Monday, November 19, 2018
Who was the worst Presidential Oppressor?
Which of the following presidents was the most ethnocentric and oppressive? Washington, or Jefferson, or Jackson, or Polk, or McKinley?
First some historical background. The first American colonists were British. What was happening in Britain around 1550--fifty years before the first British colonists came to American shores. The Protestant civilized British were brutally conquering the Catholic savage Irish. The Protestant British thought they were doing "God's Will". The Protestant British were self-righteous, arrogant, ethnocentric and oppressive. Some of these very same ethnocentric and oppressive British came to America as colonists. The self-righteous Puritans, who neglected justice and the love of God, were among them. They were also ethnocentric and oppressive.
Fast forward to the founding fathers. They were proudly Anglo-Saxon [British]. They did not reject ethnocentrism and oppression. Instead, they embraced it with enthusiasm.
Our first presidents--Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, and McKinley--were predestined to be ethnocentric and oppressive. None of these presidents repented of and rejected ethnocentrism and oppression. Washington, for example, along with this wife, Martha, owned three hundred slaves. He was our first president and set the precedent for continuing ethnocentrism and oppression.
Jefferson owned two hundred sixty slaves, and first promoted the Indian Removal Act in 1776-1779 when he recommended Cherokee and Shawnee tribes be driven out of their ancestral homelands to lands west of the Mississippi River. This amounted to genocide and land theft.
Throughout his lifetime, President Jackson may have owned three hundred slaves. President Jackson signed and implemented the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Sixty separate removal treaties were signed. More than ten thousand Native American died on The Trail of Tears.
President Polk owned slaves, he invaded Mexico in a act of raw imperialism. It was not a just war and he forced Mexico to cede one half of their territory to the U. S. We did compensate Mexico for the loss of their territory but it was done at the point of a gun.
In 1898, President McKinley, after defeating Spain obtained the Philippines; the U.S. purchased the Philippines from the Spanish. However the Filipinos had been revolting against Spain since 1896. They did not want to become the colony of another imperialistic power. So they revolted against the U.S. army. In the bitter war that followed probably one million Filipinos died, estimates the Filipino Reader.
Now I ask the reader to choose your number one oppressor. Rank these five presidents in order of evil, one, two, three, four, five.
Any American that is planning to go to Haiti should first become aware of the wide spread, deeply imbedded history of oppression in the U. S. implemented by numerous presidents. Then, once they arrive in Haiti, they will automatically raise the question, 'Who were the oppressors in Haiti that caused this extreme poverty? What systems of oppression did they use?'
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