Pop Quiz on US History - Answers 1) - 6)
By The Editors
1) e) The united States destroyer USS Vincennes while operating in Iranian territorial waters against Iranian naval vessels and coastal installations in Operation Praying Mantis, according to Iran in support of Iraq, fired two surface to air missiles against the unarmed civilian aircraft flying a commercial route. It is acknowledged that the US tried to cover up the facts, but shipboard recorders eventually provided the entire truth. George Bush Sr., then VP to Ronald Reagan, said in a news conference, "I will never apologize for the United States of America — I don't care what the facts are."
Admiral William Fogarty's report, Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988, concludes that "The data from USS Vincennes tapes, information from USS Sides and reliable intelligence information, corroborate the fact that [Iran Air Flight 655] was on a normal commercial air flight plan profile, in the assigned airway, squawking Mode III 6760, on a continuous ascent in altitude from takeoff at Bandar Abbas to shoot-down."
On November 6, 2003 the International Court of Justice concluded that the U.S. Navy's actions in the Persian Gulf at the time had been unlawful.
2) C) In 1883, the Supreme Court via Pace vs. Alabama upheld the constitutionality of state laws forbidding marriage between races, most often black with anyone else. This decision is more in line with the original intent of the constitution, it seems, since many of the founding fathers did not consider black people fully human. It would likely be more in line with the viewpoints of the current so-called "conservative" justices to leave as a state's right. More importantly, its overturning was without doubt a case of judicial activism based on the momentum of social change in a portion of the nation, since it is noteworthy that by the time of the decision sixteen of the original thirty-one states with laws against miscegenation had made such laws unconstitutional. However, Virginia's own supreme court had ruled the law constitutional. It is interesting to note the location of the majority of the states with laws against interracial marriage, and also to consider their "blue versus red" status.
3) b) In fact, the couple who brought the case in Virginia were sentenced to a year in prison on a felony conviction.
4) d) California, 1948. Ohio got rid of its laws against miscegenation in 1887. California declared the law unconstitutional in 1948, but it remained on the books until 1959. It was not illegal in Massachusetts.
5) e) By 1967, when the US Supreme Court declared these laws unconstitutional, there remained 16 states with laws against interracial marriage. Two of them, Alabama and South Carolina, had these bans in their constitutions, and it was not until 1998 that South Carolina and 2000 that Alabama removed them. The other states were Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia (Maryland rescinded their law in 1967 prior to the court ruling). But by 1940, thirty-one of the 48 US states still had laws against interracial marriage in some form.
The couple who brought the suit against Virginia had married in 1958 in DC to escape the Virginia law. When they moved back to Virginia they were brought to trial and sentenced to a year in prison, but the sentence was suspended for 25 years when they agreed to leave the state. The trial judge Leon Bazile wrote:
"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
It seems likely that many on the current Supreme Court, particularly those whose own biased interpretations are termed "originalist," "textualist," or "strict constructionist" would have voted to leave the laws as they were. They would have likely cited
6) False, though the claim is frequently made as a part of so-called "liberal" propaganda. The so-called "conservative" counterattack is just as erroneous. In fact, slaves were counted as 3/5 human. The "conservative" argument is that this was because the northern states wanted to dilute the southern slave-holder's voting potential, but if anyone really believed in that old saw about representation and taxation, no slaves would have been counted as people. After all, would one count a tractor as a person?
No issue seems to have encouraged the standing of logic on its head as has that of the effect of slavery on black society. Many argue that there is no relationship; these arguments violate common and uncommon sense, and certainly logical thought in the light of historical reality. The two favorites are that 1) some blacks held slaves, so that it couldn't be considered racist, and 2) throughout history whites and other non-blacks were held as slaves, so that it couldn't have been racist. Both of these are irrelevant to the discussion regarding the US. The essential question is Who were the slaves in the US? Were there slaves of European descent? Evidently not, it seems. So it was a racist issue.
Whether or not they had "white blood" in them, as Gunnar Myrdal suggests in a statement that seems scientifically meaningless and immeasurable, is also irrelevant, since those born of women in slavery in the US, descendents of natives of Africa at some point, were considered negro and were legally slaves. As noted above, many states in the south had laws stating that one drop of negro blood made one a negro, another absurdity that was nonetheless reflected on birth certificates. For Myrdal to have discussed the idea of "pure negroes" was nuts.
Perhaps the arguments closest to the reality are illustrated by the despicable remark of a Canadian standing outside an Ottawa bar one evening: "You're lucky in the states. You got the niggers. We got the French Canadians." Such an attitude combines racism with some other form of hatred, since one cannot consider French Canadian a race (nor "niggers" though one can consider skin color). It is a kind of cultural prejudice extreme enough to be considered hatred. This is found in all nations, and is often the basis for military action as in Iraq where the US intends to impart our superior "White Man's Judeo-Christian Values" to those deluded Muslim heathens. Such prejudice is part of why we are not well received and highly mistrusted in the middle east. With good reason.
Thus it seems that racism may be considered a cultural issue by some; perhaps this is close to the attitude of Thomas Sowell. Sowell claims that what is often called black culture is really the poor-white-trash culture associated with crackers, the poor-white-trash imports from Britain who went south. Maybe, but it is doubtful that the empirical evidence so revered by Sowell supports such an idea. There seems to be a cultural divide between parts of the US which is used to explain certain phenomenon of a political nature, but the evidence seems largely unconvincing. To attempt to draw conclusions based on mystical pseudo-sciences such as economics, business administration, or any of the various oxymoronic sciences (i.e., political science, social science) is too pathetic to be funny.
According to Sowell, among the traits of crackers not shared by the "higher cultures" is sexual promiscuity, another funny idea when considered in the light of the writings of Gilberto Freyre on Brazilian culture or the fact that Homo sapiens are nothing more than another species of primate closely related to two species in the Pan genus.
In any case, whether or not it is cracker culture is irrelevant, since crackers were not victims of lynching because of their skin color nor subjected to random car searches as a basis of their culture. Of course, people like Sowell and Clarence Thomas seem (note the word seem since the only evidence is what is apparent from public faces and writings) ready to disavow the forms of culture they consider "lower" and embrace those they consider "enlightened." The "enlightened" culture of the US is what might be called the culture of Self-delusion, based on a firm foundation of mythology and advertising which may not be questioned, a box outside which one may not think. This delusion shows itself in unexpected ways, including a heavily funded and trained military getting its ass frequently kicked with misadventures founded on the imposed groupthink. Or in economic hysteria based on the mythos of contemporary economics and business "sciences," two ceremonial disciplines whose practitioners will one day be viewed as we view Roman soothsayers reading sheep entrails or psychics or tarot readers or astrologers (the latter actually have a significant following in parts of the culture of self-delusion, even guiding some Presidential decision making). This statement assumes Homo sapiens survives in some sort of culture with rational memory and science.
Mr. Sowell and Mr. Thomas have no need to worry. They have left their marks upon and been accepted within the culture of self-delusion, a culture no more than advertising, and have joined the privelged group about whom Thorstein Veblen wrote his classic work. But for them to deny effects due to racism or the heritage of slavery of which it is a part is akin to denying a combat veteran's PTSD because you personally do not suffer from it. Lucky for you, but irrelevant.
Finally, another daffy idea is that the Old World invented slavery and the New World ended it. That is simply not viable: Britain campaigned against it and was instrumental in ending it in many places, including Brazil, by curbing the Portuguese slave traders. This had an effect in the US as well. But that doesn't say anything about their racism, as evidenced by the verse from Punch magazine:
"That with the South we’ve stronger ties,
Which are composed of cotton.
And where would be our calico
Without the toil of niggers?"
(Quote taken from History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 by James Ford Rhodes. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917; Bartleby.com, 2001.