I used to believe racism in the United States was overstated.
Sure, it existed. But it's not something widespread. Common. The claim americans are racists is ridiculous.
Well...I was wrong.
"Zohran Mamdani is a terrorist"
"Mamdani supports ISIS and HAMAS"
"New York City faces sharia law"
"Mamdani wants to MURDER jews"
The amount of shit published about this guy is absolutely insane.
He recently attended the 9/11 memorial ceremony.
At some point, he greeted congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and smiled for 5 seconds.
Immediatly, politicians went wild
Senator Ted Cruz:
Congresswoman Mary Miller :
Speaker Mike Johnson:
Here is the video. You can clearly see that he was stoic. He hugged her. Then he immediatly went back to being stoic.
Dude smiled 5 SECONDS in a 5 hour ceremony and they accuse him of celebrating 9/11
At the same ceremony, JD Vance and Howard Lutnick laughed and joked.
No one cares. They are white.
The US is more racist than I ever imagined.
This is actually common across post colonial societies. The book Why Nations Fail by Nobel Laureate Daron Acemoglu explains it well. Colonial powers left behind extractive institutions in non white polities whereas inclusive institutions were built wherever they stayed. It is very difficult to counter institutional momentum so the new elites often perpetuate the cycle of extraction started by settler-colonialism. Such extractive institutions promote corruption. That's not even taking into account neocolonial activities by prior beneficiaries of colonialism.
An example of an extractive insitutional practice on indigineous reserves is federal land trusteeship and the lack of full property rights. This means that residents cannot use their real estate as collateral to secure commercial bank loans or mortgages. Economists refer to this landlocked wealth as "dead capital" because it cannot be leveraged to start businesses, build credit, or generate local economic growth.
I question a causal relationship between religion and prosperity or that religion is a hindrance to agitation. MLK Jr and Gandhi were deeply religious and are amongst some of the most notable agitators of the 20th century. Ultimately what it comes down to is oppurtunity and we continue to live in a world where being born brown or black means you almost certainly, on average, have less.
Religion can be used in many ways, you point out another use for it. In fact, it is often because of the safe spaces afforded to religion that allow such agitation to occur.
I should point out that MLK jr. strongly felt that non violent protest alone wasn't going to cut it. He valued Malcom X's rejection of non violence as a necessary counterpoint to his movement. From what I understand he felt it was necessary for white America to see that things could go horribly, violently wrong, but he wanted to lead with peaceful protest and didn't want to be associated with the violent alternative that could dominate if things didn't change in a positive way. Basically he was giving white America a choice, "We can make change in a civilized, respectful manner, or we can have chaos and violence".
One major lesson from both of these men and movements that I wish the protestors of today would recognize is that often protest itself is not going to cut it. You have to get a televised beat down from the cops in order to sway the masses. Public unnecessary suffering changes minds pretty quickly. When you see well dressed people marching in a non threatening manner insisting on reasonable change get attacked violently by the authorities, most people will recognize that injustice and react. This happened with the beginning of the Arab spring when that man set himself on fire in protest. Oppressors always want to sanitize and hide their most extreme violence against the oppressed.