Essay Questions

In 1790, what did Congress legislate as the requirements for an immigrant to become a citizen of the United States of America?

The very first Congressional mandate on the steps to becoming a fully recognized citizen of the newest country on the globe were amazingly simple. Anyone who had migrated from their native country into America needed only to reside within the borders for one full year after which they stood before a magistrate and swore an oath of allegiance to the United States that included the condition of intention to residing within the country. There’s also the very first condition stated: citizen would be open to “all white persons” meeting the above conditions.

What sorry truth of law enforcement in America is underscored by the statistical spike in lynching in the southern United States?

The slogan found on any number of law enforcement vehicles across America is “to protect and serve.” The object of this protection and service notably remains unclarified with the implicit assumption being “the people.” The truth is as clear as the number of cop cars that show up at a bank being robbed as opposed to a prostitute being murdered. Law enforcement exists primarily to protect private property and serve the interests of the wealthy. This state of affairs is reflected in the origination of and subsequent rise in the lynching of black Americans in the south. During slavery, lynching was pretty much unknown regardless of the crime that a slave might have committed. Because slaves were valuable property, their owners would loathe to kill them and so the very same crimes that would have made them victims of vigilante capital justice following Reconstruction were instead dealt with corporally in what is a truly ghastly reflection of the American law enforcement system as a whole.

What does the author identify as the great irony of Barack Obama?

There is much that is ironic about Obama. He is identified almost uniquely as the nation’s first black President when, genetically speaking, he is simultaneously just another in the long line of white Presidents. Obama exists as a radical communist in the minds of many conservatives when the truth is that his economic agenda as President was barely distinguishable that of the three most recent Republican Presidents who preceded him. Amidst all this irony, however, the author identifies the overarching paradox of the man: he became the most success black politician in American history by studiously avoiding the most incendiary racial issues of the modern age. As evidence, the author points out that the single most audacious statement that Barack spoke about on the issue of race as President was the single comment about Trayvon Martin which sent the right wing into a tailspin of lunacy: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”