America and Its Cycle of Abuse
The idea is not new…The cycle of abuse has been a well-documented theory and describes a phenomenon in which those who are abused in their past often will repeat such abuse upon others during their lifetimes.
As Paige Bierma of Blue Cross’ Consumer Health Interactive writes, “German psychiatrist Alice Miller first wrote about it in the 1980s. Her books, Prisoners of Childhoood: The Drama of the Gifted Child and For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence broke new ground by expanding on a theory of the roots of violence both in families and in Western society as a whole.
The “unconscious compulsion to repeat,” Miller writes, will continue until an adult survivor of child abuse consciously relives his or her traumas. An intellectual understanding — that hitting or belittling a child is wrong, for example — may not be enough to prevent abuse, simply because the drive to repeat occurs on an unconscious level. Survivors are compelled to replay abusive scenes from their own childhood in an unconscious effort to regain the power they once lost to their own parents.”
So what does this have to do with our country and our current socio-political landscape? In the depths of the American psyche, in between the lines of the Constitution, in the unspoken words of our forefathers, in the motivations for first traveling the treacherous Atlantic Ocean from the Old World lies hidden and unearthed the beating and pulsating cycle of abuse.
The first colonists to arrive in America came for various reasons, some economic, but some to escape religious persecution. English Puritans, Separatists & Quakers, Irish Catholics, French Huguenots, Dutch Reformers all had suffered persecution, economic sanctions, and social isolation as a result of their refusal to follow their countries’ respective state churches. They sailed to the “New World” seeking refuge and a new, better life in America.
However, once they all arrived here, they began the cycle of abuse almost immediately. Although these same people had suffered at the hands of governments in Europe, they almost instantly picked up where their abusers left off, starting off with the Native American Indians and even with their European brothers and sisters from different faith backgrounds.
Religious toleration among the various Christian groups was unheard of until the signing of the Constitution in the 1770s. Before that, the Puritans refused to “corrup” their “pure” faith by accepting and mixing with the other various groups of Christians that came to populate this land. And the others felt the same.
We all know the stories of the torture, the enslavement, the duping and cheating, and the outright manipulation of the Native American Indians. I don’t need to go through all the egregious and barbarous acts of our European forefathers, as I hope that we are all big boys and girls and familiar with our treacherous history that has so conveniently been smoothed over with myths and fabrications like the “great” Thanksgiving feast and the cooperation and friendship between Samoset and the English pilgrims.
Almost from the beginning of our countries’ history, Africans were brought from their native lands to be purchased by plantation owners and farmers needing cheap/free labor to turn a profit with their crops. Out of this economic idea flowed additional abuse and racism toward people of color, namely Blacks. Again, we are familiar with the details of slavery and the horrors faced by African Americans in this country in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. But the American cycle of abuse again did not stop here.
In the late 19th century, immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Ireland began flocking to America seeking improved living conditions and work. What these immigrants found when they arrived were the roots of an Anglo-Saxon racist ideology so beautifully described by Matt Damon in his role as Edward Wilson in the film, The Good Shepherd. The dialogue between him and Joseph Palmi, played by the legendary Joe Pesci follows:
Joseph Palmi: “Let me ask you somethin’…we Italians, we got our families and we got the church…the Irish, they have the homeland…the Jews, their traditions; even the niggas, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?
Edward Wilson: The United States of America…and the rest of you are just visiting.
This statement encapsulates what the early immigrants found when they came to this “land of the free” in the late 1800s. They found signs in storefronts reading “NINA” – no Irish need apply” and “America for Americans” – whatever that means.
The xenophobia, discrimination and cycle of abuse continued into the 20th century as well. Even though slavery was officially abandoned in the 1860s, blacks were not given equal rights until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, over 100 years later. And some argue, including myself, that blacks still undergo enormous amounts of pressure and often subtle, masked forms of discrimination, including but not limited to – ghettoization, disproportionately high levels of imprisonment, and unequal educational opportunities.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries have also seen the rise of discrimination against Asians. Asians first started arriving in the United States en masse in the 1850s and made their homes more on the West Coast, taking part in California’s gold rush. During this time, Americans labeled the influx of Asian immigrants as the “Yellow Peril,” and in 1882, the United States enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act which brought a halt to almost all Chinese immigration until about 1943 when Chinese workers were brought in to contribute to the US war effort against the Japanese and Germans.
During World War II, over 100,000 Japanese immigrants were forced into concentration camps if they were found to have 1/8 or more “Jap blood.” This was one of the most obvious showings of American abuse not only from the citizenry, but from the government itself.
The early and mid 20th century also saw disgusting discrimination against Jews. This country was not even worried about Hitler’s outspoken hatred for Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, and even Muslims (who Hitler considered excellent for slave labor) until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As a matter of fact, in 1939 a Roper poll found that only thirty-nine percent of Americans felt that Jews should be treated like other people. Fifty-three percent believed that “Jews are different and should be restricted” and ten percent believed that Jews should be deported. The United States’ tight immigration policies were not lifted during the Holocaust, news of which began to reach the United States in 1941 and 1942 and it has been estimated that 190,000 – 200,000 Jews could have been saved during WWII had it not been for bureaucratic obstacles to immigration deliberately created governmental officers.*
The Civil Rights Movement highlighted the still rampant discrimination against African Americans that I have previously mentioned. The 20th century also saw the uprising of women who have been abused throughout this nation’s history. Women are still abused and objectified in this Western culture and are the victims of a society plagued by vices and male-domination.
The later 20th century has seen blatant abuse and discrimination against Hispanics and those of Latin American descent, although this type of persecution has been taking place for centuries since the days of the Spanish-American war in the early 19th century. From farm laborers and migrant workers, from illegal immigration to gang warfare and drug trafficking, Hispanics have been victimized and treated as second class throughout the history of this country.
And now, where should America and Americans turn their negative attention? Now that each continent has seen its share of persecution in this country, to where should this government and the Anglos of this country turn their innate anger, their abusive tendencies, their cycle of abuse? To the “brown” people of the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa. To the Muslims. All of a sudden, from being the least discriminated group in America pre-9/11, Arabs and Muslims in general have become the bulls-eye for Anglo hatred and scapegoating.
It is just our turn. We will have to ride out the tide of discrimination just as did each other group to come before us. The Anglo psyche does not know how to overcome their abusive tendencies. There has NEVER been an age, an era in Anglo history in the United States during which the government and the general public did not turn on a certain group and blame the problems of the world on it. Indians, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Italians, Irish, Asians….there isn’t a strip of earth that the Anglos in this country haven’t chosen as the root of all evil.
So the “Axis of Evil” is just the new fad, the current group to single out and put through hell. Six years ago, nobody cared about Muslims. No one cared about women wearing hijab. No one cared about the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). No one cared about polygamy. No one cared about jihad. Had anyone who wasn’t Muslim ever even heard the term? I doubt it. Then, when a group of 19 men allegedly conspired to attack the WTC in 2001, all of a sudden, these 19….NINETEEN….1-9 men defined ALLLLLL Muslims and defined Islam as a religion. Nineteen???? Is this some kind of sick joke?!
Islam is over 1 billion strong in our world. So for convenience sake, we’ll take the number 1,000,000,000. Let’s see here…19 out of 1,000,000,000. That’s 0.000000019%. Wow. Just wow. So the people in this country judge a world community, an entire faith that has inspired so much amazing progress throughout its history by the actions of 19. Then all of a sudden, everyone starts coming out of the woodwork blasting on Muslims. Crazy how xenophobia and paranoia works in this country.
So what are the lessons we can learn from this incessant cycle of abuse?
1. America would be much more successful in its foreign policy if it would stop having the Edward Wilson view of the world. Because honestly, people are starting to notice. People on the beaches in Sao Paulo and in cafes in Venice and in libraries in Copenhagen and on the neon-lit streets of Tokyo and….it’s closing in on the Anglos of the United States. It’s not a minor thing anymore. People are starting to see this paranoia and this pattern much more clearly now. So to the government and the people of the United States, my message is….chill with the crazy discrimination and hatred of “outsiders”….those “outsiders” might just be your best neighbors.
2. The Muslims need to bring this cycle to the forefront and stop it. The Muslims in America…we are free, we are educated, we are bright, vibrant, and youthful, and we have a duty. We have a duty to bring the truth about Islam, the legacy of Islam to the surface and call it out from the mountain tops, practice it each and every second of every day and be examples of it to the people we meet on the street, to our families, to our co-workers and fellow students and to each other. So that Islam, the Islam that the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) brought to our hearts and our lives, will once again flourish for the world to see. Yes, we are being persecuted unfairly, but honestly, c’mon people, we have some nut-jobs in our “family.” And the nut-jobs are yelling the loudest right now. And we need to silence them, educate them, and get the attention shifted toward what’s right and what’s real.
3. In order to break the cycle of abuse, the people of this country are going to have to confront it head on. The Jewish population in this country and throughout the world has been an excellent example for us. They have forced the Americans and others who suckered into discrimination against them to face the music and look straight at the persecution that these people suffered, especially during the Holocaust. And the Jewish population won’t forget their struggles and won’t allow anyone else to either. I do NOT think that discrimination and persecution should be twisted into a multi-million dollar industry….but I do think that we need to learn from our Jewish cousins and realize that part of their success has been their persistence in forcing the Anglos and the government to recognize their pattern of abuse and change their behavior. Each minority group must do that in order to break the cycle.
America is an amazing country, and I would rather live here than anywhere else. But that doesn’t mean that I have to give unconditional support to a government and to a public that has made some very serious mistakes in how it has treated “others” throughout its history. The freedoms I enjoy are because I demand them and those that have come before me have demanded them. I do not give my government or my fellow citizens carte blanche and allow them to treat me any way they choose. My government and my fellow citizens must change. They must stop the cycle of abuse and realize that just because they were once abused and persecuted back in the 16th and 17th centuries, they don’t have to repeat the mistakes that their abusers made.
It’s time to turn over a new leaf. It’s time to look at one another and join hands as a human community and acknowledge our legacies, our differences and revel in them. We have so much to share and learn from one another. We must urge the building of bridges instead of the rampant digging and blasting of deep ravines that cut through the heart of our social fabric.
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