National Origins Act & Drew Alis Ideology
-
I found Curtis’s comparison between the National Origins Act and Drew Ali’s ideology very interesting. It aids in understanding Ali's theology, especially highlighting its exclusionary nature.
As Curtis mentions, in 1924 Congress passed the National Origins Acts which restricted migration through a quota system that “required that 85 percent of all new migrants come from northern and western Europe” (Curtis 52). This exclusionary act aimed at preserving a hegemonic America restricting migration based on race and ethnicity. Specifically, the 1924 National Origins Act specifically restricted all migration from Asia, acting as an extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act which had already been implemented. These laws were part of a larger effort to prevent the ‘taintedness’ of migrants by restricting migration through several highly restrictive migration acts.
Curtis’s comparison between the National Origins Act and Drew Ali's theology highlights the highly restrictive nature inherent to both. Drew Ali’s conceptualization of nationalism was constructed on the understanding that “all humans should separate themselves according to their respective national groups” (Curtis 53) in which the idea of a nation “signified a common history, creed, and value system - in short, a whole culture” (Curtis 53).
Both the National Origins Act and Drew Alis's theology used race as the determinant for exclusion to preserve the ‘wholeness’ and hegemony of a culture. For the National Origins Act, this manifested into a quota policy to prevent international ‘aliens’ from tainting the oneness of American culture. For Drew Ali, this was the emphasis that “racial purity was necessary to black redemption” (Curtis 53) where race was the primary determiner of blackness and subsequently nationalism. Thus, Drew Ali's objection to interracial marriage and emphasis on reframing black particularism reflected his ideas of separation.
Further, both the National Origins Act and Drew Ali promoted ideas of cultural superiority which were integrated into their conceptualization and emphasis on exclusion. America perpetuated the concept of white superiority, where white, being the dominant culture was the pure and ‘correct’ culture. This also often included ideas of Christian religious superiority. This superiority complex was critical to the formation of exclusionary policies because they were rooted in the fear that other cultures would threaten the prominence of a dominant white culture. Drew Ali similarly believed in the superiority of the Moors. He believed that “African Americans were the Moorish descendants of the ancient Asiatic race; their creed was Islam (Curtis 54) which explains the integration of Islam into his ideologies because it was important in his conceptualization of a superior culture.