Frogs love tea baths and apparently my old rental house was Club
Frog, they also liked my shower for steam baths. I should have started charging
for these services but they were so damn cute. What can you do? They owned the
place. We are the visitors they owned the place. :P
I do love the little creatures, though they only love me for my tea, apparently. :(
What is the meaning of torture? We at times use this word
very lightly. The new generation’s music tortures our ears, or the final exam
was torture, or a dozen more little sayings; making the word folksy sounding,
with a bit of humor thrown in. But torture, real torture, is not a folksy or a
humorous experience for those that are its victims, they suffer psychologically
and physically from both present and future side effects of its use. Torture’s
use is also not reliable because a victim may say anything to make the pain,
either physical or psychological, go away. Our politicians and leaders try to
convince us that if it is used (and we all know it is), that it is harmless,
and the information obtained is very reliable and important to national
security.
Torture is physical or mental pain inflicted to get a person
to confess, convert to another person’s thinking (for political or religious
purposes), to reveal hidden information, do another person’s bidding, or just
to intimidate a group of people (usually an ethnic or political minority).
There are many forms of torture, both psychological and physical, from the past
and the present. Psychological torture has one goal, to inflict such emotional
upset that the victim will do, say or confess to whatever is asked. Techniques
that are used are threats (of bodily harm of the victim or the victim’s loved
ones), degradation, isolation, sleep deprivation, and rape (which is both a
psychological and physical form of torture). Physical torture relies on pain to
get what is wanted. Some of the techniques used are, mutilation (which can
include burning, flaying, cutting, and even amputations of toes, fingers, and
even whole limbs), drowning, starvation and dehydration, forced feeding,
pulling and crushing of the body, and many more nightmarish methods.
Throughout history, torture has been a common human tool.
Torture has been used in conflicts between clans and tribes to intimidate each
other in the fight over land area and hunting grounds. Leaders throughout
history have tortured their people for entertainment and sport, as a spectacle
to show their control and power. Rival countries use it during wars to obtain
secret information from the enemy, especially on prisoners of war. Religion has
used torture throughout history for conversion and confession, during the many
Crusades and Inquisitions, to control and eliminate minority faiths, and new
viewpoints that threatened the norm. Even the criminal justice systems
throughout history and throughout the world, have used torture techniques to obtain
information and confessions from suspects and even victims (though most
information obtained by torture is not reliable). The victims just want the pain, whether
mental or physical, to go away, and will say or confess to anything that the
torturer wants them to. Many torture victims do not survive, either dying from
the aftermath of torture or being killed after the fact. Surviving victims of
torture have both physical and mental scars. Post-traumatic stress syndrome and
suicide is very common in those that have survived these inhuman procedures,
not to mention the physical aftermaths, which can cause permanent disability
and long lasting health problems.
Defining torture legally is very difficult, each country and
culture views it differently. The United Nations Convention on Torture
(proposed in 1984, in force by 1987, ratified by the USA in 1994) states: Any
act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is
intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or
a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a
third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating
or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of
any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of
or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting
in an official capacity. “It does not include pain or suffering arising only
from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions” (http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/39/a39r046.htm.)
Some countries and individuals think torture must be stopped
all together, viewing it as an important human rights issue. Other countries
and individuals view it as a necessary evil, which can benefit a larger goal,
and is worth sacrificing the well-being of the few to save the many. But
whatever the viewpoint, the word torture seems to be hard to define, and to
understand what its true impacted on the society it is being used by. It may
keep the society’s people in control through the fear it promotes, and it may
at times get factual information, though very rare. But what are the human
costs and moral questions? Should a country use it on its own citizens or
enemies? These questions should be asked and the answer is torture needs to be
listed as a human rights violation. I personally think that torture is morally
wrong and its results extremely questionable and should be stopped.
Throughout history humans have been killing one another
without mercy, because of racial, ethnic, religious, political and other
differences and territory grabs. What we call genocide and ethnic cleansing
today has been happening, in one way or another, throughout human history. We
never seem to learn from the past the right lessons, only how to do the
killings more effectively and efficiently, without mercy or regret. The
Crusades, the Inquisition, the Burning Times, the takeover of the new world and
its land from the Native Americans, The Shoah (Holocaust), and genocidal crimes
in Tibet, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, and many more places throughout the world,
past and present, show the inhumanity of the human race towards each other, and
these crimes will go on into the future, “genocide inspires genocide”. It seems
history must repeat it’s self over and over again; humans will not get past the
psychology of hate. Lessons which should be learned are lost in ignorance.
Even defining the word “Genocide” is difficult for many
governments and individuals, though its definition seems very clear: “The
deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group”
(The Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2015). But this definition leaves many gray
areas that groups and governments can use to get around global laws on human
rights and genocide, to go on with their own criminal agendas against humanity.
The definition does not explain or define what really makes up a group of
people, or how many people in that group can be killed before it is considered
a genocidal incident and not just an ethnic cleansing event. The question here
is: How can you stop something that cannot be fully defined? And if it is
defined, will global governments really come to the rescue of the “other? “An
“Early warning System…and a coalition of support”(Rittner, Roth and Smith,
(2002) Will Genocide Ever Stop? (Essay) Controlling Genocide in the
Twenty-First Century, Herbert Hirsh (pages 131 to 137), may help in some cases
of genocide, but changing the human psychology towards indifference, violence,
and hate may be the only way to really stop the killing. But this is no easy
task either, when religion and even science can be used to excuse this type of
crime, to keep the majority in the mind set of hate.
The view “my tribe is better than your tribe“, seems to be
somehow ingrained in the human psyche. That we are somehow different, not even
the same specie. We must have someone we view as “the other”, who is below us,
the scapegoat for all our troubles. Those who start genocidal crimes use this
weakens in the human psyche to promote their agendas through propaganda.
Dehumanization is one of the key tools to the destruction of a group of people,
using their differences from the society around them to show that they are
aliens in their own country or region, using pseudo-science and religion to
back this up. Categorizing the targeted minority as a threat to the whole,
desensitizes the majority, allowing the justified killing of the group, without
question. “A common belief of this kind is that all members of a group share a
common “essence” – an invisible something that distinguishes the group from
other groups and leads to common group characteristics, or at least the
tendency to develop these characteristics” (Rittner, Roth and Smith, (2002)
Will Genocide Ever Stop? (Essay) Psychological Foundations, Clark McCauley,
Page 77-82). Leaders in genocidal acts will use all available tools to spread
the hate that enables them to commit their crimes, keeping the psychology of
hate into play. During World War II Hitler and the Nazi Party used old
prejudges and myths towards the Jews to label them as the dangerous outsiders,
who threatened the Christian German Aryan majority in Germany. Jews were
labeled as an impure race that needed to be eliminated; images of vermin (rats
and cockroaches) were used as propaganda symbols. Old religious myths were also
brought into political play; Jews were labeled as Christ killers, which meant
as a group they all most suffer, their Christian neighbors had a duty to make
this so. The myth from the 1st century of what is called Blood Libel, “the
claim that Jews kill gentiles motivated by ritual/demonic impulses”(Dennis,
Rabbi Geoffrey W. (2007) The Encyclopedia Of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism,
Page 36 to 37), also was used in Nazi propaganda. All these psychological tools
of hate increased the hatred and fear of the Jews in Germany, the rest of
Europe, and the world during this time, closing borders to Jews and any hope of
escaping the nightmare. This type of propaganda plays on our need to have “the
other” to fear and hate. In Rwanda the Hutus used faulty pseudo-science and
pseudo-anthropological research to prove that the Tutsis were another race or
even another species from themselves. The Tutsi were labeled as being something
less than the Hutus, “the other”, who had to carry different identification
cards. This goes back to the human mind set saying “my tribe is better than
you’re tribe.” Charismatic leaders play on this mind set to pull the majority
into the crime, making them believe that it is being done for them out of care,
for the good of the majority. That it must not be stopped, because it is saving
them from the invisible “Boogie Man”, the enemy, that their leader preaches
about and that faulty religion and science proves as some type of evil threat
to their group.
Perpetrators of genocidal crimes also rely on putting their
victims into a never ending psychology of fear, humiliation, and guilt.
Labeling a group of people with something different than the majority (like
identification cards, symbols or special laws that only pertains to them), can
affect the victims psychologically. Torture (including rape), starvation, slave
labor and public executions also are used to wear down and destroy the targeted
group or groups, to break their spirits, minds and destroy their bodies. The
victims may live in such fear that they just shut down emotionally, and may
give up completely. Others may even start believing that something is truly
different and wrong about themselves, and that the perpetrators are right in
some way. After living through such inhumanity the crime of genocide goes on in
the surviving victim’s psyche. The individual may feel humiliation from being
raped or tortured themselves or watching this done to others and not being able
to do anything, blaming themselves for being weak physically or spiritually,
when in reality they could do nothing. They may have flash backs of the horrors
they have seen and experienced, and have survivor’s guilt. Post-traumatic
stress syndrome, phobias, drug and alcohol problems, and other emotional and
mental problems may affect the victim for the rest of their lives. Genocide and
its crimes live on in the survivors minds and bodies and the souls of the dead
that it leaves in its destructive path. But human beings ignore even those that
have lived through it and their experiences, repeating it over and over again.
The cry for “never again,” seems to be ignored by the global community.
Indifference and hate goes on in the world, though human beings have witness
such horrors, we do nothing to stop the next tragedy. We ignore real science,
which proves the human race is all connected genetically and biologically,
inside we are all made the same, blood, bone and tissue of the same human DNA.
We are all creatures that need love and safety, to be mentally and physically
healthy. We also ignore the religions around the world, who all speak of loving
your neighbors, your follow human beings. That killing another human being is
an abomination to humanity and the Universal Soul.
White hate groups are all around us, in the United States we
have them in all fifty states and they can be found all around the world. In
America they have a long history of harassing, torturing, and killing, those
who they feel are non-human. They spread their hatred through propaganda in
their writings, music, Internet sites, and the national media. Using television
and radio to spread their hatred, the Ku Klux Klan and other white hate groups
have been seen on shows in the past like Geraldo and The Jerry Springer Show,
trying to get more people involved in their movement, preying on the young who
they feel are more easily swayed to their viewpoints and people’s weaknesses.
Back in 2001 the Ku Klux Klan from Idaho were even invited to the farmers’
parade rally that was held in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Small town America is not
safe from their grip. Racial hatred has always been a part of America; we were
founded in genocide, torturing and killing the Native American Tribes for their
land, and with building a country on the backs of African slaves. It’s not a
history to be pride of but one we need to learn from, so future generations can
change.
White Christian Separatist groups are some of the oldest and
strongest hate groups here in America. The Ku Klux Klan, The American Nazi
Party, Christian Identity and others follow a strict separatist Christian
belief, of racial purity, that has its roots from the time the white European
Puritans stepped on the shores of what would be the United States of America.
Their targets are Jews, Non-Whites, other Religious groups (including other
Christians that do not follow their ways), feminists, lesbians and gays, and
anyone that does not agree with their agenda.
The old Ku Klux Klan was created in 1865 by former
Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee. It started as just a club for white
Southern Christian men, but soon turned into a nightmare, hunting down freed
African slaves, (men, women and children), torturing, raping, and killing them
in the thousands in the name of white Christian society. Growing in numbers,
the Ku Klux Klan became a powerful force in the Southern States. Today’s Ku Klux
Klan has a larger agenda of hate, including other non-whites, (as well as
African Americans), Jews, feminists, lesbians and gays, and other religious
groups. They can be found in all fifty states, having offices or meeting areas.
They have parades to make a show of their numbers, and in some Southern States
the local law enforcement uses them for back up, like a volunteer police force
or militia.
George Lincoln Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party in
1958. The American Nazi Party believes that the fictionalized Aryan race is the
chosen people of their Christian god. The party’s greatest goal is to
exterminate the Jewish race and send all African Americans back to Africa. They
want to stop all mixing of races and to stop lesbians and gays from gaining
equal rights. They believe that they are the ones who will create a pure
Caucasian race here on American soil; they want to do what Hitler started and
failed at in Germany.
Christian Identity is a white separatist group, with radio
shows, other media outlets, churches and bible camps all through the United
States. It is based on the belief that Anglo-Saxon Christians are the true
Israelis (the biblically chosen people.) This movement started back in the
1700s, coming to America in the 1940’s. Their beliefs are very racist and
anti-Semitic. Jews they believe are the children of Eve and Satan, and must be
destroyed. Like all other Christian hate groups, they believe in the myth that
the Jewish race is in control of everything, and trying to destroy the
Christian faith. They also believe that the Holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy
and that Hitler was a hero to the Caucasian race. Non-whites they believe are
soulless creatures that are non-human and are inferior to the Anglo-Saxon race;
though not as threatening as the Jewish race, non-whites or what they call the
“Mud People” are still a threat to their blood purity. Christian Identity
believes that race mixing is against the plan of their god, to mate with a Jew
or a non-white is like a form of bestiality. Their members would like to see
mixed racial dating and marriages outlawed in America. They are also against
gay rights, believing that it is a Jewish movement to destroy the Christian
American family. They home school their children so they cannot interact with
children of different races and so they cannot learn about other ways of life.
The real world these children never get to interact with, growing up to believe
everything the group teaches them; making generation after generation of
members that know no other way to live,
but to hate those who they are indoctrinated too.
Women’s rights and feminism are seen in these religious hate
groups as going against the nature of white womanhood and the natural role of
women. Women in these hate movements are held in mostly a subordinate role,
they are there to support the men and to give birth to the next generations of
the so-called Aryan race or God’s chosen race, and are encouraged to have large
families. Women in most of these groups are taught that their place is in the
home to take care of the children and to home educate them in the ways of the
group’s beliefs and faith, most do not have jobs outside of the home or hate
organization. The group Christian Identity takes it one step farther, and
doesn’t believe that women need to go to college, believing that educating
women equally to men, is a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white Christian
American family and to destroy Aryan women’s femininity, and makes them too
masculine or turns them into lesbians so they are not fit to marry or breed
with. Women are also believed to be spiritually weaker than men, not to be
fully trusted, because of being the daughters of Eve, who they believe is the
mother of the Jewish race. This was a sin against Eve’s pure white race, for
this, all white women must be put in their place, forever being subservient.
Lesbians and gays are seen to be a threat to the perfect white Christian
family. White lesbians are seen as breaking the rules of white womanhood, not
being the good wives, mothers, and helpmates to pure white husbands saving the
pure white race. White gay men are seen as not being leaders, husbands, and
fathers, fathering the next generation of the white race.
In America these groups have free reign to spread their
terrorist hatred (hiding behind freedom of religion and freedom of speech),
when other countries try to slow their progression down. It is America’s turn
to stand up for all her citizens, to protect them from these groups and their
dangerous beliefs. We should start saying no to hate speech, to teach our
children in our schools, places of worship and our homes, that we are all
equal. Anthropologists and scientists have said it all along; we are one
species, one race, the human race. We come in many skin shades, eye colors, and
hair colors (straight to curly), all do to the climate and the area of the
world our ancestors lived in. We can be short or tall, skinny or on the heavy
side. We are female, male and even at times born intersex, gay, straight,
bisexual, trans…and we all deserve respect and safety. We have different ethnicities,
cultures, thoughts, religions, and political views. But when it comes down to
it, we are all the same human animal, having the same human DNA, body physiology,
made of tissue, bone and blood. We are a specie that is always in change,
always dreaming, always thinking, and always creating. So next time you feel
like saying a word of hate against your neighbor, think about the fact that you
are saying it against your own kind, a fellow member of the human race.
Dedicated to my Anthropology Professor Thomas Larson (this
was a speech and paper for his Cultural Anthropology class at Klamath Community
College.) He will be forever missed.Biography from one of his books: Professor
Thomas J. Larson of Klamath Falls, Oregon, was born on a farm in Minnesota in
1917. He has four degrees in cultural anthropology, and has made eight
expeditions from 1950 to 1994 to study the Hambukushu of Botswana. He is a
member of the Explorer's Club, Oxford Society, and World War II organizations. Dibebe of the Okavango by Thomas Larson (2001) http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Okavango-Thomas-Larson/dp/0595239455.
Has the American Southeast changed from its intolerant and
unjust past? Is racism, ethnic and religious intolerance still factors in how
justice is laid out and how people are treated by their neighbors in the
southern states, also called the Bible belt? Many would say, yes, it has
changed do to great men and women like Martin Luther King JR, who fought
peacefully to gain rights for all to live in justice instead of injustice. The
Bible belt has become more diverse over the years, because of climate, cheaper
real estate and jobs, which bring people in from New England, western states,
(like California), and from other countries. This means that the once very
homogeneous white Protestant Confederate South of the past has a mix of
different cultures, ethnicities, races and religions. Many cities like Atlanta,
Georgia have a cosmopolitan atmosphere, with many different communities
interacting together, not at all like the stereotypical old South.
It is hard to imagine that not so long ago, race and ethnic
differences were a major factor in everyday life in the Southeastern states
(and the rest of the country in different degrees), from the time of slavery to
modern times. African-Americans were thought of as sub-humans, enslaved,
mistreated and oppressed. In the mid 1900’s even after being freed from slavery
for almost a century in Southern states, they had to fight to vote, couldn’t
use the same public areas as Caucasians, or hold certain jobs (hard labor and
domestic jobs were deemed theirs) and they were constantly being showed through
unjust laws, their place compared to their white neighbors. The history of the
Confederate South owning slaves made it easy for whites to feel superior to
their black neighbors, a lot of them had ancestors who owned slaves, and viewed
it as a biblical right. Other minorities were seen also as outsiders, trying to
corrupt their old ways. Jews from the North and South, who fought right
alongside Martin Luther King JR. for the rights of African-Americans to have
all the rights of their Caucasian neighbors, were viewed with old biblical
anti-Semitic hate. They were told to stay out of what was the Southern
Protestant way of life that Christians were the true Southerners and the ones
who made the laws. Catholic Southerners were viewed also as a threat to the
Protestant Southerner’s viewpoint; Catholics followed a pope, which was a
foreigner. Foreigners were dangerous to the old ways, bringing in different
viewpoints on political, religious, cultural and racial issues. That the Old
South did not want to face, because it might cause dangerous change, where
white Protestants might have to interact with “the others”, and give them the
same rights as they had in all parts of daily life. Progressive Southern
Protestants who fought for the rights of African-Americans were also viewed as
being unsouthern and unchristian, traitors to racial purity and the Southern
lifestyle.
Today the Bible belt is more progressive, thanks to new
comers coming in and more liberal Southerners speaking out. But the old
Confederate South still is alive and well in the rural areas, (especially), and
in the government and the legal systems in many states and their counties. The
Confederate flag still is considered a symbol of Southern pride against what is
perceived as a protest against Northern aggression and a mythical Jewish
controlled government that has pressured them to change. Many still talk of the
old ways, not liking the change that is slowly happening. Some Southerners
still would live in the times of slavery or Jim Crowe if they had their wishes;
others do not like that black children can interact with white children in
their schools, some high schools even have racially segregated proms, so
parents are more at ease. Just a few years ago, one Southern university made it
permissible, finally, for interracial couples to finally be able to date on
their campus, without getting expelled. Hate groups still have a strong role in
many ways. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), founded after the American Civil War in
Georgia to try to regain white supremacy through intimidation, terrorism and
murder, still exist today. Other hate groups like American Front, National
Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP), The Nationalist
Movement, Stormfront, and a variety of skinhead groups and other hate groups,
all can be found in various Southern states (and non-Southern states also),
hiding under the First Amendment and Second Amendment, of free speech, free
assembly and the right to bear arms. All of these groups are home grown
terrorists, but the legal system usually ignores them as just good old boys
until someone is murdered. They are a normal part of some areas of the South,
with little or no protest, having community activities, even parades down Main
Street.
Other parts of the United States have issues on race,
ethnicity and religion which can get heated and dangerous. There is racism,
antisemitism and religious intolerance everywhere in the country, but the
Southeast seems to take more of a pride in thinking in the old ways and
celebrating them, and remaining more racially and ethnically separated. The
governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell in 2010 declared the month of April as “Confederate
History Month” (and so has others), honoring for the most part the historical
crime of slavery and the inhumanity of racism and hate. Other Southern States
would also like to honor Confederate history on their books. Should slavery
ever be celebrated? It is these factors and mindset that still causes injustice
in many ways, causing poverty, unfairness in the legal system, and at times
still hate crimes (not just in the American South, because these cultural ideas
are spread throughout the country). I for one will not be celebrating
"Confederate History Month”, my ancestors fought against slavery in the
South, people like them should be honored not slave owners and those that
fought to keep slavery.
Hate groups
can be found all over the United States, in every state of the union, with
names like: Aryan Nation, The American Nazi Party, Church of the Creator,
United White Peoples’ Party, and one of the oldest American hate terrorist
groups, the Ku Klux Klan, which has many factions around the country. But you
rarely think of these groups having much power or say in the jail and prison
systems of the United States, where prisoners are watched twenty-four hours a
day. But this is the very setting that makes it easy for them to recruit people
to follow their messages of hate, people who already want to blame someone for
their lives of bad addictions and choices, and extreme violence. “Prison officials
estimate that up to 10 percent of the nation’s prison population is affiliated
with such gangs” (Bigotry Behind Bars: Racist Groups in U.S. Prisons). These
groups (or gangs as they are called ), recruit prisoners who are already
prejudice against some minority or those who feel that they got a “bad break”
somewhere along the way, and want to put a face on this perceived oppressor.
Sources of
Hate
Some of
these white supremacist prisoners come from families who raised them in a
prejudice household, where another race, ethnic or religious group is viewed as
inferior, less than human. Others follow peers who introduce them to the racist
lifestyle, either before or after being incarcerated, in both the jail (where
they may be first introduced to the philosophy) and prison systems. Some
prisoners come to the prison system because of violent hate crimes they have
committed, some are members of racist groups already, others are not, but
follow that lifestyle. But most are just violent criminals, looking for someone
to blame for their own actions, and looking for a way to go on with their
violent criminal career and behavior. Whichever way these criminals started as
a racists, it ends up meaning more violence in the prison system, putting
guards and fellow prisoners at risk, especially minority prisoners. After these
prisoners are released their racist violence follows them into the outside
world, putting ordinary citizens at risk. The sadistic murder of James Byrd Jr.
in Texas in 1998, by three white men (John William King, Shawn Berry, and
Lawrence Brewer Jr.) is proof that these white power gangs take their hate and
violence with them when they are released. James Byrd Jr. was beaten savagely,
and then chained and dragged behind a pickup truck until he was beheaded. “Both
King and Brewer had links to white supremacist groups while serving terms in
state prison” (The murder of James Byrd, Jr. - Racial violence and the social
forces in America that fuel it, By Martin McLaughlin, 13 June 1998 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/06/byrd-j13.html.)
James Byrd
Jr
This was not
the only incident in Texas, a state with particularly high percentage of a
white supremacist, especially the Aryan Brotherhood (an extremely powerful
white gang) and their crimes. White supremacist groups outside of the prison
system also encourage the racist messages and violent actions. They promote
“white power” while spreading hatred towards minorities groups, blaming African
-Americans, Jews, Latinos, and others for the problems in the world, including
pushing the idea that that is why the prisoner is unfairly imprisoned.
Racism,
Money and Loyalty
These gangs
are run much like the mafia, where loyalty is rewarded and disloyalty can mean
death. When joining one of these white supremacist gangs, prisoners find
someone that will protect them from other prisoners, finding a haven behind
bars, where violence happens on a daily bases. Some join only because of the
protection the gang offers them, finding themselves either agreeing with them
or finding themselves trapped within the gang. Most will be forced to commit a
murder of a minority prisoner, to prove their loyalty to the gang, and then
they have no more options. These racist gangs also find ways to make their
groups criminal empires, dealing in drugs (especially methamphetamine, heroin,
and prescription painkillers), guns, prostitution, extortion, money laundering,
and other lucrative crimes. Many join for the power and money involved, not
just the racist messages, feeling they can control and manipulate the prison
system with fear, terrorizing those that cannot get away, making them give up
their food and other resources, to enforce this power. Many of these groups
will assassinate other prisoners and even guards that they think have crossed
them in some way or those they cannot control. These white supremacists gangs
have outside connection, using prison guards that they can pay off, and wives,
girlfriends, and family that will help smuggle in goods. Gangs bring into the
correctional facilities drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, and are responsible for
kidnappings, assaults, and murders, in and out of the prison systems.
The Aryan Brotherhood
and Others
Aryan
Brotherhood is one of the most powerful white supremacist gangs; they have been
around for four decades, starting their long and violent career in California’s
San Quentin prison, back in the sixties. Splitting into two separate groups in
1980, one for federal prisoners and one for state prisoner, the Aryan
Brotherhood is one of the strongest criminal organizations in the United States
behind bars. This gang has spread throughout the United States’ prison systems,
using them to spread hate, violence, and making a crime empire. They follow a
strict racist and anti-Semitic message, wanting a constant race war within the
prison culture, which not only intimidates and endangers minority prisoners and
prison guards, but makes the Aryan Brotherhood and their outside contacts very
wealthy.). The Aryan Brotherhood has also made strong connections with other
hate groups, behind bars and beyond. There are many other hate groups behind
bars, including Latino, Black Muslims and other white supremacists, following
the same racial code of separatism and violent action against other races that
the Aryan Brotherhood follows. They also make money and create power over other
prisoners, through these violent actions, using intimidation and murder to
enforce their will.
Stopping
Hate Gangs
Stopping
hate groups in and out of the prison system is not an easy job; these groups
are protected by the First Amendment, which allows them to spread their
messages of hate. Groups like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Muslims, and
others are also protected by the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and
Establishment Clause, which guarantees freedom of religion. The Aryan
Brotherhood has long been affiliated with the Aryan Nation, a nationwide hate
group, that also call themselves The Church of Jesus Christ Christian, to get
protection as a religious organization. “This “church” is a purveyor of the
“Christian Identity” religion preached by late Aryan Nations founder and head
pastor Richard Butler, whose “prison ministry” for decades promoted the
doctrine that non-whites are “mud people” and Jews are the literal descendants of
Satan”( Hate Crimes in Prison, By David Holthous). Minister Louis Farrakhan,
leader of The Nation of Islam, also has a strong outreach in the nation’s jail
and prison systems, recruiting violent African-American gangs, with his strong
anti-white and anti-Semitic propaganda.
Controlling
these hate gangs are very difficult for prison authorities, not much works to
stop them. Solitary confinement of the leaders does not work; they will find
ways of communicating to their followers. Most gang members are already serving
single or multiple life sentences, many are even on death role. These prisoners
have all the time in the world, even those on death row (because of many
appeals), to create a powerful violent following.
Conclusion
White
supremacist and other racist organizations pose a threat to those in the
outside world and those behind bars; it is just a fact of life in our country.
What can be done with these groups and gangs is a very difficult question. They
hide under the guise of religious and political organizations, with their
rights protected under free speech and religious freedom. If America changes
the laws to control them, we may lose some basic religious freedoms and free
speech rights. If we do nothing the violence will most likely continue, in and
out of the prison system, and increase as the group’s members grow.
The United States believes it has the cornerstone of human
rights within its borders. But our past and present shows a different picture,
a history full of human rights violations, that go back to the beginning of our
history. In our past you can find many Holocausts of hatred and oppression. But
we seem to forget somehow, through patriotic and religious zeal, how this
country truly began, and how we have treated our own citizens throughout our
existence. If you read some books, newspaper articles and editorials today you
will find a rewriting of our past, a total fiction, which somehow history has
magically changed into a fantasy; a mythical tale, full of lies and colorful
trappings. Our educational systems also rewrites history in favor of a Disney
styled world, where everything is perfect. But history cannot be changed to fit
one’s need to feel superior, neither can false patriotism and religious beliefs
change history, and the fact that human ignorance, bigotry, and hatred has been
a part of American culture all along.
When the white Europeans came to the New World, they viewed
the Native Americans as just savages, animals, needing to be saved by European
culture and Christianity. They believed that it was a God-given duty to convert
or murder the natives. Ignoring the fact that these were human beings like
themselves, who already had rich cultures with many religious beliefs that had
existed for thousands of years, they were not savages in any way. This began
years of genocidal acts against the Native Americans, by forced conversions,
massacres, and concentration camps. In fact Adolf Hitler, the head of the Nazi
Party in Germany, fashioned his death camps after what we call Indian
reservations. Today much of Native American culture is forgotten, even to its
people. Many live in poverty and are treated with little or no respect by their
white neighbors. Most white Americans have little knowledge of Native Americans
or their culture, and many still view them with total ignorance.
The owning of African slaves is another part of our history
that is at times forgotten or excused. These human beings that were violently
kidnapped from their own part of the world were sold into a nightmare. The
greed of slave traders, and the laziness and racism of slave owners fueled the
slave trade. When talking about the founding fathers of the United States, we
speak of how heroic and wise they were, but never mention that they were slave
owners and supported slavery, just like the rest of white culture at the time,
especially in the southern states. The Confederate South, also called the Bible
Belt, fought the north for the right to keep owning their slaves. They used
Christian doctrine to verify the right to own another person. Austin Cline
states; “The primary focus of those using Christianity to defend slavery and
segregation was the story of Noah, specifically the part where his son Ham is
cursed to serve his bothers. This story long functioned as a model for
Christians to insist that God meant Africans to be marked as servants of others
because they are descended from Ham. Secondary was the story of the Tower of
Babel as a model for God’s desire to separated people generally rather than
have them united in common cause and purpose.” Web Essay: Christianity in the
Confederate South: Southern Nationalism and Christianity (2007).This idea was a
total twisting of what is really said in the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible.)
After the Confederate South lost the Civil War to the north,
things did not improve for the freed slaves. They were treated as threats to
white culture; many feared that they would get equal rights to whites and
racially mixing. They were hunted down, tortured, and murdered without one
thought of their humanity. Around this time America’s first home grown
terrorist group was founded. In 1866 the Klu Klux Klan was formed by
Confederate veterans of the Civil War in Pulaski, Tennessee, angered because of
the ending of slavery. The far-right Christian Klu Klux Klan started a history
of ethnic and racial hatred and violence throughout the American South, causing
other hate groups to slowly form across the South and the country. Cline
states: “Although the South lost the Civil War, White Supremacy remained an
important component of Christian teaching for the next century. White Christian
churches taught that slavery was a just institution, as were Jim Crow laws and
segregation; that white Christianity remained the last, best hope for western
civilization; and that white Christians had a mandate to exercise dominion over
the world — and especially the darker races who were little more than children”
Web Essay: Christianity in the Confederate South: Southern Nationalism and
Christianity (2007). Southerners supported politicians and other legal systems
that guaranteed total segregation of the races. They did not want to share any
public arena with their black neighbors, strongly enforcing Jim Crow laws. If
you were black you had separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, parks, schools,
and other public areas. You could not eat in restaurants with your white
neighbor, or enter places of business through the same entrance. Jews and other
minorities were also targets of the Klu Klux Klan’s violence. The United States
government did little to change this, viewing it was a state’s right to choose
their laws. Sadly, a lot of those in Washington D.C. agreed with the white
supremacists.
Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, lynched in Marion, Indiana on
August 7, 1930.
Martin Luther King Jr. and his freedom fighters and other
people like them made great change in the American South and the rest of
America. King and many people like him died for these changes. But there is
more work to be done. Today, the United States has many hate groups around the
country; the KKK, Aryan Nations (the Church of Jesus Christ Christian), the
American Nazi Party, National Association for the Advancement of White People,
(founded by former KKK leader David Duke), and many others. Their objects of
hate are African-Americans, Jews, liberal Christians, gays and lesbians,
immigrants, and many other minorities. These hate groups hide behind the
American Constitution, false interpretation of religious doctrine, and twisted
patriotism. Their members are active in our communities, politics and legal
systems. Can we have true justice for all? When we still let these terrorist
groups exist within are borders. When they have done the very things that
terrorist around the world have. That is a question that can only be answered
by “no”. Martin Luther King Jr. said; “Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” Martin Luther King JR., Essay:
Letters from Birmingham Jail.
