Racism good bidness, ask any Amurkan patriot
By Tom Nadeau of Notable Trials A solution to the WTC-9/11 mosque kerfuffle will be reached, I think, but it will be dressed up in th...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2010/08/racism-good-bidness-ask-any-amurkan.html
By Tom Nadeau
of Notable Trials
A solution to the WTC-9/11 mosque kerfuffle will be reached, I think, but it will be dressed up in the costume of a “compromise.” In truth, however, it will amount to a complete cave-in to the rightwing and provide yet more proof that the US has lost its heart and soul, showing once and for all that America’s purported openness and tolerance were themselves myths to begin with.
The Indians – Native American Indians – could tell us a few things about that, I’m sure.
I live in Marysville, Calif. , which is located in Yuba County . It is, like Minneapolis-St. Paul and Siamese twins, joined at the hip with a town called Yuba City just across the Feather River .
Marysville-Yuba City have a speckled history of separate religions and races getting along with each other fairly well – well, for the most part, anyway. Instances of intolerance and prejudice have prospered, but mostly on the edges.
Maidu Indians came first to this part of California first, of course, but they were soon killed off or driven away by new arrivals.
Then the Spanish came. These were full Spanish, mind you, not the Hispanic-Indian mix that came up from Mexico later. That group went on to create a vibrant and valued part of this community.
After the Spanish came the whites. Then the African-Americans. Then the Chinese. Then the Japanese. Then the Sikhs. Then the Hindus. Then the Muslims. That was the general pattern of the steady in-flow.
It was a black man – Jim Beckwourth, who had lived with the Indians and married an Indian woman – that guided some of the city’s earliest settlers here. Of course, when he went to the all-white Marysville City Council to collect for his services, they refused to pay him.
A small African-American community still resides here. It is represents the last remnant of what was the first recognized black neighborhood west of the Rockies.
A long local history of different groups...
The Chinese first came here to work the 1849 gold strikes just up river. They were smuggled in by whites. Some settled in what is still known as Marysville’s “Lower End.” There, between First and Second and B and D streets, a prosperous Chinatown bloomed.
More Chinese came with the building of the railroad and the Marysville Chinatown enclave became significant enough for Sun Yat-Sen to hide out here during the Chinese revolution against the fading dynasty.
The Japanese farmers who came a bit later built their own identifiable Japantown around the edges of Chinatown.
Sikhs began coming to this area just before 1900, with most Sikh-Punjabis settling on the Yuba City side of the Feather River.
When the Punjabis first arrived, no Punjabi women were allowed in the US , so the earliest Sikh men married Hispanic women. This created an interesting sub-group that now has a ever-decreasing population base.
There were ups and downs in community relations, of course. When the Japanese were rounded up for internment at the outset of World War II, white businessmen and farmers swooped in and confiscated their properties – properties that were for the most part never returned.
The Sikhs became prosperous orchardists – prosperous in part because they contrived to import relatives from the Punjab, paying them little more than room and board, all the better to fatten the purses of the established land-buyers.
For many years the Sikhs kept a generally low profile. Not until recent years to they start emerging on ballots running for offices. Instead, they contributed heavily to local white politicians’ campaigns – contributions the white faces were only to happy to extort.
All in all, if you asked me, I'd have to say that, in my opinion anyway, the least ethical and the most destructive people who came here were and are, by far, the real estate-construction business types who bought up rich, productive farmlands only to pave them over for car lots and housing developments.
No, the various ethnic groups who have been living alongside each other in Yuba-Sutter for getting on to 160 years did it successfully and, for the most part peacefully. That is to say, they have lived together – if not exactly the proverbial “side by side” – at least they have been able to do so it in a fairly friendly and cooperative way.
Oh, there have been some unhappy incidents. I’d be more surprised if there were none.
When it was about 75 percent completed the Tierra Buena mosque was significantly damaged by arson. The arsonist was never caught.
Some suspected white racists. Others thought it stemmed from an internal Muslim community dispute. It might just as well have been a random event unconnected with religion.
As it so happened, I was the Sacramento Bee’s Yuba-Sutter correspondent when 9/11 occurred. I was on the scene.
During the earliest, most tense hours and days, things remained relatively quiet between the various populations. There were some overly dramatic displays of ultra-patriotism staged by white organizers.
At one major event, I was standing there, watching things unfold. It appeared to me that the conservative types parading about giving impromptu patriotic speeches were clearly torn between showing their faith God and Country and making a profit by selling the confused and concerned public little stars-and-stripes buttons, Old Glory banners and baseball caps emblazoned with “Proud to be an American” sentiments.
There is always a buck to be made in the good ol’ god-fearing USofAmurka.
As the patriots blathered on with their loudspeakers, I asked a young man what he thought about it.
Did he realize, I asked, that the speakers were calling for the restriction or revocation of the first, fourth, fifth and probably amendments to the US Constitution than I could name right now?
His answer chilled me to the bone, and I always remember it when I hear about things like this bogus Wall Street mosque.
“Well, if it keeps us safe, I guess it’s OK,” he replied.
The only real inter-racial incident reported at that time, though, was something involving pickup-driving cowboy-types attacking a turban-wearing Sikh. The wannabe bronco-busters, were apparently unable to distinguish a Sikh from a Muslim from a Hindu. I told the editors I thought the perpetrators were probably not home grown, but just passing through.
But back to the point at hand.
If these flag-waving Christian GOP'ers on Fox TV and radical right radio can bully the mosque temple out of New York 's financial district, then we will have really shown our true colors as a failed nation.
The sad truth is, the ignorant and the intolerant have us out-numbered by far. And their numbers are growing with every Glenn Beck broadcast.
Frankly, I would say we probably have more to fear – soon and direct – from those self-satisfied, uninformed-and-determined-to-stay that-way whites who call themselves patriotic fundamentalist Christians than from anyone else.
of Notable Trials
The Indians – Native American Indians – could tell us a few things about that, I’m sure.
I live in Marysville, Calif. , which is located in Yuba County . It is, like Minneapolis-St. Paul and Siamese twins, joined at the hip with a town called Yuba City just across the Feather River .
Marysville-Yuba City have a speckled history of separate religions and races getting along with each other fairly well – well, for the most part, anyway. Instances of intolerance and prejudice have prospered, but mostly on the edges.
 |
| Beckwourth |
Then the Spanish came. These were full Spanish, mind you, not the Hispanic-Indian mix that came up from Mexico later. That group went on to create a vibrant and valued part of this community.
After the Spanish came the whites. Then the African-Americans. Then the Chinese. Then the Japanese. Then the Sikhs. Then the Hindus. Then the Muslims. That was the general pattern of the steady in-flow.
It was a black man – Jim Beckwourth, who had lived with the Indians and married an Indian woman – that guided some of the city’s earliest settlers here. Of course, when he went to the all-white Marysville City Council to collect for his services, they refused to pay him.
A small African-American community still resides here. It is represents the last remnant of what was the first recognized black neighborhood west of the Rockies.
A long local history of different groups...
The Chinese first came here to work the 1849 gold strikes just up river. They were smuggled in by whites. Some settled in what is still known as Marysville’s “Lower End.” There, between First and Second and B and D streets, a prosperous Chinatown bloomed.
More Chinese came with the building of the railroad and the Marysville Chinatown enclave became significant enough for Sun Yat-Sen to hide out here during the Chinese revolution against the fading dynasty.
The Japanese farmers who came a bit later built their own identifiable Japantown around the edges of Chinatown.
Sikhs began coming to this area just before 1900, with most Sikh-Punjabis settling on the Yuba City side of the Feather River.
 |
| Obon dancers |
There were ups and downs in community relations, of course. When the Japanese were rounded up for internment at the outset of World War II, white businessmen and farmers swooped in and confiscated their properties – properties that were for the most part never returned.
The Sikhs became prosperous orchardists – prosperous in part because they contrived to import relatives from the Punjab, paying them little more than room and board, all the better to fatten the purses of the established land-buyers.
 |
| Yuba City Sikh Temple |
All in all, if you asked me, I'd have to say that, in my opinion anyway, the least ethical and the most destructive people who came here were and are, by far, the real estate-construction business types who bought up rich, productive farmlands only to pave them over for car lots and housing developments.
No, the various ethnic groups who have been living alongside each other in Yuba-Sutter for getting on to 160 years did it successfully and, for the most part peacefully. That is to say, they have lived together – if not exactly the proverbial “side by side” – at least they have been able to do so it in a fairly friendly and cooperative way.
Oh, there have been some unhappy incidents. I’d be more surprised if there were none.
When it was about 75 percent completed the Tierra Buena mosque was significantly damaged by arson. The arsonist was never caught.
 |
| Tierra Buena Mosque |
Some suspected white racists. Others thought it stemmed from an internal Muslim community dispute. It might just as well have been a random event unconnected with religion.
As it so happened, I was the Sacramento Bee’s Yuba-Sutter correspondent when 9/11 occurred. I was on the scene.
During the earliest, most tense hours and days, things remained relatively quiet between the various populations. There were some overly dramatic displays of ultra-patriotism staged by white organizers.
At one major event, I was standing there, watching things unfold. It appeared to me that the conservative types parading about giving impromptu patriotic speeches were clearly torn between showing their faith God and Country and making a profit by selling the confused and concerned public little stars-and-stripes buttons, Old Glory banners and baseball caps emblazoned with “Proud to be an American” sentiments.
There is always a buck to be made in the good ol’ god-fearing USofAmurka.
As the patriots blathered on with their loudspeakers, I asked a young man what he thought about it.
Did he realize, I asked, that the speakers were calling for the restriction or revocation of the first, fourth, fifth and probably amendments to the US Constitution than I could name right now?
His answer chilled me to the bone, and I always remember it when I hear about things like this bogus Wall Street mosque.
“Well, if it keeps us safe, I guess it’s OK,” he replied.
The only real inter-racial incident reported at that time, though, was something involving pickup-driving cowboy-types attacking a turban-wearing Sikh. The wannabe bronco-busters, were apparently unable to distinguish a Sikh from a Muslim from a Hindu. I told the editors I thought the perpetrators were probably not home grown, but just passing through.
But back to the point at hand.
If these flag-waving Christian GOP'ers on Fox TV and radical right radio can bully the mosque temple out of New York 's financial district, then we will have really shown our true colors as a failed nation.
The sad truth is, the ignorant and the intolerant have us out-numbered by far. And their numbers are growing with every Glenn Beck broadcast.
Frankly, I would say we probably have more to fear – soon and direct – from those self-satisfied, uninformed-and-determined-to-stay that-way whites who call themselves patriotic fundamentalist Christians than from anyone else.
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3 comments
The fact that it is a community center, not a mosque (and not within site of ground zero) and that such rabid hysteria is stirred by propogandists with their own agendas, then sucked in and spewed back by the sheep leaves me to think we've learned nothing of tolerance in this country, though history repeats itself regularly. Good piece Tom.
If you can't understand why people don't want the mosque near ground zero then you should enroll in a sensitivity class and learn some tolerance yourself.
I didn't really take the comment to be insensitive but, do wonder if it was a Synagogue, Baptist or Methodist Church is there would be the same uproar. Seems to be a lot of political banter to me and a lot of misinformation being put forth. JMO Thanks Tom, it did make me think about past history though.
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