Violence, the American Creed and the Ruling Class - Essay Example

History 131B Violence, the American Creed and the Ruling The United s of America as a country has historically been rooted in the ideals of democracy and individual freedom. From the moment when America’s founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they acknowledged that the country was to be established on the grounds that all men were created equal and deserving of the chance to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Through time this has become consolidated into what Swedish author Gunnar Myrdal has coined as the “American Creed” – a belief in the essential dignity of all human beings and their inalienable right to democracy, liberty and equal opportunity. This creed has become the principle behind American government policies and programs both national and international. The following essay forwards the thesis that the American Creed, either wholly or in parts, has historically been used by the elite ruling class of whites for their own gain, primarily as an ideology used to explain and excuse the use of violence to oppress other racial minorities in the process of consolidating power for their own gain. Evidence for the use of the American Creed in this manner is easily seen in several instances in American history, most notably from the end of the Civil War to the time of World War I, a period of time from the 1860s to the 1920s. The essay will take a chronological approach in the discussion while pointing out the specific use of violence with regards to preserving the power of the ruling class. The essay will use three particular instances in American history when the American Creed was used as a justification for racial violence against three separate races: the post-Civil War Reconstruction and violence against the former black slaves, the period of the Western frontier and violence against the Native Americans, and finally the excessive violence and torture used on Filipinos by American soldiers during the Filipino-American War. The essay’s first example of the misuse of the American Creed occurs after the Civil War. America entered into a period termed as the Reconstruction, during which white Southerners secured amnesty from then President Andrew Johnson and after taking an oath of allegiance were restored their political and property rights (sans slave ownership) prior to the Civil War. Many blacks who were formerly slaves had found themselves freed as a consequence of the war, and legislation headed by politicians such as Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner and Pennsylvania representative Thaddeus Stevens were making it so the blacks were granted political rights equal to whites.1 However, racial hatreds and the belief that black people were inferior to whites led to those legislations eventually being disregarded in all but name and the prevalence of discrimination, racially-motivated violence, and segregation. In a bid to seemingly uphold these laws of equality, the concept of “separate but equal” was devised, with the facilities and services for blacks being highly inferior to non-existent. To enforce this “separate but equal” rule, an oppressive system based on violent reprisals for breaking social hierarchy was informally established. It became common for blacks who had violated the established hierarchy by speaking or acting out against the whites to end up dead either through beatings or at the hands of a lynching mob.2 Indeed, lynching became a common occurrence which continued well into the middle of the 20th century. In the first example, the portion in the Creed pertaining to equality is put into play. The “separate but equal” ruling allowed the ruling whites to keep their distance from people they viewed as being lesser than them while upholding the equality referred to in the Creed. Anyone trying to bridge the separation was seen trying to break the equality, disrupting the Creed and therefore deserving of punishment and violent reprisals. Following the Reconstruction, the next instance of the use of the American Creed as an excuse for violence is during the era of the Western frontier, a period between 1860s to the 1890s. The reinterpretation of the American Creed in this instance centres on the concept of equal opportunity as defined by the concept of capitalism, an ideology that was strongly gaining ground at the time. Capitalism’s doctrine of everyone having the opportunity to succeed economically in the free market was welcomed in the frontier, where land and gold was open for the taking for whoever was brave and willing enough to work hard for it. Indeed, Patricia Limerick’s book The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West emphasized that people such as the ranchers, merchants, and lawyers had more of an impact than the cowboys often depicted in popular fiction. Limerick posited them being fuelled by greed and riches to initiate the unstable boom-bust cycle which has been carried over to the economy of today.3 The use of violence to fuel this cycle is evident in the various instances of armed suppression of the Native Americans who were the previous owners of the land. Several major battles were fought between the US Army and the various Native American tribes for the control over territory. Upon defeat, the Native Americans were sent to reservations, with the aim of “civilizing” them by making them acknowledge the supremacy of US government and assimilating them into American culture so that they may become “equal” to the white settlers, at least in the eyes of the law. The notion that the Native Americans were savages lacking in culture and understanding only violence became reflected in various media, notably in literature and film. Western-themed literature would often have various Native American tribes as the villain and many Hollywood actors became famous for their roles in Western films, like John Wayne in the film Rio Grande. In the film, Wayne plays the role of Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke, who is tasked with the position of defending the Texas frontier from Apaches4. The Apaches in the film are portrayed as violent savages needing to be destroyed for the sake of preserving the peace and freedom of the settlers. Indeed, the “protagonists” go so far as to chase the Apaches across the Mexican border into another country just to ensure that the threat is eliminated. The essay’s second example shows violence being inflicted by the ruling race of whites on a different racial minority – the Native American Indians. Equality is once again the portion of the creed being used, the difference being that it is now equality with regard to economic opportunity. The racial minority in this case is not vying for equal social status with the whites, but are obstacles in their pursuit of wealth in the Western frontier. Violence became an acceptable and preferred option to remove these obstacles and ensure that every white settler who came out West to seek their fortune was given the opportunity to do so without interference from the Indians, even though the Indians were the original owners and settlers of the land. The previous example is not the only instance showing the willingness of the ruling elite to encroach upon the sovereignty of another country in pursuit of the fulfilment of the so-called American Creed. A prime example would be the American occupation of the country of the Philippines during the beginning of the 1900s. The minority or lesser race in this case is the Filipinos. The portion of the American Creed in use for this instance was the belief in democracy and liberty. America came to the Philippines under the guise of freeing the country from Spanish colonial rule, which was quickly replaced with American rule under the excuse of the need to teach the Philippines the concept of democracy through the process of “benevolent assimilation”. With the memories of Spanish control still fresh, the Filipinos of course resisted, and as the same with the pattern established in the prior two instances, the Americans reacted by using violence as a coercive tool to force the Filipinos to accept the gift of democracy. Paul Kramer, in his article The Water Cure: Debating torture and counterinsurgency – a century ago, elaborates on how the American soldiers used the excuse of pacification and liberation to enact excessive violence and brutal tortures such as the water cure upon the Filipino natives, who were considered to be “semicivilized” at best.5 The third example used in the essay showcases the use of the American Creed as a justification even outside American soil. Instead of equality, the twin ideals of democracy and liberty are at play. The idea is that America, acting as liberator, freed the Filipinos from Spanish occupancy and introduced them to the concept of democracy. The Filipinos, rightly viewing their “liberation” as a disguised occupation, resisted in embracing these ideals, and the American recourse was to use violence as a way of forcing the natives to accept. These three instances highlight the recurrent pattern of using the American Creed and its ideals of equality, democracy, liberty, and right to opportunity to act as the ideological shield to the sword of violence wielded by those in power. Although the words and ideas represented in the Creed are noble and something to be aspired, the Creed will continue to be used as the justification to oppress those in the minority and preserve the strength and way of life for those at the top. Read More