Stumble It!Nov 16 2008
On Race and Racism
Historically speaking, race and racism were not normally confined to the color of a person’s skin. In ancient Rome, Africans, Near Asians, and Europeans could all be slaves, freemen, or citizens and so were not bound by color distinctions. Ancient Egyptians were ruled by Near Eastern, Nubian, and Greek Pharaohs. In fact, most skin-based racism is a fairly recent development in the entire history of Man, dating back a mere few hundred years.
In the United States, Africans were brought to plantations, farms, and houses all over the eastern sea board. In Anglo-American cities and towns, it was not unusual for these Africans to either be emancipated within about 10 or 20 years, or to purchase their own freedom. Slaves in the 17th century were more indentured servants, closer to their European counterparts, than actual “slaves” in the 18th through 19th centuries. In fact, the idea of trading in human flesh, as in capturing and treating other human beings as cattle and possessions, was disdained by 17th century English society - it was both unChristian and unCivilized.
America, however, was blessed with an abundance of prime growing land for labor-intensive, but lucrative, agricultural products such as tobacco and cotton. The labor was so intensive that there was a dire need for new labor on the American shores; indentured labor could not cover the gap - even “criminal” indentures (such as an ancestor of mine who came from the Isle of Man and was indentured for “tax evasion”) were insufficient. Eventually, profitability won out over contempt and the Royal African Company was formed in order to meet demand in the colonies. Unfortunately (as my Free Trade friends will tell you) the British government was woefully inadequate at managing the supply to meet demand. Private enterprise would eventually be the death of government-controlled slave trading, and slave trading would boom for centuries. In order to make the slave trading more profitable, and palatable, Africans were demeaned and dehumanized. Their complex social traditions were denigrated as “barbaric” and their religion was portrayed as “ignorant” and “savage.” Over time, Africans ceased to be human (in Western eyes) and were traded like cattle. The flood of slavery had truly picked up steam by the end of the 17th century and was in full swing by the early 18th century.
This turned out to be a boon for land owners who had the wherewithal to support a large, dependent population on their land. Smaller farmers were forced out by an inability to keep pace with the profits coming out of these larger plantations. Many sold their farms (which they had homesteaded and built by hand over the course of many years, by the way) and took jobs as overseers or share croppers on the large plantations, often living on the very same land they once owned. The Yeoman farmer had been replaced by the dark-skinned slave; resentment began to build. These overseers were almost always white, poor, ill-educated, and told by their white employers that blacks were the reason they lost their homes and jobs. In fact, many overseers were rewarded when slaves were recaptured and returned to the plantations. It’s easy to see how, in this environment, that Africans came to be viewed as lazy, subhuman, and worthless by their white overseers (though not by white owners, usually).
The Civil War ended with the theoretical abolition of slavery, but in reality, many African Americans were precluded from owning land, voting, and in some cases, from moving off the land they had once been slaves upon. Still, many black Americans found their way north to Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New York, and Pittsburgh where they found better-paying work in factories, textile mills and on the docks. Though these jobs were better-paying than those agricultural ones in the South, these jobs came with their own risks and exploitations. In order to break up burgeoning Unions which demanded safer working environments, and end to child labor, and better wages, company owners (also called “Bosses”) would hire African Americans, Poles, Irish, Italians, and other ethnic strike breakers, forcing whites from northern and Western European stock to come back to work without concessions. The racial tension between all kinds of Europeans was only eclipsed by their shared disdain for African Americans (I imagine it was because it was easier to identify an African American from a distance than it was to distinguish a German from a Swede or Pole).
The South was no picnic for African Americans either; Jim Crow laws, Poll Taxes, and violently-racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and The Know Nothings which engaged in lynchings and murders. Southern share croppers were prevented from entering into unions or even assembling in places other than churches (and even then, they were subject to white racist attacks).
It wasn’t until well into the 20th century that African Americans were allowed to assemble, vote, or enter non-traditionally black colleges. Even the attempts at egalitarianism that FDR proposed were blocked by the powerful Southern Democrat block (sometimes known as Dixiecrats) who were elected on blatantly-racist platforms; it is during the 1950’s and 60’s that Dixiecrats defected to the Republican party which itself had sided with business workers in the industrial North. The Republican party, therefore, became the party that favored the ownership class while the increasingly-liberal Democratic (usually Northern Democrats) party appealed to Unions, African Americans, and Catholics (since most Catholics were subject to similar discrimination; Irish, Italians, and Poles all were excluded from certain professions and sectors of employment). One of the most famous Dixiecrats-turned-Republican was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina who famously filibustered the 1957 Civil Rights Act for 24 hours and 18 minutes. He once said:
“I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”
He and his formerly-Dixiecrat contemporaries continued their racist agenda throughout their careers, opposing the Voting Rights Act and the establishment of Martin Luther King’s birthday as a Federal Holiday. Ironically, though Strom hated African Americans enough to keep them from enjoying equal protection under the law, they were attractive enough that he sired at least one daughter with an African American mistress.
The 1960’s were a watershed era in the Civil Rights movement, breaking down barriers to color across the entire United States on the official level. Social resentment and hatred, however, remained entrenched and perhaps became more virulent as racist demagogues preached that the white race, American values, and even Christianity were under siege by socialist forces.
It is worthy to note that in spite of the election of Barack Obama - or perhaps because of it - racism is nowhere near ended in the United States; The Southern Poverty Law Center which keeps tabs on white supremacist groups’ activities noted that on election day there were 87 inquiries into literature from Storm Front, a neo-Nazi group’s website. The day after, there were over 2000 inquiries; the trend has not abated since then.
