Universally Speaking
Message to the Black Community
Rahim Islam is a National Speaker and Writer, Convener of Philadelphia Community of Leaders, and President/CEO of Universal Companies, a community development and education management company headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Follow Rahim Islam on FaceBook (Rahim Islam) & Twitter (@RahimIslamUC)
Rahim Islam
It’s very interesting to see Donald Trump, who is running for the highest office in the land, spewing absolute bigotry and hatred and singling out the religion of Islam.
My position is that if we’re going to connect terrorism with religion, there would be no America.
What would the Native Americans say about terrorism and terrorists? What does the black man in America say about terrorism and terrorists? Am I forgetting something?
Donald Trump recently released a statement calling for “a total and complete shutdown” of Muslims immigrating into the United States in light of recent terrorist attacks.
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.
If I win the election for President, we are going to make America great again.”
This mentality is not something new; we’ve been accustom to this language and this hate as black people in America – applying and connecting it to Islam is just another form or another flavor.
Trump is sick and represents the absolute description of “White Privilege” – only a white man could get away with this type of extreme rhetoric.
While the comments are super alarming, he continues to rise in the polls – what does this say about America and our dirty little secret?
This rhetoric is targeted to stir up his base – so we must ask ourselves who is his base?
His base includes right-wing, evangelistic Christians that romanticize about “going back to the good old days.”
His base is represented by extreme Klu Klux Klan like racists.
Per the Telegraph – “David Duke, the former imperial wizard of the Ku Klu Klan, was among a procession of white supremacists, who came to Mr. Trump’s defense.
Talking on his own radio show, Mr. Duke said Trump’s comments could undermine an American foreign policy that was under the sway of Zionism and supporters of Israel.
“The Jewish knives are coming out on Donald Trump,” he said, adding: “How come it’s against America values to want to preserve the heritage of the country?
We’re overwhelmingly a Christian country and overwhelmingly a European country.”
Furthermore, Mr. Duke’s expression of solidarity with Mr. Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric jarred with his attendance in 2006 at a “scientific conference” in Tehran, effectively denying the Holocaust organized by Iran’s then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline Islamist who declared the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis in the Second World War “a myth.”
At the time, Mr. Duke praised Iran for allowing “free speech” on the Holocaust, telling reporters: “It’s a shame that Iran, a country we often call oppressive, has to give this opportunity for free speech.
I think Israel is a terrorist state. It is the number one terrorist state in the world.”
“Going back to the good old days,” “make America great again,” and “take back our country,” are all code words for white supremacy, signifying a time when the law of the land allowed white men to openly display their supremacy and dominance to discriminate and show hate against black and Jewish people.
While this might be described as the “good old days” for some, for black people, this represents a very painful and excruciating period of outright terrorism.
“Taking back America” is code for getting the “First ‘N’” out of the White House – nothing President Obama does will change their opinion of him because in their words, he’s an “N” and an “N” is a subhuman.
Trump’s lead in the republican polls means that America has a significant number of racists who feel like him and want to see white people and their white God, Christianity, in full power and dominance.
While I’m no religious scholar, I don’t believe Jesus Christ would condone this type of oppressive behavior.
This is why we must do what white American Christians do on a regular basis, which is to disconnect religion from acts of terror, especially when it pertains to Christians.
Terror is terror and the last time I checked, it had no room in any religion.
In fact, it’s just the opposite. Most religions have a prescribed way for undertaking physical violence, mainly when defending themselves with outright acts of violence and aggression frowned upon.
To use religion when it’s convenient and when it allows you to convey hate is evil and the other republican candidates must reject Donald Trump.
To date, while the Democratic Party had condemned him, many in the Republican Party have tiptoed around this issue altogether. Racism is terrorism and terrorism is evil.
Even if they’re not racist, many white people sympathize with the racist and still believe in the supremacy of white people and the inferiority of black people.
Even those who call themselves “liberal” cannot see the black man as independent and empowered.
In my opinion, the term “liberal” represents white people who are accepting of black people.
Even this concept is racist and is absolutely insulting, especially when those liberals who profess their love for black people are still unwilling to support black people’s independence – I call them “liberal colonists.”
I will elaborate more on this subject in another article but black people, even Jewish people, and all good people can no longer remain silence – we must call terrorism for what it is, terrorism.
