Propaganda’s residual effects and micro-aggression

by
Ron Alexander Ph.D.

Whenever!

Whenever I go down South
and kneel at the grave
I really, really wonder
Is this the
Home of the brave?

Abstract: The term “slave” derived from Germanic military contest in fourth and fifth century Europe. Consequently, one thousand years later, Spain, France and England became global competitors, ruling great swaths of ocean and land. These nations introduced a range of machinations used to control other states and their populations. One particular image of that doctrine persuaded others to use the terms “esclavo” and “slave” in the Americas. On the contrary, captured Indigenous Political Groups (IPGs), oppressed and institutionalized Europeans, captured Africans, and in time, Asians and Pacific Islanders, were never “slaves”. In effect, the political state cannot endorse this continued form of colonial thinking. This single word conveys a particular status, locked in a holistic metaphor. Micro-aggression can not mis-lead communicative language skills. We must not encourage propaganda or become propagandists for failed states.

Directed action towards representative outcomes

The often-used proverb “the pen is mightier than the sword” can be terribly true. It provides contextual cues, although in an abstract form, in leading to a conclusion. In the fight for freedom of speech, the pen does not write only for the majority or the minority. All can agree that it is not a tool for the continued perpetration of injustice.

As one generation can improvise a code of ethics. It is difficult for another generation to control its socio-political “spin-off”. The latter generations readily accept the “learning objectives” of their adult leaders. Elected or appointed officials are not the only leaders. They include parents, the key to any community.

The wife of Ow High, c. 1905 CREDIT- Edward S. Curtis Collection:Library of Congress

Since some “learning objectives” are antithetical to human rights, they have become a tools for propaganda. For centuries, students have learned that America’s Indigenous Groups, Africans, and many Europeans were “slaves” who worked on “plantations” in the Western Hemisphere. This statement is false. Yet, it has been “carried” from one generation to another.

The term “slave”, derived from military contest in European history, was not easily developed. As the defensive systems of the Slavic-speaking people in Europe were outstripped, Germanic speaking invaders began degrading the Slavic culture. Germanic groups looted and pillaged their territories. In the end, the name of their capital city, Katrinaslav, became an object of contempt.

The continued attempt to destroy the will of these Central, Eastern, and Southern European Slavs ended in the corruption of the word itself. In order to describe forced laborers, the word Slav turned into the term “sklabos” in Late Greek and “slavus” in Latin. Consequently, as Spain and England became ruling powers, their doctrines persuaded others to use the terms “esclavo” and “slave”, respectively, in the Americas.

Sea based adventurers had formed strategic positions in the Western Hemisphere at the end of the 15th Century. One major reason for that policy was the strategic gains in the Great War of Africa. This organized and brutal conflict, controlled by European commercial and military interests, asserted several socio-economic benefits to all invested parties.

Though they should have recognized European intent, any plans regarding the African continent were not communicated to pre-colonial African rulers. Attracted by foreign displays of “power”, disorganized rulers, with their supporters, received Western European collaboration. These coastal states emerged with the symbols of power: weapons, conquered territory, mercantile products and correspondence with “absentee rulers”. These “absentee rulers” encouraged and provided incentives for the exploitation of “humano laborare”.

However, we now know that African mercenary armies, under the persuasion and luster of shifting European and American alliances, had captured other Africans and forced them onto sea going transports. Those Africans who survived the passage across the Atlantic and who lived to enter the Americas were now “different”. Their humanity was engineered by century’s old tactics. They became “slaves”. They were “sold”, as though they were property, in the magical market place. They worked constantly on “plantations” and in other locations.

To be sure, captured Indigenous Political Groups (IPGs), oppressed and institutionalized Europeans, as well as Africans, and in time, Asians and Pacific Islanders, were never “slaves”. They were political prisoners and, under the rights of all humanity to resist forced oppression, prisoners of war. In order to prevent Africans and other ethnic groups from coordinating a response to their situation, ruling parties formed a new order.

Controlling the political-economy

Spain used a policy of “encomienda”, or land grants, to expand the royal court’s security, prestige, and criminality. Spain’s competitor, Great Britain, enforced a “planting”. Queen Elizabeth received this confidence from Richard Hackluyt, a known traveler and investor. Immediately, military encounters established and advanced each state’s policy.

A policy of “non-contactus” followed. There was to be no contact between the European masses of “free labor” and the captured populations of “forced labor”, except for utilitarian purposes. Breaking the circuit of interaction meant the administering of public rules, which became public laws. Thus, disconnecting the conscience from acknowledging a fault did deflect the light of reason and did attract the light of aggression. As the masses of “free persons” rested their identities on specific biological and socio-economic characteristics, some would move toward a physical defense of their “achieved” status. This divergent behavior or “death impulse” culminated in colonial and civil wars in the Americas.

Furthermore, in order to oppose Catholic Ireland, a potential ally with Spain, evidence indicates that the term “plantation” was raised under the banner of the Stuart clique and Oliver Cromwell. These regimes, in trying to destroy the cultural heritage of a neighboring European nation, sent tens of thousands of Irish men into the Caribbean to perform forced labor, although not  generationally consigned nor conflated with potential material gains.

In the Americas, IPGs and Africans were coerced into garrisoned agricultural systems (GAS). On the grounds of these regional, economic units, Africans, now native to the Americas, underwent psychological behavior modification, in order to perform forced labor for the emerging, pre-industrial powers.

In fact, not until legislatures in the Americas controlled the authority to declare war, the Early Post-Columbian Era did not record a declaration of hostilities issued by an individual state upon IPGs and African states. Nor was a peace agreement between Americans, or Europeans, and African states issued at any specific time. The vessels that transported commercial goods, as well as human beings, did record dates. The obvious had happened. In the untwisting of the terms “mercantile” and “mercenary”, one locates the enduring clause for all ages. One becomes involved for the purpose of gain or benefit within the scope of classical realism and international relations.

President Woodrow Wilson rendered a diplomatic and political correction to such a collection of events, which had contributed to destabilizing world politics. In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, deliberations began in January following the Axis defeat in World War I. President Wilson had tried to include a League of Nations into the contract of the Versailles Treaty. One of its attributes included the publication of all treaties and international armament sales.

Disillusionment and change

President Abraham Lincoln did pursue both an international and a national security policy. Each shaped reality. He had recognized the advantages of molding a strong government. His administration had to dissuade foreign alignments with the Southern Confederacy and ensure the integrity of the entire nation. Under his leadership, the United States transformed itself into a formidable military power. One fiat, which assisted the destruction of the Confederacy, was the issuing of the Proclamation of Emancipation to the public in 1863. It received acceptance for the greater good of the nation. In order to raise the numbers of Soldiers in the ranks and to secure a victory for the Union, displaced persons (Zwangsverschleppter), who in the past had been forced laborers, now became open patriots.

Forced laborers on a wharf, James River, Va. 111-B-400. National Archives Identifier: 524820

Lincoln recognized that change was mandatory. In his annual message to Congress in December 1862, he wrote: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.” Ironically, the California State Legislature passed a law in 1862, the Anti-Coolie Act, to prohibit Chinese immigrants from working. The term “coolie” (苦力) meant hard or unskilled laborer. The state legislature was not forbidding that concept, but the immigrants themselves.

Lincoln did engage in colonial and confederate thinking, as evidenced by his words, throughout his life. In other ways, he pointed toward change, especially in his speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863. He spoke for only two minutes during the dedication of a National Cemetery. The very first clause, “Four score and seven years ago…” directed the attention of the audience to respect the Unions constitutional foundations. Yet, “Four score…” meant twenty times four. In German, twenty is “Zwanzig”. The German translation of “forced labor” is “Zwangsarbeit”.

Others have tried to weigh the damages shared by many nations in their quest for wealth, power, and status. Thomas Jefferson asserted that King George had “waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither”.

During the American Revolution against Great Britain, Jefferson submitted these words to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Yet, in Virginia, Jefferson had participated in the benefits taken from the toil of forced laborers. He learned to use the term “slave”, as so many others had learned, due to laws which allowed this term to continue to fester and flow in America’s consciousness.

From the beginning of Europe’s contact with the Americas, Bartolomé de Las Casas, born in 1484 in Spain, had emigrated to Hispañiola. In 1510, he became a priest and served the needs of the IPGs in the Caribbean and in South America. He would become, in 1523, a Dominican. While wearing Dominican robes, Las Casas began to support the halting of the genocidal policies of Spain, and as such, other colonial powers.

Strengthening the movement

Prisoners’ orchestra during a Sunday concert for the SS-men. The orchestra was likely conducted by inmate Franciszek Nierychlo. Jewish Virtual Library

Even today, in the United States, we listen to a reporter’s piece on how a charging linebacker “blitzed” the quarterback. The Nazis, while attacking Poland and England, used this term. It was part of a fascist philosophy. This term, being part of a collective of military strategies, led to the deaths of nearly fifty million people in World War II.

In 2015, no linebacker or any other football player can “blitz” anything! Nor can they “sack” anything, as did Germanic tribes that entered Rome in the Early Middle Ages. It is a false term, yet employed by one of the primary industries principal entertainment sources. It continues in use by coaches, news reporters, and therefore other Americans. This term is relatively a new word in the lexicon of sports; but what reaction would an informed citizen of an East European city have to that form of hate speech, when the effect of the action brings Auschwitz!?

Journalists, as well as other writers, and this includes social scientist, no matter of what ethnic group, may continue to overlook their role in legitimating other kinds of domination. We, all of us, in order to communicate ideas, use words. They do reflect the character traits of a people. Lies, upheld by any state, will cause disillusionment amongst its citizens who strive for truth.

Communicative language power depends on the interaction of more than one person. A capitalist environment requires constant transformation and updating of skills. If specific words, actions, and even habits and norms, have a minimal range of interpretation and often specifies past harm to a person or class of persons, micro-aggressive behavior does not separate the doer from the receiver. Not knowing that certain behaviors can cause harm admits recklessness.

The political state cannot endorse this continued form of colonial thinking. In some of our United States History books, used in public education, have several paragraphs, if not full pages, directing students to repeat this false statement and obvious micro-aggression. One history book, taken form a book depository, cited the term “slave” nearly one hundred and fifteen times on just four pages.

We admire courageous citizens who encourage harmony and equality. We must not admire citizens who are clever and hardhearted and continue to follow propaganda’s residual effects. This time, instead of states having a policy of separating individuals based upon genetic characteristics, knowledge based upon the false identification of the past status of millions of our fellow Americans leads to discrimination.

In other words, discrimination is nothing other than a “milder” form of oppression. Publication of a term that derides the heritage, and thus the status, of millions of Americans, must end, no matter what their ethnic background.

Each American has the responsibility to press on and uncover the truth. We must not encourage propaganda or become propagandists for failed states. And in the long term, initiate unrest as provocateurs!

###