The high road or the low road for African-Americans?

Submitted by Dave (United States), Sep 30, 2020 at 21:13

Sounds like a really interesting book. Thank you, Dr. Pipes.
Understandably, the bitterness many blacks have felt due to racism and poverty have found expression in the Nation of Islam's anti-white racism and black nationalism, and more lately in antisemitism. While these expressions of hatred and social inferiority may have been emotionally cathartic, they have not yielded much in the way of tangible benefits. Instead, they have stirred up resentment and have politically marginalized many blacks.
Despite the migration towards mainstream Islam, it appears that the same negative trends have continued under the guise of secular leftist and Islamist anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Western radicalism. Now we see Black Lives Matter at riots, allied with violent groups like Antifa, pro-Palestinian radicals, and some of their spokespeople praise Farrakhan. This trend is the low road, and it leads nowhere.
In contrast, we have seen the Reverend Martin Luther King, a Christian minister, make huge strides for black acceptance and legal protections using positive messages derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition of non-violence, equality and universal brotherhood. Dr. King and his followers showed immense physical and moral courage in forswearing vengeance and pettiness by rising above the fray and setting a positive example of social change. That's the high road.
The difference is one of ethics. Through thousand of years of trial and error, Judeo-Christian ethics have been honed into an effective set of principles for social cohesion. People may be attracted to other systems, but they will eventually discover that they are ethically deficient, and that is especially true of Islam. African-Americans need to pay close attention to what's been happening in Africa, where innocents are being slaughtered regularly in many countries by jihadist groups like Boko Haram, an ally of ISIS. Other African countries, like Mauritania, practice slavery on a large scale, where two percent of the population are blacks enslaved by Arabs. For years, the Muslim Arabs in northern Sudan slaughtered the Christian and animist blacks of the south in the hundreds of thousands. Islam may be cool here in America, but it can prove deadly to the brothers in Africa.
The high road is the wise choice.

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