Origins of racism in the US
It’s pretty simple really. The wealth in this country came from displacing American Indians and off the backs of black slaves and various immigrant groups. Modern military and colonial efforts always dehumanize those they are robing and killing. If all people have inalienable rights but your economy is run on slaves, it makes sense to come up with ideological reasons that those people are slaves and not worthy of rights. If you’re paying low wages in your hotels or factories it’s helpful when people blame the “poor” culture of immigrants, rather than their poor wages, for poverty.
Anti-immigration and anti-illegal-immigration is not inherently racist. Learn the difference between xenophobia and racism then rewrite your thesis statement.
The same arguments made today about undocumented immigrants were made against Irish and Chinese immigrants before documentation was required. These arguments were that Chinese immigrants would turn the US into a “heathen” (3rd world) country; that Chinese would overrun the country. That Irish were a threat to Democracy and would turn the US into a papal theocracy (“Latino immigration is a ploy by the DNC to get more voters and turn the US socialist!”) The arguments have always relied on xenophobia.
lol at racism is bad but xenophobia is good
It’s also helpful not to live life through the racist conspiracy theory that whites are eternally out to screw over minorities. Your post implies minorities are either too weak or too stupid to make it in life without help from whites.
Lol, what the ferck are you talking about? My post said nothing about white people. Why are you, like totally obsessed with those guys?
The post implied no such thing.
How do you explain left wing antisemitism?
Not sure what that is, but US antisemitism is likely a combination of European antisemitism, domestic nativism and xenophobia against immigrants, and an earlier domestic tradition of anti-Freemason conspiracies. (the Know-nothings believed that immigration was a ploy by Freemasons... not unlike antisemetic conspiracies today.)
There's legitimate criticism of Israel's government and policies that gets painted as anti-Semitism because convenient arguments are convenient.
Let’s blame the irish and the german blood who immigrated decades ago. Jk 🙂
Practicing writing every weekend? After reading the replies so far, it's unclear who this post refers to as racists and why, and yet it succeeds in triggering some.
Just blame white males. That is OK nowadays until you realize they do one thing and one thing very very well: they vote and theyre involved while other groups cant even show up to the polls. Identity politics will ruin the Democratic party and so will their purity tests. You cannot go insulting white people and hope theyll cry about their white privilege and vote for you. It will not happen. They vote like minorities now thanks to dumb crap from the NYT and WashPo. They have to win Minn, WI, Ohio, FL. These places do not give a shit about snowflake cuckold twitter mobs or bathroom issues. Just get a jobs plan and be a centrist. Trump can lose but I do think hell win 2020.
Alwazangry, I’m not talking about specific individuals who are bigoted, but ideology and why it developed or became more general. If you are interested in attributing the development of certain ideas to certain groups it’s possible but a more complicated story. In an over-simplified form: newspapers and Industrialists created anti-immigrant yellow peril hysteria during the Great Depression of the late 1800s. Slaveowners and colonial then state governments played a major role in dehumanizing black people to justify existing slavery.
Interesting hypothesis (it's nice to have a break from all the blind TC posts :) ) - but i disagree with 2 or 3 of the 4 points 1. The wealth did not come from displacing Indians and the back of black slaves. Displacing populations and slavery was a very common phenomenon globally (e.g. very prevalent in Africa and the Arab world) - this did not result in significant wealth almost anywhere. There are many poor countries with plenty of natural resources and slavery & colonization were shown to, counter-intuitively, slow growth (it hurts innovation - extremely cheap labor reduces the incentive to build tech and optimize). US states that did not practice slavery were wealthier and England was not made wealthier through colonization - it was actually the reverse and most colonized countries ended up wealthier than similar countries that were not (I am NOT in insinuating that colonization was a good or morale thing - only speaking economic outcome - which is not everything). This is a case of confusing correlation with causation. It's true that many wealthy nations had slaves, but it was not the source of their wealthy - the reverse is true. Having slaves was a luxury - it makes things more comfortable and it comes at a high cost that could only be afforded by the wealthiest nations. 2. "Modern military and colonial efforts always dehumanize..." - are you seriously suggesting that modern military and colonial efforts are more dehumanizing than ancient military? compared to what? This is all a part of a self-critical modern western narrative by affluent nations feeling guilt for being successful. Outside of the world wars, modern warfare and colonization efforts were equally or more humane than wars that preceded it. Slavery and the subjugation of a conquered society were both very commonplace in ancient societies there is nothing specially evil with the "modern approach" - it is just of a closer proximity to our time when we set new morale standards. 3. I agree 100% - this was the only point you had to make, why were the others needed? This is an argument that I heard of before and I think is quite solid. Most nations were not based on "inalienable rights" for its population and, therefore, there was not necessity to dehumanize anyone to justify subjugation. The only way slavery could be justified is by arguing that the slaves were not real humans. That's the major difference between slavery in the US and other forms of slavery and did not really require such a morale justification. Unfortunately, this resulted in much worse long-term effects after slavery was abolished. 4. I kinda agree, BUT the fact it is used as an excuse for wealthy people does not make it wrong. This is becoming even more extreme in an economy that is becoming less and less friendly to unskilled labor. Automation is going to create enormous challenges that neither classic capitalism nor socialism have good answers for.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. There’s a lot in there, so I apologize if I skip something. 1. Ancient slavery was generally through war whereas new world slavery was based on international trade of cash crops. Moreover it was systematic because the Americas needed a labor pool. The value of ancient slaves was just in trading the slaves or loot of conquest - the value of modern slaves was their potential to produce cash crops and slavery went on and intensified in the US long after the slave trade was ended. -The invention of the cotton gin caused US slavery to skyrocket. -What made northern states and more specifically England manufacturing centers? Textiles - where were the materials from, the slave south. Remember “triangular trade” from school textbooks? -England was made wealthy by colonization. India was set backwards and development by England was geared towards infrastructure and ports to send goods out of the area. Ireland and India (just off the top of my head) suffered famines while England continued to take crops from those areas to sell internationally. 2 & 3) Yes this point was unclear due to seeking brevity on my part. Modern military and colonial efforts innovated biological justifications. The first instance of this that I am aware of is with the Spanish driving out the moors and then persecuting Jews on a biological basis rather than a “heathen vs true religion” basis since the Spanish rulers wanted to remove Jews (even if they converted) from positions of power. New world colonization was also initially “heathens vs” but gradually became biological as Caribbean colonies developed a layered racial hierarchy where Africans were slaves, natives had no rights and mixed background people became a sort of middle layer. In the future US colonies and early US states, biological racism developed as white indentured servants and black slaves fraternized and began to rebel. In order to break the threat, Virginia, as one example, outlawed intermarriage and fraternization between servants and slaves, while giving more rights to servants and putting more restrictions on slaves. 4) I agree that once these ideas took hold, they became more generalized in society and more complex. But my point is about the origin of these ideas and to counter common arguments I hear that it’s just a natural phenomenon or that “well everyone has some kind of bigotry” (so racist systems and ideas just emerged magically from the ether.) There are concrete written records in the colonial and US law as well as later in newspapers that show the development of these ideas from specific groups of powerful and influential people (slaveowners, etc) to a more generalized view among the population.
Is this post about the origins of racism or is this post trying to argue that the USA is only rich because of slavery and exploitation? If the post is about the origins of racism, then can’t we all agree that humans are inherently tribal and there is a natural inclination to think about our group vs. the evil others (not just in terms of race, also political parties, sports teams, high schools, etc.) and make sweeping generalizations about the others (people from “name your least favorite state” are idiots). If this post is claiming that wealth creation in the US is based on racial exploitation, then what explains the huge economic growth since 1860 when the population was only 30M? What about the post- WW2 economy? Or the wealth creation by immigrants? Overall this just seems like another try by Ellis to start a revolution of the privileged on Blind 🤷🏽♂️
It’s neither of those arguments. It’s that racism was the ideological justification developed for the main exploitative ways wealth was created. -the “everyone is a bigot” argument is what I am arguing against. It doesn’t match the historical record. If everyone was tribal, it seems pretty weird to force Africans over to the Americas just to then segregate them. -racism ended in 1860 according to you?
Counterpoint - I don't want a race to the bottom against people who are willing to tolerate conditions deemed inhumane in this country 50 years ago. What they look like is irrelevant.
I agree, restrictions on immigration should be ended so that anyone working a job has the same rights, protections and wages. Making migration “illegal” just creates a lower tier of workers who are too scared of the authorities to make demands for equal pay and whatnot. The minimum wage should also be raised significantly to prevent a race to the bottom among native born workers.
Are you saying that a gardener that lives in US and pays taxes shouldn't blame immigrants that take his job and don't pay taxes and can work for less
Yes, they should not blame immigrants. The only people who have the power to take jobs or give jobs are employers.
Credit karma slayed 😂