Muslims Played a Significant Role in U.S. History?

Reaction to Stuart Jeffries’s article “The Muslims Who Shaped America – From Brain Surgeons to Rappers.”[1]

The handful of names turned up by Stuart Jeffries is statistically insignificant. Mr. Jeffries has not managed to marshal anything close to a damning indictment of the supposed ignorance of Donald Trump regarding the issue of Muslims-in-America.

Relevantly, a quick-and-dirty search turned up the interesting information that the alleged Islamic affiliation of the Revolutionary-era persons mentioned in the Guardian's article is questionable. The Encyclopedia of Muslim-American History states that "...Bampett Muhamed; Yusuf Ben Ali, whose slave name was Joseph Benhaley; Salem Poor; and Peter Salem, whose slave name was Peter Buckminister" are listed as "four Americans who may have been Muslim".[2]

The author goes on to note: "Much of the research on Muslims in the military [in the relevant period] depends on identifying Muslim last names. This does not guarantee that the bearer was a Muslim, since some may have converted to Christianity or have had no religious beliefs."[3]

Of course, it is possible that at least one of the people named was a Muslim. In passing, however, I note that in other contexts, researchers run the risk of being labeled "anti-Semitic" for alleging that persons are adherents of Judaism merely on the basis of their possession of "Jewish-sounding names." At least part of the reason to object to such onomatological inferences might be that names alone do not entail that their possessor's subscribe to particular faith-professions. However, if this is correct, then it ought to generalize to the present cases.

Given the level of uncertainty concerning these individuals' alleged Islamic connections, it is irresponsible of the Guardian to represent these conjectures as established fact.

In any event, With the obvious exception of Cassius Clay, Jr. (alias "Muhammad Ali," who was of course born in the U.S. and only converted to Islam), the remainder of the immigrants cited by the article[4] do not seem to me to impel one to endorse the anything like a more-or-less "open door policy" for people seeking exit from Islamic countries.

It might be prudentially justifiable for the U.S. to try to encourage "brain drain" emigration in particular, carefully-chosen instances. This would demand, however, that citizenship applicants be able to demonstrate themselves to be of the caliber of the engineers and neurosurgeon spotlighted.

The idea that without the scattered persons named “the country would be a much poorer place” has hardly been established.

Notes:

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[1] Guardian [U.K.], Dec. 8, 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/08/donald-trump-famous-muslims-us-history>.

[2] Edward E. Curtis, Encyclopedia of Muslim-American History, New York: Facts on File; Infobase Publishing, 2010, p. 561; emphasis supplied; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=owZCMZpYamMC&pg=PA561>.

[3] Ibid.

[4] The “rapper”-angle is too foolish to warrant much by way of comment.

LBJ and the 'N-Word': Did He or Didn't He? (And a Few Other Matters)

“Johnson, like other presidents, would often reveal his true motivations in asides that the press never picked up. During one trip, Johnson was discussing his proposed civil rights bill with two governors. Explaining why it was so important to him, he said it was simple: ‘I’ll have them niggers voting Democratic for two hundred years.’

“‘That was the reason he was pushing the bill,’ said MacMillan, who was present during the conversation. ‘Not because he wanted equality for everyone. It was strictly a political ploy for the Democratic Party. He was phony from the word go.’”[1]

Ronald Kessler’s retelling of MacMillan’s story was rehearsed by U.S. News and World Report’s chief White House correspondent Kenneth Walsh. Walsh introduces Kessler’s anecdote with the idea that “MacMillan said Johnson also let his hypocritical side show.” Walsh then adds: “Yet historians who have studied Johnson’s life, such as [Robert] Dallek, say Johnson was genuinely committed to civil rights. Their interpretation of such behavior is that he occasionally used offensive language to shock people or to impress other politicians with his tough-mindedness.”[2]

Reacting to LBJ’s statement that “There’s [sic] more niggers voting there [in Texas] than white folk,” one poster to a “DemocraticUnderground” thread writes: “Looked that up, and that tape was transcribed in the 2002 book Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965 by presidential historian (and far more reliable source than [right-leaning news media outfit] Newsmax writer Ronald Kessler) Michael Beschloss. That clip above comes from a telephone call from the president to Georgia governor Carl Sanders on May 13, 1965, and Beschloss transcribes LBJ as using ‘nigras’ rather than the long-form slur. Beschloss explains in that call, Gov. Sanders ‘complains that the Johnson administration is pushing him too hard to desegregate Georgia schools,’ and the president ‘shows his visceral understanding of the dilemmas of a Southern racial moderate.’”[3]

Apparently missed by this writer was the fact, implied elsewhere in Beschloss’s book, that LBJ’s accent leaves some room for doubt about whether he actually used the forbidden “n”-word.

After quoting LBJ as saying “God God Almighty, yeah! You’re going to be teaching these Nigras how to vote!” there is a footnote from which reads as follows:

“Some who have heard this tape think that LBJ is saying ‘niggers.’ To the author’s ear, he says, ‘Nigras.’”[4]

By inference, this same “did I hear what I thought I heard?” reaction might well – and arguably will – accompany any utterance by LBJ of the relevant mystery word.

The MSNBC columnist Adam Serwer is more forthright. He notes: “According to Johnson biographer Robert Caro, Johnson would calibrate his pronunciations by region, using ‘nigra’ with some southern legislators and ‘negra’ with others. Discussing civil rights legislation with men like Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, who committed most of his life to defending white supremacy, he’d simply call it ‘the nigger bill’.”[5]

Serwer then bluntly confesses: “Lyndon Johnson said the word ‘nigger’ a lot. In Senate cloakrooms and staff meetings, Johnson was practically a connoisseur of the word.”[6]

Elsewhere, an opinionator writes: “The comments in ...[Reddit’s] AskHistorians [subreddit] thread confirm that the quote is consistent with Johnson’s language in that he often used the n-word. However, the quote is not consistent with the sentiments he conveyed in other private conversations.” [7]

The received view is, to borrow the title of Serwer’s article, “Lyndon Johnson Was a Civil Rights Hero, but Also a Racist.”[8]

“He truly believed in equal rights, he just lived at a time when someone could say the n-word and no one would think anything of it.”[9]

Dissenters can surely be forgiven for dismissing this flourish as a mere profession of faith – in “civil rights” or in Johnson, or both. After all, political opportunism in this area goes back at least to the Civil War.

“As the economic pressures and frustrations of war mounted, government figures and newspapers in both the North and South denounced Jewish businessmen as ‘extortionists,’ ‘counterfeiters,’ ‘blockade-runners,’ ‘gougers.’ In a particularly notorious episode of December 1862, General Ulysses Grant issued a directive, Order Number 11, for the expulsion of all Jews ‘as a class’ from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky, a zone of Union military occupation. Northern carpetbaggers had descended upon this region, and in violation of government regulations were engaging in rampant cotton speculation. Jews among the speculators doubtless were identifiable by their German accents.”[10]

Grant’s General Order No. 11 described how throngs of predominantly Jewish carpetbaggers were infiltrating the southern states in order to capitalize (in both economic and figurative senses) on the alienation of white Southerners from the political system.[11]

It is worth recalling that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.[12] In the aftermath of the Civil War, the major political losers were Southern Democrats.[13] “In 1867, following the passage of the Military Reconstruction Act and the advent of Congressional Reconstruction, the combination of black suffrage and political activity by native scalawags and northern carpet-baggers completely ousted white Democrats from political power.”[14]

It is therefore highly plausible that later Southern Democrats, like slippery politico and Texas-native Lyndon Baines Johnson, would not make the same mistakes twice.

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[1] Ronald Kessler, Inside the White House, New York: Pocket Books; Simon and Schuster, 1996, p. 33; citing interview with one Robert M. MacMillan, Mar. 28, 1993; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=lJz-yIZNE2sC&pg=PA33>. Kessler says that MacMillan “was a “steward on Air Force One,” ibid., p. 2; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=lJz-yIZNE2sC&pg=PA3>.

[2] Kenneth T. Walsh, Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes, New York: Hyperion, 2003, p. 81; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=4-4lc7rr5hMC&pg=PA81>.

[3] “alp227,” “Conservatives Smear LBJ With Questionably Sourced Racist Quote,” DemocraticUnderground, Mar. 6, 2014, <http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024619565>.

[4] Lyndon Baines Johnson, Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965, Michael R. Beschloss, ed., New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002, p. 127, n. 2.

[5] Adam Serwer, “Lyndon Johnson Was a Civil Rights Hero, but Also a Racist,” MSNBC, Apr. 11, 2014, updated Apr. 12, 2014, <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights-racism>.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Darrell Francis, “Did LBJ really say “I’ll have those n*****s voting Democrat for two-hundred years” when passing the Great Society legislation?,” Quora, Jun. 11, 2014, <http://www.quora.com/Did-LBJ-really-say-Ill-have-those-n*****s-voting-Democrat-for-two-hundred-years-when-passing-the-Great-Society-legislation>.

[8] Serwer, loc. cit.

[9] Francis, loc. cit.

[10] Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in the Modern World, New York: Knopf; Doubleday, 2007, pp. 166-167.

[11] Robert Nicholson Scott, ed., The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1880-1901, vol. 17, part 2; archived online at Ohio State Univ., 2005, <http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/sources/records/>.

[12] Arguably, the Civil War was fought over monetary issues and the question of the balance of state power versus federal power. Lincoln himself famously stated: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” Abraham Lincoln, “Letter to Horace Greeley,” Aug. 22, 1862; reproduced by Roy P. Basler, ed., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1953-59; archived online at Abraham Lincoln Online, <http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm>.

[13] The U.S. Constitution was the agreement by which the individual States created a well-defined Federal government. The Federal government's powers were specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Here was the South's argument:

(1) The Tenth Amendment makes clear that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
(2) The United States was no delegated powers with respect to the issue of slavery.
(3) Therefore, powers with respect to the issue of slavery are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

[14] Brian S. Wills, “,”Richard Zuczek, Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era: A-L, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publ., 2006, pp. 358-359.

The Ambiguity of 'Racism'

The term “racism” (and its cognates) is an unfortunate piece of Orwellian Newspeak. It conflates two or three concepts that ought to be distinguished.

Firstly, there is what, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, used to be called “racialism.” Historically, this is simply the acknowledgment that there are different races.[1]

Secondly, there is merely having an (economic) interest in one’s own race. To put it another way, we could ask any given person whether he or she cares what happens to other persons of his or her own race. If they do care, then we can say that they are interested in the thriving of their race.

Thirdly, there is what we might call “chauvinism” about one’s own (or possibly a different) race. Let’s say that this amounts to (economic) interest run amok. We’ll say that to be “chauvinistic” about one’s own race is to simply lay it down that you and your kind are “better” (period) than other people.

Notice that even if one admits chauvinist-”racism” to be “bad,” this doesn’t mean that “racialism” is unjustified or that simple (economic) interest in one’s own race is ill-advised.

The contemporary conflation of these three distinct senses invites two things.

Number one, it invites a state of affairs wherein organizations such as the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) or the clothing line FUBU (“For Us, By Us”) ought to count as “racist” because they fit senses one and two. However, these institutions are seldom – if ever – saddled with the label “racist.” Such is seemingly reserved for whites.

So, number two, given the simplistic catch-all “racist” label, non-chauvinistic whites are unable to express mere (economic) interest in their own race without being called chauvinistic-“racists.”

For consistency’s sake, either we should allow that whites can express healthy interest in their own race, or we should conclude that FUBU or UNCF are “racist” groups. Since the latter option would do violence to three genuinely differentiable concepts, it would surely be preferably to disambiguate the term “racist,” along the lines sketched above.

However, in doing so, what we discover is that whites are the only group who are not presently permitted to express (economic) interest in their own racial group.[2] “Racist” has been converted into a piece of anti-white weaponry.

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[1] Against those, like “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” who straight-facedly assert that blacks are merely whites with suntans, are those like Jared Taylor, who acknowledge “The Reality of Race.”

[2] For when are blacks labeled “racist” for sporting FUBU shirts? Or when are Jews labeled “racist” for giving money to the ADL, AIPAC or the Israeli state? Hispanics do not even seem to be subjected to the label many support a militant organization that is called “The Race” (La Raza) and is, among other things, bent on “reclaiming” the American South-West for Mexico?

'A Turnout Battle' For or Against the Multi-Cult

Rolling Stones writer Matt Taibbi has to reconfirm his liberal bona fides. His earlier efforts have grown stale.

Taibbi's anti-Catholic screed "The 52 Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death of The Pope" (New York Press, Mar. 9, 2005) has been pulled down and can now only be found in the dark recesses of Internet archives.

He cannot be expected to write a sequel to The Exile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (with Mark Ames, New York: Grove Press, 2000) now that he has (presumably) quit using H.

Ever since his criticisms of the investment firm Goldman Sachs were construed as "anti-Semitic," Taibbi might even have been facing banishment from Starbucks.

This has all of the makings of a serious crisis for a "progressive" like Taibbi.

What to do?

The most obvious starting point, for a loathsome anti-traditionalists of his ilk, is anti-white invective.

His latest establishment screed ("The Republicans Are Now Officially the Party of White Paranoia," Rolling Stone, Sept. 4, 2015) can be summarized in two sentences.

The upcoming national elections will plausibly be, as Taibbi writes, "a turnout battle between people who believe in a multicultural vision for the country, and those who don't." The remainder of his text is merely a sustained deprecation of "those who don't."

Most of his words are therefore unworthy of serious attention, let alone a response.

After all, what can be the reply to such as Taibbi when their tirades barely rate as the intellectual equivalents of schoolyard "raspberries"? The best his audience can do, perhaps, is to shield their faces from his rancid spittle.

Concerning the one sentence that he managed to type lucidly, however, I pray that it would serve as a rallying cry for those who are too cowed to speak plainly.

Unless your vision for national rejuvenation involves airplanes full of Africans, boatloads of Arab immigrants and semi-trucks full of Mexicans unloading their passengers to a HUD house near you, then I suggest that you line up on the side of "those that don't" want to follow Nimrod's doomed building plan and that you not stand by while Europe and the United States are being possessed by the spirit of the Tower of Babel.

"From one man he [i.e. God] made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands." (The Book of Acts, the Bible, chapter 17, verse 26; New International Version.)

What Did Abraham Lincoln Believe About Racial Integration?

“Negro equality, Fudge!! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogueism [sic] as this?”[1] ~ Abraham Lincoln (the "Great Emancipator")

What Did Abraham Lincoln Believe About Racial Integration?

By Tom Carlyle, Jr.

The historical answer is not “politically correct.”

“There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races …A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas …’

“[Racial separation] must be effected by colonization. …The enterprise is a difficult one, …[but] ‘where there is a will there is a way,’ and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.”[2]

In 1852 Lincoln opined:

“If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland, with bright prospects for the future, and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.”[3]

Even as late as April 15, 1865, Lincoln stated to General Benjamin Franklin Butler:

“But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes. Certainly they cannot if we don’t get rid of the negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us, to the amount, I believe, of some one hundred and fifty thousand men. I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves. …’

“Now, we shall have no use for our very large navy; what, then, are our difficulties in sending all the blacks away? If these black soldiers of ours go back to the South, I am afraid that they will be but little better off with their masters than they were before, and yet they will be free men. I fear a race war, and it will be at least a guerilla war because we have taught these men how to fight. All the arms of the South are now in the hands of their troops, and when we capture them we of course will take their arms. There are plenty of men in the North who will furnish the negroes with arms if there is any oppression of them by their late masters. …’

“I wish …’you would give me any views that you have as to how to deal with the negro troops after the was. …’[T]he question of the colored troops troubles me exceedingly.”[4]

In 2011, the British newspaper Telegraph reported:

“Abraham Lincoln wanted to ship freed black slaves away from the US to British colonies in the Caribbean even in the final months of his life, it has emerged. A new book on the celebrated US president and hero of the anti-slavery movement, who was born 202 years ago on Saturday, argues that he went on supporting the highly controversial policy of colonisation.

“It was favoured by US politicians who did not believe free black people should live among white Americans, and had been backed by prominent abolitionists like Henry Clay as far back as 1816. Mr Lincoln also favoured the idea. But he was believed to have denounced it after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed of most of America’s four million slaves, in January 1863. The notion that he came to regard it as unacceptable contributed to the legend of the 16th president, who is frequently voted America’s greatest, and is held by some to have left an impeccable record. Yet Phillip Magness and Sebastian Page, the authors of Colonisation After Emancipation, discovered documents in the National Archives in Kew and in the US that will significantly alter his legacy.

“They found an order from Mr Lincoln in June 1863 authorising a British colonial agent, John Hodge, to recruit freed slaves to be sent to colonies in what are now the countries of Guyana and Belize. ‘Hodge reported back to a British minister that Lincoln said it was his ‘honest desire’ that this emigration went ahead,’ said Mr Page, a historian at Oxford University. …’

“Mr Lincoln also considered sending freed slaves to what is now Panama, to construct a canal — decades before work began on the modern canal there in 1904. …’

“[A]s late as …’autumn [1864], a letter sent to the president by his attorney-general showed he was still actively exploring whether the policy could be implemented, Mr Page said. ‘It says ‘further to your question, yes, I think you can still pursue this policy of colonisation even though the money has been taken away’,’ he said.”[5]

Notes:

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[1] Abraham Lincoln, marginalia on fragments of his speech notes, n.d., but ca. 1859; quoted by Roy P. Basler, ed., et al., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1953-1955, vol. 3, p. 399; cf. Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2008, vol. 1, p. 543.

[2] Abraham Lincoln, speech, Springfield, Ill., Jun. 26, 1857; quoted in Basler, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 405, 408, 409; cf. Robert Morgan, “The ‘Great Emancipator’ and the Issue of Race: Abraham Lincoln’s Program of Black Resettlement,” Journal of Historical Review, vol. 13, no. 5, Sept.-Oct., 1993, pp. 4-25, online at <http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n5p-4_Morgan.html>.

[3] Abraham Lincoln, eulogy for Henry Clay, Springfield, Ill., Jul., 1852; quoted by Basler, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 132; cf. Morgan, loc. cit.

[4] Abraham Lincoln; quoted by General Benjamin Franklin Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler: Butler’s Book, Boston, Mass.: A. M. Thayer, 1892, p. 903, online at <http://books.google.com/books?id=0LIBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA903>.

[5] Jon Swaine, “Abraham Lincoln ‘Wanted to Deport Slaves’ to New Colonies,” Telegraph, Feb., 11, 2011, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8319858/Abraham-Lincoln-wanted-to-deport-slaves-to-new-colonies.html>.