of race and race relations in ways their parents never knew. Clearly, the media is only one of many influences in our children's lives, but young people believe that it has both the power to break down stereotypes and the potential to build greater understanding."

A study by Yale University professor Martin Gilens, titled Race and Poverty in America: Public Misperceptions and the American News Media, published in Public Opinion Quarterly (vol. 6, 1996), found that while African Americans make up 29 percent of the nation's poor, they constitute 62 percent of the images of the poor in the leading news magazines and 65 percent of the images of the poor on the leading network television news programs. The study noted that not only were the poor disproportionately portrayed as Blacks, but they were also portrayed in the most unsympathetic manner. While the groups of poor people (elderly and working poor) most likely to be sympathized with were underrepresented, the group (unemployed working-age adults) least likely to be sympathized with was over-represented.

These observations perhaps explain the disparities in legislations such as the federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine (a derivative of powder cocaine, a drug more prevalent among Blacks in the inner-city communities) and powder cocaine (more prevalent among Whites in upscale and affluent communities). These legislations, which were passed by Congress in 1986 and 1988, stipulate that while possession of five grams of crack cocaine requires a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, a conviction for the sale of five hundred grams of cocaine must be established to require a discretionary sentence of up to five years.

Similarly, while the possession of fifty grams of crack cocaine requires a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence, it will take a conviction for the sale of five thousand grams of powder cocaine to require a discretionary sentence of up to ten years. A person in the former group is doomed no matter the circumstance, because he or she is denied due process and fairness under the law. He or she is hit with a double whammy of injustice. He or she gets a stiff prison sentence (minimum of five or ten years) for possessing a substance that is less potent and only one-tenth of the quantity of a more potent substance, for which there is little or no prison sentence, by virtue of the discretionary sentencing procedure for the latter group. Not only that, he or she does not even get the benefit of a trial. On the other hand, the person in the latter group is allowed to go free almost every time. Not only is it required that he or she possess ten times the quantity of a substance for which a person of the former group gets a mandatory sentence, he or she is afforded due process and the benefit of a real trial. Moreover, the trial is not for possession but for the sale of the substance. Such a trial rarely results in any conviction or jail time.

These laws, which remain in effect even today, make a mockery of the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution. They have decimated the population of African American men, dispossessed and disenfranchised them, and created a cycle of poverty, hopelessness, and violence in African American communities. The resulting consequences will take years, perhaps decades to correct.

To be clear on the issue, I am not by any means suggesting that criminal offenders should not be punished. However, determining punishments for crimes (by legislative bodies) and administering those punishments (by law enforcement) must be fair and must apply to all citizens and inhabitants, equally and without prejudice. Even Rush Limbaugh agrees. As he declared in 1995, "Too many whites are getting away with drug use." The "answer" he said, "is to . . . find the ones getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river." And Rush has the ear of twenty million "Ditto heads," perhaps voting Americans that also agree and who could effectively do something about it if they want to.

According to the Olympia Spokesman-Review, "Experts say that drug policies explain the racial disparities" in prison population. The Spokesman-Review said, "In Washington prisons alone, 22 percent of inmates were convicted of drug crimes. Law enforcement usually targets urban, black neighborhoods for drug busts—despite equal amounts of drug use across racial lines." The paper quoted Hubert Locke, Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, as saying, "Police officers make arrests where they're easiest. That's usually in the low-income neighborhoods in inner-city communities."

In a study by Harvard School of Government of three thousand drug arrests, it was shown that, though Blacks constitute only 6 to 7 percent of drug users in King County, they account for 57 percent of adult drug arrests. This situation is not unique to Washington; it exists in most states in the union, perhaps in even greater magnitudes. A recent public-education campaign advertisement (supported by data from various studies, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Census Bureau) indicated that Whites are more likely to use cocaine or other drugs than African Americans, but African Americans are more likely than Whites to go to prison when charged with drug offense.

Racial profiling by law enforcement is the discriminatory practice of treating certain ethnic groups (particularly African Americans and Hispanic Americans) as potential or possible criminals solely on the basis of their race or ethnic background. This unconscionable and illegal practice dates at least as far back as the days of segregation and has become an unofficial and tacit standard procedure in law enforcement institutions all over the United States, even today. This practice has its roots in the era of segregation, when the lynching of African Americans was commonplace and African Americans were summarily executed for the supposed (and frequently fabricated) crimes of others—because "they all look alike."

Public Agenda Online/Gallup Organization, in a survey done in March of 1999, asked Americans, "Do you think there is any police brutality in your area or not?" Sixty-six percent of African American respondents said yes, while thirty-five percent of Whites said no. The study also asked, "Have you ever felt that you were stopped by police just because of your race or ethnic background?" Forty-two percent of African American respondent said yes, while only six percent of White respondents said yes.

In another survey, conducted by Gallup Organization in February of 1997 (and cited by the Public Opinion Online), Americans were asked, "Who do think is treated more harshly in this country's criminal justice system: blacks, whites, or are they treated the same?" Seventy-two percent of respondents (black and white) said Blacks are treated more harshly, while 45 percent of respondents (black and white) said Whites are treated more harshly.

Another study, also cited by the Public Opinion Online, done in April of 1997, asked Americans, "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: The police are more likely to harass and discriminate against blacks than whites?" Seventy-eight percent of African American respondents agree, 56 percent of white respondents agree, and 83 percent of Hispanic respondents agree. If public opinion is anything to go by, and it is indeed, then the verdict (the preceding statistics) is clear and supportive of the fact that racism is endemic (and is perpetuated) in law enforcement. Numerous incidents exist to support the preceding public opinion on the Issue.

All over the country, case after case and scandal after scandal clearly show the rampant abuse of people of particular ethnic background (Blacks and Hispanics) by law enforcement officers. According to Reuters News (4/29/1998), "On March 3, 1991, an amateur cameraman captured white Los Angeles police officers on videotape raining kicks and baton blows on Rodney King after he led them on a high-speed chase." Reuters said, "A year later, more than 50 people died, more than 2,000 people were injured and 9,500 arrested in rioting, looting, and arson that cost over $1 billion from April 29 to May l, after a jury acquitted four officers in the beating. Two were subsequently jailed on federal charges of violating King's civil rights."

On June l, 1996, a white New York police officer was arrested for beating Shane Daniels, a twenty-one-year-old black man, into a coma for accompanying a white woman. Bystanders said the off-duty police officer shouted racial epithets at the black man and attacked him with the Club (an automobile anti-theft device made of solid steel), hitting him on the head and knocking him unconscious, while on the ground, the white police officer hit the victim on the head at least five times.

On August 14, 1997, some New York police officers, sexually brutalized Abner Luima with a toilet plunger while he was being held in custody. In a story by CNN News, Mr. Luima's lawyer said Luima was assaulted and arrested outside a Brooklyn dance club during a confrontation with the police. He was then taken to the 70th Precinct station house, where the officers pulled down his pants, led him to the bathroom, and sodomized him with a toilet plunger, then jammed the handle in his mouth.

In February of 1999, four New York police officers were accused of murder in connection with the slaying of Amadou Diallo, 22, a West African immigrant from Guinea. CNN, on September 29, 1999, reported, "the officers fired 41 bullets at Diallo, hitting him 19 times, in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building. He died at the scene."

In Cincinnati, Ohio, the killing of an unarmed black man by police sparked protests by thousands of people and led to riot and civil unrest in 2002. According to ABC News, on April 10, 2001, "Timothy Thomas, 19, was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest in an alleyway Saturday night after, police say, an officer had chased him for several blocks. Thomas is the fifteenth African American male killed by Cincinnati police since 1995, the fourth since November. The FBI today began investigating whether there were any civil rights violations in Thomas' death."

According to the Washington Post, in July of 1999, about 12 percent of the entire population of African Americans in Tulia, Texas, was arrested in supposed drug sweeps carried out by a racist police officer. On April 2, 2003, prosecutors in Texas dismissed the convictions of thirty-eight of those people, who were framed by the racist police officer and convicted by an equally prejudiced jury. In dismissing the convictions, which carried sentences of ninety years or more for some defendants, the state's special prosecutor admitted that the convictions represented a travesty of justice.

In Chicago (Illinois), Highland Park (Illinois), Mount Prospect (Illinois), Sonora (Texas), Houston (Texas), Tulia (Texas), Benton Harbor (Michigan), New Jersey, Florida, Washington, Los Angeles, New York, Mississippi, and indeed all over the country, there have been scores of cases of racial profiling, prejudice, and brutality by law enforcement officers against Blacks and Hispanics.

America cannot afford to ignore this problem indefinitely or pretend that racial profiling and discrimination in the media, legislative institutions, judicial system, academic institutions, and, consequently, the society in general is "a thing of the past". Neither can she continue to pretend that racial prejudice, discrimination, and brutality by law enforcement officers are isolated incidents. "Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today," said Abraham Lincoln. America must act now to end these injustices or reap the harvest of the "whirlwind" that results from the systematic and prolonged oppression and mistreatment of others.

On his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan poses a poetically prophetic parable of an unjust condition. The shameful condition of racism in America could be illustrated by Dylan's rendering. He asks, "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? How many seas must the white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand...? Yes, and how many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free...? Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea? Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see...? Yes, and how many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry? Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind."

History should teach us that problems in human relations do not resolve themselves. Humans, through sincere and concerted efforts, resolve them sadly often belatedly, and at a very high price. Ayaan Hirsi, a Somali-born Dutch MP, articulated it this way: "Social problems have a nasty tendency to only escalate if avoided. Racism can be combated by addressing social ills directly before they become too big for anyone to ignore."

Racism drives people to develop and maintain strong in-group consciousness and loyalty that often surpass national loyalty. It fosters corruption, nepotism, disunity, and undermines true democracy. This is the biggest threat to democracy in America, and, if allowed to continue, decade after decade, it will eventually lead to a situation much like what is prevalent in those countries of the world where democracy is marred by ethnic rivalry, hatred, violence, and destruction. This may not seem plausible now because of the extraordinary prosperity of the country, her relatively young age and the reins of the Constitution, all of which have provided a lot of wiggle room and resilience for people's tolerance boundaries. The situation would likely be very different should the threshold of the elasticity of the country's capacity to accommodate all these negative racial dynamics reach its limit.

Already, some demographic forecasts predict that racial minorities will be the numeric majority by the middle of the century and white Americans will be in the minority by the turn of the current century. In a situation where race is not a determinant factor, this would not matter (or become a matter for concern), since majority rule, power, and privilege would be predicated on common objective interests, ideals, and merit rather than on race. But in a situation where race is a factor, these predictions hold an ominous outcome.

It is in light of this potential shift in power and influence (and the potential resultant loss of privilege) by white Americans that some observers are concerned that many white Americans will then embrace the racist movements. The violent consequence of this would be of a catastrophic proportion that will rival, and perhaps surpass, the tragic ethnic conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Congo, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone, that left millions dead and those nations in ruins.

This dynamic may very well be the fuse that would ignite the explosion that will set America ablaze. Already, the fuse is growing increasingly shorter, literally by the day, exacerbated by politicians exploiting the issue. On one side, you have politicians striving to convince voters that affirmative action, minorities, and immigrants are to blame for the economic situation and failed expectation that has produced so many millions of "angry white men.'

This is responsible for the increasing disrespect and hatred for the federal government, which is now seen as the enemy responsible for the decline in the quality of life and status of white men. Ironically, those on whose account the federal government has been accused and hated by the "angry white men" also blame the federal government as largely responsible for their plight. In consequence, the government has become the enemy to both groups, to the extent that it is no longer a secret that some are just waiting for the right circumstance to overthrow the federal government.

Fanning the flame of discord are the likes of William Pierce, the ideological leader of racist groups all over America, whose book The Turner Diaries has become the most powerful resource, next to Hitler's Mein Kampf, to all white supremacist and racist groups. All through the book, Pierce incessantly calls for bloodshed, mayhem, death, and destruction, and his followers are growing impatient, and increasingly getting ready to heed that call.

It is not a secret, that many of the more than eight hundred militia and hate groups in America, including the more infamous and well known ones, such as the Aryan Nation, the Ku Klux Klan, and the skinheads, are amassing weapons of war (guns, explosives, and even tanks)—arming themselves to the teeth, for what they perceive as their "Armageddon" "the coming race war in America".

Carl Rowan, in his book The Coming Race War in America, wrote, "The leaders of Rome, Greece, the Third Reich, the British Empire, never saw the onset of decadence and internal rot in time; we can, and must, if the United States is not to succumb to its internal hatreds and moral excesses, to be consumed by its own self-destruction."

Rowan went on to say, "Look at what the Greeks and Romans have written that they saw too late—and what we see now, everywhere in this nation: racial and religious bigotry, blind nationalism, and myriad other injustices tolerated by our philosophers, politicians, Presidents, the 'wise men' allowing this, the greatest of societies, to be consumed in hatred."

America has been spared serious racial (or ethnic) conflicts in the magnitude of what the world witnessed in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Congo, Sierra Leone, Macedonia, and Iraq, because it is still in an expansion stage. What will happen when America attains the age of some of those other cultures, say two thousand years or one thousand years, or even, five hundred years, and can no longer grow fast enough to absorb and dilute these racial problems? America faces the danger of a compromised democratic system, very different from what the founders intended and far from what is held as self-evident by the spirit of the Constitution.

All through history, ideas have been the only means by which people have been united, for good and for evil. America is a living proof of that. Ideas have been and still are what people have believed in, fought for, and died for. Ideas will always be what people believe in and are willing to die for, because they are bigger than any individual person and they outlive any individual person.

Democracy is an idea, and to that extent America is an idea. Its legitimacy must live and perpetuate in the heart of every citizen for it to survive. After all, what is an idea without people to believe in it? As many people all over the world know, freedom is meaningless without the means to exercise it. Perhaps the most important attribute of this great country is the freedom she ensures for her inhabitants. Equally important is the availability of ways and means by which that freedom is exercised. After all, since freedom is a combination of symbolism and substance, it would not mean much if there were no means or ways to exercise it (that is, if no substance is attached to the symbol).

Freedom, and the means and ways to exercise it, must not be taken for granted or abused. It must present equal benefits to all. To use one's freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Constitution, or one's position of influence or authority as guaranteed by the institutions to promote racism could only undermine this country and hurt everyone. Such activities may have been ignored or contained so far, simply because there is still relatively enough (wiggle room, etc.) for everyone, in spite of the serious racial problems they present. The situation would be different if people with strong in-group consciousness or loyalty reach a desperate point-of-no-return and have attained a critical mass.

It is not difficult to imagine America with a population structure in the ratio of 40 percent, 30 percent, 25 percent, and 5 percent among the so-called races or ethnic groups (whites, Hispanics, blacks, etc.). In an atmosphere of lack of opportunity and no access to justice, disillusionment, frustration, and hopelessness caused by racial prejudice and discrimination, in which people have come to believe that there is nothing to live for, America may find herself in a situation of frequent racial tension and clashes, as seen in some part of Europe, the Middle East, and most of Africa. Imagine a situation, a hundred years from now, where various groups of ethnically conscious Americans, perhaps in the range of 200 million of the so-called "Euro-Americans", 150 million Hispanic-Americans, 125 million African-Americans, and 25 million and so on, of any of the other hyphenated Americans are not getting along . . . As I said, I will leave that to your imagination.

Racially unequal access to freedom and the means to exercise freedom increases the affinity or tendency of the disadvantaged groups to feel shut out and to gravitate toward an alternative ideology, which by its very essence undermines the nation's well-being. This tendency is often rooted in dispossession, disenfranchisement, and frustration. It also reinforces ill-conceived notions, perception, and ethnic sentiments toward other groups. It exposes those groups to exploitation and sets them on a collision course with other groups and with legitimate civil authorities. Under such circumstances, the situation could easily get out of hand and degenerate into a crisis, which would undoubtedly undermine the wellbeing of the nation.

Freedom and power need to be hitched to discipline and responsibility. Freedom needs to be given objective content and positive values. Power needs to be exercised wisely and justly. The freedom guaranteed by the Constitution for all citizens and the power vested in institutions (civil authorities), and people that exercise those authorities, must not be exploited and used to advance policies that oppress others or that entail imminent mutually assured self-destruction.

Racism in America is a very difficult (and seemingly intractable) problem, particularly because there is a fundamental disconnection between the two main constituencies in the matter. On the one hand are those (predominantly Blacks) who suffered racism, and on the other hand are those (Whites) who did not (and, perhaps, who also inflicted it on the former group). The problem with this situation is that there is a tendency for those who have not experienced racism to minimize it, by claiming that those who suffered it (and perhaps still do) exaggerate its scope and impact. This in turn leads the former group to view the latter group as hypersensitive on the subject. This perception infuriates the latter group, which, therefore, views the former as grossly insensitive to their sufferings. The different feelings provoked by the issue can be summed up by a phrase we have all heard before: "Who feels it, knows it." The flip side of this phrase (or what it underscores) is that, "who feels not knows it not."

Perhaps, some white people minimize the issue of racism out of ignorance... simply because they do not know what it feels like, after all, they have never suffered it, while others do so out of malice. Equally probable is the notion that some black people tend to exaggerate racism, as if they see it in every circumstance and in every white person (a self-fulfilling prophecy, of sorts), while others indeed experience racism frequently in their lives, which causes them to see it the way they do (all around them).

Nevertheless, if America is to overcome this "mother of all problems," Americans must "get unstuck" from the state of disconnect that exist between the two main constituencies (black and white) and move forward. To do so, those who suffered (and still suffer) racism must help (work to inspire) those who did not, to understand the damages and ravages that racism causes. They must do so, not with the motive to inspire guilt or to blackmail them, but to help them truly understand the effects of racism. On the other hand, those who have never suffered racism (and perhaps perpetrated it) must be willing to listen, see, and experience racism (and its effects) from the eyes of those who have suffered it. They must do so genuinely, not condescendingly or superficially. This would establish a new consciousness upon which partnership toward reconciliation could be built. The reconciliation must not be superficial. It must be sincere and must come from genuine personal conviction.

This partnership is a necessary harbinger of any effort that would ultimately eradicate racism and heal the land. The two groups (Blacks and Whites) mostly affected by racism must understand that the process is, perhaps, much like giving condolences to a person who has lost a loved one. It is very difficult, perhaps, impossible to know exactly how they feel, and it is equally difficult to say or do anything that precisely articulates what they feel or that removes the pain they feel. Unless you have been in exactly same situation and possess exactly the same predisposition, you cannot fully appreciate their plight. Even at that, it is still impossible to undo what has been done, which would be like bringing the dead back to life or rolling back time (nothing short of a miracle). As I always say, "Loss of innocence is very painful." The thought of what might have been is always difficult to bear. The innocence of a truly mutual respect on both sides has been lost, but out of the ruins of a broken-down relationship, the treasures of lessons learned, wisdom gained, respect, acceptance, fairness, and ultimately a stronger relationship is possible.

Both sides must recognize that the dynamics of the experience of racism is, perhaps, like a gunshot wound: the slugs may be out and the wound may heal, but a scar often remains . . . sadly, as a painful reminder of the experience and sometimes rousing painful emotions. In the effort to reconcile ourselves, we must employ the resources of the head and the heart, through thoughtful actions and through the Christian virtues of repentance and forgiveness, or the so-called "technology of self." A presumption of guilt tends to make people defensive and defiant, and a patronizing attitude toward others tends to make them feel humiliated and offended. Therefore, both must be avoided, in order to establish a genuine environment for positive change. Abraham Lincoln said, "When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a 'drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall."

Racism creates division, destroys the nation's unity, and weakens her strength. It is like some of the occupants of a ship punching holes in the bow, while the rest of the occupants keep bailing water out of the ship to keep it afloat. The vessel will inevitably sink with everyone in it unless the damage is repaired and the people responsible are prevented from punching more holes. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "A small leak will sink a ship." America is the ship in which we all journey; we must not allow racism to sink her.

EXCESSIVE GROUP ALLEGIANCE

George Washington, in his farewell address in 1797, urged his Countrymen to foreswear excessive party spirit and geographic distinctions. The tendency for excessive party allegiance has been part of American politics since the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. However, it is increasingly becoming a trend, which threatens the legitimacy of American democracy and to undermine the security and stability of the country.

A case in point was in 1995, when the Republican-controlled 104th Congress (under the "Contract with America") arguably shut down the government by sending to then President Bill Clinton, a budget proposal they knew was a proverbial "potion" he was not going to drink. As was expected, Clinton vetoed it just as he had said he would. Many observers believe that the Republicans' judgment and objectivity were impaired by their blinding hatred for Bill Clinton. Some say that their hatred had turned into an obsession, and in their efforts to undermine a popular Democrat and President they overreached and caused the country great harm.

The standoff that ensued raised the trend of excessive party loyalty and antagonism to an unprecedented level and created a deep division between the two major political parties, and indeed, between citizens, much of which still remains even today. It caused uproar among the public and created a backlash that haunted the leadership of the 104th Congress and arguably cost the Republican Party the midterm election in 1996. Consequently, they blamed their leader and the architect of the "Contract with America" (Newt Gingrich) who subsequently (perhaps consequently) resigned from his leadership post and later left the House altogether.

On May 14, 2003, the Texas Congressional Democrats, blaming the U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for the drive to redraw the state's congressional districts, fled to Oklahoma to stymie a redistricting bill. By preventing debate and preliminary votes on the bill before the deadline, after which it would require a favorable vote by two-thirds of the House to get the legislation to the floor for a vote —a much more difficult hurdle, the Democrats hoped to prevent the Republicans from gaining additional seats, which would give the Republicans control of the House.

The Democrats, arguing that they are not required by the Constitution to redraw district lines, particularly in a non-redistricting year, essentially placed themselves and their state in an ironically similar situation as the U.S. Congressional Republicans in 1995. According to the Associated Press (AP), "Missing the deadline would stymie several major bills, including a budget-balancing government reorganization proposal." The AP said further, "When the Democrats didn't show up on Monday, House Speaker Tom Craddick ordered Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to find the missing lawmakers, arrest them, and bring them back." This may seem comical, but it was no joke, and it involved serious matters that threatened the legitimacy and viability of a fundamental democratic institution and democratic process.

Two months later, on July 18, 2003, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Republican Jim McCrery from Louisiana, called for the introduction of the $50 billion pension bill and for a vote on it by the committee. The Congressional Democrats called for the bill to be read before voting on it; when the Chairman refused, the Democrats walked out in protest and into the committee library. They argued that the ninety-page bill, which was only made available to them after midnight of the same day, was too important to be voted on without reviewing the document for better understanding and to adequately debate its merits.

The Democrats said the chairman then called the Capitol police to evict them from the library, but the Republicans said that the police were called for a different incident; one involving another House Democrat (a seventy-six-year-old representative) from California who they say was out of order and threatened bodily harm to a colleague. On and on, the acrimony festers. The whole incident may very well have been a misunderstanding; nevertheless, it underscores the deep division, animosity, and distrust that exist between the major political parties, and how these problems undermine the ability of political leaders to work together for the good of the nation. This inability to work together and the growing animosity between extreme party loyalists in Congress threaten to weaken the institution and the democratic process that the founders envisioned.

All over the country, the frequency of public initiatives and legislative actions is threatening to make many states ungovernable. These ballot initiatives and legislative actions are largely inspired by partisan politics. The state of California has scheduled a special election in a bid to recall the governor of California. This particular recall effort differs from the previous thirty-one attempts to recall California governors over the years for the very troubling reasons that one individual with a lot of money and a high desire to replace the governor bankrolled it.

Extreme partisan politics has also played a large part in the recall. The New York Times on July 24, 2003 wrote, "Leon Panetta, a former member of Congress from Monterey and former budget director and White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, said that the recall is a case of direct democracy run amok." According to the Times, the former Congressman also said, "The initiative process more and more became a substitute for governance in Sacramento, and it ultimately produced this recall. The result is ultimate chaos.'

Over and over, issue after issue, the major political parties have taken positions that appear to benefit their respective parties and not the nation. It has become a tradition among the politicians to maintain party loyalty (interests) that overrides national interests. It seems that all that matters is getting party members reelected, winning more seats, and taking or maintaining control of power. It would appear that as soon as members are elected, the issues they campaigned on are "buried"—forgotten but only to be exhumed and revived at the next election campaign. While in office, the first, the last, and the only thing that preoccupies their minds is reelection. The primary goal is no longer what they can accomplish for the nation (the people), but how long they can stay in power. Once in the corridor of power, they suddenly lose touch with the common citizen and become puffed up and self-important.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "I have been nourished by reflecting on liberty, but I thrust it aside when it obstructed my path." That statement could have been made by many of today's politicians (or their parties). They have all been nourished by liberty and the ideals of it, but as soon as they get elected, they lose the inhibitions that underlie liberty, in pursuit of their own ambitions. Suddenly, they become arrogant and uncaring, even in matters with serious implications to the lives and well-being of Americans. Abraham Lincoln once said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." You see the essence of this prophetic statement almost daily in utterances by politicians. A most recent example is the issue of who should be included or excluded in President George W. Bush's economic stimulus tax cut.

The virtue of standing up for what is right, regardless of whose idea it is or whom it may benefit, has been sacrificed at the altar of partisan politics and strife. The dichotomy that now exists has all but eliminated the noble act of giving support and respect (when they are deserved) to those who are in need or on the other side of the divide, whether it is economic, political, or social.

The two major parties appear to be getting more belligerent and are always at odds with each other, and very little is actually getting done. Debates are now more acrimonious, and issues are being neglected amidst unrestrained zeal to have the party's way. It seems the politicians in their allegiance to their political parties only know how to disagree or seek to disagree rather than agree. They are no longer interested in seeking common grounds on which to operate for the good of the nation and all her inhabitants. They have become like two farmers contending for a piece of land: one farmer plants his crops, and the other uproots them and then plants his own crops in their place, which the former uproots and then replants his own crops, which the latter in turn uproots and then replants his own crops again. On and on, the cycle repeats itself, and in the end both farmers accomplish nothing, because they have no crops to harvest, needless to say, that neither of them can provide for his family by the wasted efforts he has made.

The whole exercise is increasingly tending toward the ridiculous and foolish state of perpetual mutual disagreement. In that, when either party takes a position or holds a certain view, invariably the other must take an opposing position or view, even when it knows clearly that the position it holds is wrong (or less beneficial) and the other party's position is right (more beneficial). It is analogous to a situation in which if one of the two parties say that a certain object is black, then by inclination rather than reason, the other party would say that it is not, or that it is white. It appears that the only way that both parties know to remain relevant, is by antagonizing each other at the expense of the people they are supposed to represent. I fear that the partisan politics between the Republicans and the Democrats is accelerating toward a point of no return.

By point of no return, I mean when a relationship is no longer driven or sustained by the purity of objective reasoning, mutual peace, common mutual decency, and fairness, but has become driven by malice and the desire to outdo each other in the vicious cycle of strife and vendetta. In such a circumstance, a relationship is redefined to exclude the true essence of fairness, peace, and goodwill toward each other. What this leads to is perpetual mutual animosity and hostility toward each other. Examples of point of no return are the relationships between Jews and Arabs (both descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Ishmael, respectively), and the Shiites and Sunnis (both Muslims) whose relationships are no longer based on the purity of brotherhood but have become redefined to the point that they have become mortal enemies.

Election campaigns have become a game for the "richest" and the "meanest," and the American people seem to have become overwhelmed by the scorched earth, "shock and awe" media campaigns to destroy and bury political opponents. Tragically, and all the more so, the American people have become overwhelmed and taken by whoever spoke loudest and longest, or by whoever throws the most mud . . . regardless of whether his or her message is relevant or not. The exercise has practically become a spectacle. In the award-wining film Gladiator, a Roman senator, decrying the people's inability to transcend the diversion of spectacles, referred to Rome as a mob. My prayer and earnest hope are that Americans never meet the same ill fate.

Too much time, energy, money, and intellect are being wastefully spent on seeking for ways to undermine each other. Their mission has gone through a rapid metamorphosis, first by turning into an ambition, then an obsession to control the three branches of government. It would seem to the public that the two major political parties have forgotten their responsibility to the nation. In fact, many people now believe that the politicians are out of touch with the public. This sentiment was clearly expressed by people all over the country in the recent NPR series titled "Whose Democracy is It Anyway".

The two major political parties have become like two parents engaged in a fistfight for the sake of their children at their children's soccer game. While they were at it, they had completely forgotten their children, who had both left the game in disgust, arms over each other's shoulder in friendship and heading to the nearest ice cream parlor. More and more people on the "left" and "right" are becoming fed up with the major political parties (and their politicians) and are becoming apathetic to the democratic process. Some are resorting to ballot initiatives as an alternative to what they are increasingly regarding as leadership failure on the part of elected officials and career politicians. This trend cannot be good for America.

These political parties and their leading politicians appear to have the same kind of arguments and justifications for the corroding state of the democratic process as Hollywood does for excessive violence and sex on television and in movies. They claim they are just representing and presenting the views of their constituencies, when in most cases they are the ones saturating their constituencies with views designed to arouse fear, sentimentality, and other negative emotions for the cardinal purpose of establishing themselves as the ones most concerned about the issues and most qualified to deal with those issues.

The lake of strife at the Hill is overflowing its banks. It is rapidly turning into a river of bitter water and flowing down the hill to the prairies, threatening to overwhelm the land with the polluted mentality of "them against us," an attitude that could only divide this great nation and jeopardize the true ideals of America, those borne by the democratic system envisioned by the founders.

Many citizens now believe that the major political parties are too focused on their parties and have neglected the interests of the nation and the people they represent. There appears to be a parallel between the way the two major political parties (and their leading politicians) are using each other and their constituencies for political gains, and the way politicians in African countries have used tribalism for political gains. Whenever someone from one side of the aisle of Congress makes legitimate demands or raises legitimate issues, the other side of the aisle quickly attacks the demands or issues and the one putting them forward, dismissing the demands or issues as political grab bag or grandiose. This behavior preys on the sentiments of the public, creates diversion, and effectively sidetracks the issues. In these circumstances, the public always loses.

There is also the problem of the politics of pandering, rife with inflammatory rhetoric for or against certain groups. This practice is very patronizing and victimizing at the same time. It takes advantage of people on the basis of their disadvantages and sentiments. This type of politics motivates people for the wrong reasons and drives them to develop strong in-group loyalties, which undermines democracy and the unity of the nation.

Muqtedar Khan, in his article published in the New York Times (on September 7, 2003), wrote, "Muslim leaders, once a frustrated and marginal group, found themselves being courted by politicians and foreign governments seeking their support and influence. Indeed, many Muslims believe it was their votes that made a difference in Florida, making them primarily responsible for placing President Bush in the White House." The danger in this mindset is that the so-called "Muslim Americans" believed they were courted for their vote specifically as Muslims, not primarily as Americans. The same thing is happening with African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, etc. Khan went on to write, "At the time, the word that best summed up the Muslim sense of self was 'fateh' a conqueror. Many religious and community leaders were convinced that Islam would manifest itself in its truest form in this country. Some even proclaimed that one day America would be an Islamic state." This sentiment underscores the dangers of the politics of pandering and excessive group allegiance. It seems to say that the motive and ultimate goal of Muslim leaders in this country is to turn her into an Islamic state. This would also indicate that their participation in the American democratic process is not for the true democratic ideals embodied by the spirit of the Constitution, but as a means to achieve the agenda of making America an Islamic state.

The essence of democracy is the freedom of citizens to participate in their own governance through their votes and through public sentiments. This is the core of the American Constitution. By nature, the underlying current of the democratic process is people. As the saying goes, "majority carries the vote." This makes democracy a "game of numbers." However, this carries with it a certain risk, and that risk is increasingly becoming apparent and exploited. It is very common these days to hear ethnic and interest groups drop census data here and there, now and then, intended to make political statements or to get the attention of politicians, and even as statements intended to convey threats or coercion to politicians (who would do anything to get reelected).

There is nothing intrinsically wrong in giving population statistics as a statement of fact, even as a show of strength (or otherwise). However, when it is done to intimidate or blackmail politicians, it essentially hijacks or takes hostage the democratic process and creates an incendiary effect that causes polarization between the different groups that exist partly as a result of the practice. Ultimately, the democratic process and institutions become corrupted, and the security of America becomes compromised.

Since unprincipled politicians often reward this behavior, it indeed encourages division among ethnic, religious, and interest groups. This in turn heightens in-group loyalty, diminishes individual rights, and exalts collective rights. These groups recognize the effect on the politicians of the power and influence they can wield when used in this manner. Nevertheless, the practice erodes the ideal of meritocracy and egalitarianism held in democracy; it is parallel to tribalism and fosters nepotism and other forms of discrimination. It sometimes creates unholy alliances, which ultimately cannot be good for America.

Between 1994 and 1996—during the era of the so-called "Contract with America", in the Republican-controlled 104th Congress, there was so much ethnic and immigrant bashing that the essence of the country was almost unrecognizable in the debate. This reinforced the perception held by many minorities, at a time when there was very little or no representation of the minority ethnic groups in the Republican Party. The perception was that the Republican Party was an exclusive party for the old racist South and extremist white American men, who had been deceived by unscrupulous politicians and induced to blame certain ethnic groups and immigrants for all their troubles and unrealized expectations.

It was common to hear those politicians on their campaign trails say to the people, "If you are wondering what happened to the American dream, the answer is the immigrants who have come and taken your jobs and benefits," or "it is the big government." This heightened the politics of numbers and drove many to the fringe rather than the center. Instead of seeking solutions and redress as individuals on the basis of individual rights and the legal system, frightened people were pressured into embracing collective rights of the groups to which they were fearfully drawn.

The politics of pandering was responsible for the unprecedented rise in militia activity; hate crimes, and anti-government sentiments that gripped the nation during that period. It is believed that the rise in hate crimes against members of particular ethnic groups, the fire that consumed the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993 and killed eighty-two members of the Branch Davidian religion including children, and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 by militia member Timothy James McVeigh, which killed 168 people including nineteen children, were the direct result of the fear and hate generated by the divisive politics that gripped and almost paralyzed the country at that time.

Lately another form of pandering is emerging particularly in the confirmation hearings of judicial nominees. A few months ago, in the face of what some observers say is a baseless opposition by the Democrats to the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a Republican congressman charged that the Democrats were against the nomination because the nominee is Hispanic. A few months later, history repeated itself in the confirmation hearing of William Pryor, for a position on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; the Democrats once again appeared to oppose the confirmation of the nominee for no objective reason. In response to this opposition, it was again implied by the Republicans that the Democrats opposed the nomination because the nominee is Catholic.

It would seem that to receive confirmation for a judicial nomination or any nomination for that matter, a nominee must either have no personal moral convictions or possess personal convictions that are in conformity with the dictates of the opposing party. Recently (and just a few days before Thanksgiving), a senator and Democrat, in reference to one such nomination, which was blocked by way of a filibuster, said, "The President can release the turkeys to pasture. The President can release all his rightwing turkeys to pasture, because we are not going to confirm them." It is clear from such a statement, that the issue is the so-called "right wing" personal conviction of the nominee… not his qualification or ability to do the job.

What has happened to individual liberty? Isn't that, what America is all about? Shouldn't confirmation of a nominee be based on the competence and deeds of the nominee and the fairness of members of Congress? Doesn't qualifying or disqualifying a nominee on the basis of his or her personal convictions imply profiling and discrimination? Isn't that contrary to the American ideals? Both parties are equally guilty of this injustice. The Republicans did it during the Clinton administration, and the Democrats are doing it in the George W. Bush administration. This is a dangerous practice, which risks creating a vicious cycle that will inevitably degenerate into a highly polarized and uncompromising Congress. Such a Congress will be highly unproductive and become a weak link in the triple cord that binds the United States government.

Recently, two prominent Americans and distinguished elder statesmen—former United States Senate President and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Bob Dole, and former U.S. President Gerald Ford—decried the appalling situation on Capitol Hill between the two parties. Both men lamented the absence of an understanding between the Republican and Democratic lawmakers necessary for a mature relationship under which the important work to which they are called, could be done. These two accomplished leaders urged the two political parties to learn to disagree when they must without being disagreeable. This admonition echoes Abraham Lincoln's admonition in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, regarding the issues of the time. He said, "We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." Politicians must be prudent and would do well to heed these admonitions, or risk serious damage to the unity and wellbeing of America.

Election campaigns are increasingly becoming an exercise for the richest and the meanest. It is almost completely devoid of common human decency. It has become an arena for political Gladiators. The more blood they can draw, the more successful they will become. Too many good and decent people with honest intentions and plenty of good service to offer this country are turning away from politics, because of the money and the hurt involved in the campaign process, which is now basically a smear fest for people with a lot of money and little conscience.

Political campaigns are no longer about issues, ideas, and determining who is most able to lead the nation. Now it is all about power, secured with lots of money and a lot of character assassination. The single most important factor in American democracy is no longer the people; it is now money— lots of it. The whole democratic process is in danger of being completely hijacked by money and those who control it. It appears that votes are now being bought indirectly through massive "shock and awe" advertisement campaigns. The goal of every politician is to raise the most amount of money to overwhelm opponents and to bury the issues through scorched-earth media campaigns of diversion. This threatens the legitimacy of the American democracy. The prevalent democratic process is no longer what Benjamin Franklin and the other founders envisioned. It is no longer one of noble ideals; rather, it is now for unrestrained ambitions. George Washington warned that, democracy shall long endure, until people choose to exploit it for selfish personal gains. I am afraid that his premonition may come about.

Winning may be the only thing in a game (in America) and may be more so in the game of football (according to Vince Lombardi), but for the sake of a viable and legitimate democracy, it should not be. Anyone who has been around long enough knows that life is not a game and neither should the things that define life, such as democracy, which is the essence of this country—that is, anyone who has not bought into what Hollywood, the media, and politicians for that matter, are selling.

Excessive allegiance to groups in the form of religious nationalism, romantic nationalism, and ethnic nationalism is believed to be a symptom, at least in part, borne out of the frustration felt by people of particular groups, who have the perception that they have been excluded and marginalized in the democratic process, and equally by those who, on the other hand, believe that their position of privilege or perceived supremacy is threatened or jeopardized.

The former group is made up of people, who believe that the American dream is no longer attainable by them or their children. They no longer have comfort in the ideals of America—freedom and prosperity (i.e., pursuit of happiness), because they believe they have been denied those ideals. For all practical purposes, they now consider those ideals to be beyond their reach. They seem to have lost faith and hope in the letter and the spirit of the constitutional Bill of Rights. The latter group, on the other hand, believes that America and the America dream are theirs and their posterity's alone. They no longer feel that their comfort (way of life) is secure, because they believe others (unlike them) threaten that comfort. This creates a hostile atmosphere to which the former group attributes its justification for in-group tendencies. Consequently, a vicious circle is created; a despondent and fatalistic attitude is born in those of the former group, and bigotry and animosity are born in the latter group.

There is yet another group that is indeed committed to imposing different ideologies on the United States of America; this is really the group, that the second group (the patriot militias) should feel nervous about and threatened by. The goal of this group is to exploit the Constitution and the culture of tolerance (civil rights) of the United States to facilitate the establishment of its own agenda, which ironically contradicts the ideals of the Constitution of the United States. So far, the Constitution has turned out to be the most effective means to advance the agenda of this group. It is indeed a clever maneuver—using America's strength against her, just like those airplanes were used to destroy the Twin Towers in New York City and to attack the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Excessive group allegiance in the form of religious nationalism, romantic nationalism, and ethnic nationalism is a mockery of one's American citizenship and an abuse of America's ideals. It is an indication that one is not a true American. It is like marrying one woman and loving another. It is impossible to love two masters, wives, or nations equally. One cannot pledge allegiance to two different ideals or countries and remain faithful to both.

I must also say that it is not wrong to recognize and support one's ethnic group or ancestral homeland when and where appropriate, but it is wrong to do so at the expense of one's country—America. To favor one's own ideological group, ethnic group, or ancestral homeland more than one's country (America) can only mean one of three things; that one is not a true American (that one does not know what it means to be a true American), or that one only seeks to exploit America.

Finally, in concluding this chapter, I must say that democracy has its share of defects; it is still a work in progress, but it is the best system of government available, at least in our time. Turning away from it for whatever reason will only increase dissatisfaction and frustration. The best way to bring about change for the better is through participation and engagement. Abraham Lincoln said in August 1863, "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed." The alternative to democracy does not lie in any of the already failed systems of the world, such as communism, fascism, socialism, tribalism, religious nationalism, romantic nationalism, ethnic nationalism, or other in-group systems.

As has been said, excessive group allegiance, whether it is to political parties, interest groups, or ethnic (tribal) groups, undermines democracy and fragments the nation. It is undesirable, and it must be eradicated for true democracy to continue to survive and flourish in America.