“I met some white Muslims from Britain,” wrote Moazzam Begg in his book Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar. His people contacted me to see if I’d interview him on Clear Channel’s The Dr. Firpo Carr Show. I agreed, but only after I had read his 400-page book. It was a fascinating tome, from the first to the last page. He continues: “But I also noticed a tremendous class-consciousness in how people treated each other, with the Saudis at the top of the pecking order, and black Africans at the bottom—just below people from the Indian subcontinent.” Begg is a “second-generation British Muslim born and raised in Birmingham”…England. Not Alabama.

But, it might as well have been down South where they serve “Black Bottom Cake,” signifying that Blacks will forever represent the last rung on the socio-politico-economic ladder. Or, transcending Southern borders and spewing over in the nation at large, we have the more ubiquitous white angel’s food cake with all that it represents in the way of that which is positive in juxtaposition with black devil’s food cake implying all things negative. (Food fight anyone?) Interestingly, the “untouchables” in India (the same ones I quoted Pastor Russell as talking about last week) are incredibly dark-skinned, and are the lowest in what many view as a racist caste system. The Brahmans and other White people are at the top while the black-skinned “untouchables” are at the bottom. Will Obama be on the bottom as a Black man while on top as the President?

In his fairy tale adventure in Wonderland, will President Obama really be in command, or will the White man be at the controls behind the curtain? Could a President Obama win the war against discrimination and yet lose the battle against racism? How effective would a battered Obama be after battling a bodacious McCain? How would he deal with an economy left in shambles by the Bush Push? While an entire race cannot be indicted by the actions of a few, many worry that a horrendous track record of confrontations left by members of the White race is ominous. Is fighting and winning at all costs in their nature? The answer history gives is not exactly politically correct. Consider these few examples:

The Tasaday: The Tasaday were a people who were discovered just last century. They “do not have any word in their language for fighting. They have no concept of war and do not have any idea of violence. Manuel Elizalde, Panamin head and the cabinet minister who led the expedition [that led to the discovery of the Tasaday], stated: ‘They don’t know all the problems that send people into insane asylums and start wars and feuds and everything. All these things are foreign to them.’” This smacks of what Pastor Russell said about Whites in insane asylums as quoted in last week’s article!

The Lepchas: The Lepchas are a people indigenous to Sikkim, which is a small province in India that shares a border with Nepal. They are so peaceful that, as one source puts it, “there is no word for war in their language.” Since words are vehicles for our thoughts, like the Tasaday, the Lepchas had no concept of war, violence, or committing a crime against themselves or others.

Published in : Op-Ed, Dr. Firpo W. Carr