Transitioning from a long history of white supremacy to where all people are truly equal
Segment #1. The Radical Difference between slavery in America and slavery elsewhere throughout history.
The South justified the institution of slavery on the basis that slavery existed in Biblical times and was accepted as just being part of life. I don’t think there is scripture where Jesus comes out and directly condemns the institution of slavery. Paul does appeal to his friend Philemon to emancipate Onesimus, but this was a single special case, not an attack on slavery in general.
Slavery has been around for most of human history. So why get so indignant at Southerners for doing what is natural? What I have come to learn is that there was a very significant difference between slavery for most of human history, including during the Roman era, and what transpired in America beginning in the 1600’s. Heretofore, slavery was not perpetual. Typically, one became a slave when your side got decisively defeated in war. Everyone who was captured was subject to being sold into slavery. However, in most cases, their descendants were free people and not born as slaves. In time, they were able to meld into the conqueror’s culture or return to their homeland. The conquerors did not perceive those they vanquished as being inherently and perpetually inferior human beings. The Africans fought wars like everyone else and the victors made slaves of the vanquished. However, beginning in the 17th century, rather than keeping them for a generation at most, they were able to sell their captives to Europeans who then transported them to a completely new world. Those who survived the Middle Passage found themselves in a radically different culture. And surely to their great horror, they learned that there was no way that they would ever be able to return to the life they had known. Even more despairing was realizing that unlike the policies regarding slavery in Africa and what it had been throughout history, in America their children and all their descendants would be slaves forever.
To clarify – after seeing some responses below, I do not dispute that other societies have employed descent-based slavery. But it has not been the norm and it clearly was not what was practiced in Roman colonies in Biblical times. I am going to stop at this point. I want everyone to recognize that what the Europeans did in America with the perpetual enslavement of dark-skinned humans of African descent was very different from the historical institution of slavery.
In my next section, I will address how the Europeans – particularly those in the English Colonies and especially the Founding Fathers – justified this radical departure from slavery for a time to slavery forever.
Responses to Segment 1
You cannot and should not compare ideology from 300 years ago and rationalize it good or bad today because values are different and indeed slaves were sold to the British and slave traders by dominate tribes in Africa. Kind of like the Pharos building the pyramids same thing it’s just what they did in those days. It is really history that I guess will be changed to benefit someone’s ideology.
Although I am no a fan of Marxism to say the least, I do admire the thought structure Marx used regarding the dialectic evolution of the economic and political order which simplified says that slavery was the initial economic order, evolving into serfdom, which we know survived all the way into the 20th century in many parts of the world, then replaced by capitalism. (and Marx argued that the next evolution was communism, though I don’t really see the difference between serfdom and communism except the owner of labor is the state instead of the landowner.) Modern slavery really did not follow this evolution. More of a manifestation of corruption after the Portuguese, discovered the vibrant slave trade in Africa at a time where they had access to riches in South America but a huge labor shortage. I am sure you know that 95% of all slaves bought from the Africans went to South America and the Caribbean under the Portuguese and the Spanish and that, as harsh as the Colonial slave life was in the British colonies, it was mild in comparison to the harsh conditions under the Spanish and the Portuguese that usually ended up with death of slaves in just a few years for those most unfortunate victims. It is an interesting irony that the Spanish and Portuguese who imported 95% of slaves to the Americas are not at the center of the slave reparations and slavery conversations because their slaves mostly died and died quickly so there are few survivors to complain while the British/US version that affected fewer and less harshly though no less wrong are seen as the greatest offender. Of course, my own people were serfs into the late 1800s in Russia and managed to migrate to America in the early 20th century before the Revolution.
Mike, will you provide an explanation as to how, if at all, serfdom differed from slavery as practiced in antebellum America?
David, Like slavery, serfdom had different forms depending on location and time. I will speak to that which I am most familiar, serfdom in Poland, Ukraine and Russia in the 17th up to the Bolshevik revolution. Serfs were primarily attached to the land they lived on. They were not owned but the land was and they were part of the land. They worked for free, their production belonged to the landholder, they were subject to severe punishment including death, though some jurisdictions would subject the landowner to as much as a month in jail for killing them, they were not free to travel from the immediate area, and some had to marry at the direction of their land owner. Other regions had more liberal (for the times) rules including more freedom to choose their labor and more protection from sever punishment, but honestly not too much difference in eastern Europe from slavery and serfdom. War could be a good thing for serfs as they would be conscripted though if you looked at casualty rates in Eastern European wars, they were high.
Though slavery in the US was, for the most part, racially based, serfdom was very much tied to a definition of class, that we modern Americans have difficulty understanding. To a member of nobility, landed gentry or the merchant classes in Eastern Europe, peasants and serfs were as different to them as an African Americana were to Irish, Scottish or British in the south.
David, are serfs being sharecroppers?
Glynda, Similar, but not the same. Sharecroppers were not prohibited by law from leaving the landowner’s property. It was just very difficult for them to do. There is a chapter in Rising Tide by John Barry where Leroy Percy and other white plantation owners were terrified that with the flooding of the Delta in 1927, blacks would decide to move north and leave them without a labor supply. His main focus was on preventing them from doing this. Percy was well founded in his fears since the Great Migration had been underway for over 10 years. Leroy’s son, Will was in charge of the relief effort. Will attempted to facilitate blacks who wished to re-locate. Made for some Interesting family dynamics.
Should anyone ever doubt that the Civil War was about slavery, from the southern perspective it was always about slavery. By 1850 it was nearly impossible for a slave owner to emancipate his slave. Southern legislatures had virtually outlawed a slave owner emancipating his slave. Not that there were an overwhelming number of slave planters trying to emancipate their slaves. But there were a few. Even fewer took the drastic step of taking a slave to a free state where the slave could be emancipated. Though that wasn’t sufficient so far as the governing authorities were concerned in the slave states. So the former slave had his freedom truncated, at least so far as travelling back to the South.The same kind of nastiness we see today in many state legislatures which pass law that abridge the voting rights of minorities.
Richard Kilbourne — I believe that slavery was the outward manifestation of the real reason for why any war is fought — economics, greed, and the desire for advantage over competitors. The North had no real appetite to abandon slavery as long as it contributed greatly to its economy — and slavery underpinned the economy of the northern states just as much as the southern states in the 18th century. The New England ship owners and captains continued to profit from the triangular trade even after the importation of slaves from Africa was outlawed. They just shipped their live cargo from Africa to the South American or Caribbean colonies where it was still legal or authorities were more easily bribed. That gradually changed by the 1830s. The northern bankers grew rich lending money to southern planters using those same ekslsved people as collateral fir the loans. Northern mills bought southern cotton in competition with English mills to manufacture cloth. The South remained dependent on enslaved agricultural workers while the North gradually replaced slaves with exploited mill workers, many of whom were rural people lured to the factories by steady rather than seasonal wages, and recent immigrants from the U.K. and Europe. We are seeing the same kind of nastiness aimed at minorities, the working poor (wage slaves) and elderly today. The new GOP is just the old 19th century Know-nothing Party by another name. Legislatures controlled by Republicans, north and south of the Mason Dixon Line, are busy disenfranchising voters they believe will not vote for them. Racism II’s not just a Southern problem, in never was. Racism is an American problem, and always has been. Just remember that many in the victorious North wanted to ship the freed slaves “back to Africa,” a continent many of them knew absolutely nothing about. Some wanted to keep the freed Blacks in the South where “they belonged,” by carving up the plantations giving each newly freed head of household 40 acres and a mule. Some wanted to give the freedmen homesteads out west on land stolen from the Native Tribes. Virtually none of them wanted the newly freed blacks to show up in their northern cities. Police brutality against African Americans and other perceived as non- white minorities is happening as much in the north as in the south right now.
Segment #2. “Seldom do men find evil in enterprises from which they prosper”
In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote a book called “Notes on Virginia”. Chapter 8 was entitled “Population”. In it, Jefferson discussed Indians and Blacks. He considered Indians to be equal to Europeans in intelligence and natural abilities and felt that with education and acculturation, Indians would be able to meld into the American population. Regarding blacks, however, he said that “he had a suspicion that blacks are a distinct race that is inferior to whites in the endowments of both body and mind.”
Fifty years later, President Andrew Jackson would take issue with Jefferson. – regarding Indians. He fully agreed with TJ that blacks were inferior. On Indians Jackson stated, “They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits nor the desire of improvement which is essential to change. They are embedded in the midst of another and superior race and must therefore yield to the circumstances and disappear entirely.” Thereby he justified forcibly moving all Indians located east of the Mississippi River.
Why did both men agree on the inferiority of blacks but differ on Indians? Because they both owned over 150 black slaves. They differed on Indians because Jefferson had no vested interests at the time regarding Indians since there were virtually none in Virginia – they had all be exterminated or displaced by earlier Europeans. For Jackson, as a presidential candidate, he was able to win votes by taking the Indians’ land and giving it to a large segment of the electorate – poor white men. This adage regarding human nature perfectly explains why both men considered blacks to be an inherently inferior race, but Jefferson was able to retain his ideals about the equality of all men when it came to Indians: “Seldom do men perceive evil in enterprises from which they prosper.”
Humans, even the author of the Declaration of Independence, with “all men are created equal” in its preamble, was unable to avoid the corruption of personal self-interest. The same force affects whites today who don’t want to see their inherent advantages in our society over blacks be undermined. “Black Lives Matter” is not something most want to hear. In “Notes on Virginia” Jefferson followed his suspicion that blacks were inherently inferior to whites with a challenge to scientists of the future to validate his theory: “We will not know this for certain” he wrote, “until science gives us the answer.”
In my next posting, we will see how future scientists accepted TJ’s charge and found “evidence” that demonstrated that not only blacks, but all other races were inferior to whites and were destined to be ruled by the superior white race. Alas, it would lead to the “White Man’s Burden” to dominate and civilize all black, brown, red, and yellow humans. Or perhaps they were not all fully human. Quite a few scientists believed blacks were a different species altogether. Growing up in Mississippi, I knew many white men, including my father, who subscribed to these once popular scientific theories. As we will see, those past beliefs continue to profoundly affect our society today.
Responses to Segment #2
We have to rid the world of the divisive concept of race. All must be viewed as part of a single human race equal in the eyes of God and mankind.
Mike, that’s a great concept. What I have come to learn is that race is not a genetic factor; it is a social construct designed to achieve specific social and political objectives. Over 300 years were spent constructing and edifying it in America. There is still a lot of hard work to do to deconstruct it. We are still a long way from the goal you have set and where we currently are.
David again you cannot compare things that happen 300 years ago to today’s values which have changed over the years it is not realistic nor valuable to make a pointAll of us can do this it too easy. You are reaching. And so giving should we tear down Andrew Jackson statues?
Bill Pitre – I used to share your perspective. However, the more I have looked at all this with an open and objective mind, I have come to realize how much the “Caste System” that we established in America so that whites could dominate blacks greatly affects our current social order. There is a an exceptionally enlightening video series done in 2003 that I hope everyone will watch. To see it, all you need is a library card. This is a link to it. https://ebrpl.kanopy.com/product/race. Click on “Watch”, and it will ask you for your library and library card number. You will then need to create a Kanopy account. You can then watch it. The first episode is ok. I recommend you start with Episode Two “The Story we Tell”. And then go to #3. Episode 1 relates to what the Genome project teaches us about race. Prepare to learn very relevant things that you have never been taught on this topic.
David Treppendahl I think the cast system is not as real as you would think. Although in Louisiana, (although my father (not David)in law taught in Monroe with very intelligent black children who are now doctors and lawyers) Mississippi and Alabama it may not be as easy but in every case there takes self motivation to clear the hurdles and those hurdles exist for everyone no one is denied access. Aid to dependent children (enacted by Johnson) has done more harm to the cast structure than anything else ;not what Jefferson or Jackson did. it is a free society anyone can succeed and they cannot and should not pull the blame game. It sounds like you are feeling privileged and allowing this to affect your thinking. Just so you know I took a job driving trucks delivering food (to help with food supply during covid) all over the country and have a very different view of the country than when I lived in St. Francisville. I am writing this from Green Bay WI
Segment #3: “White Supremacy has been a core belief in America until very recently.”
As noted in the previous segment on racism, Thomas Jefferson recognized the utter hypocrisy of his authoring the American credo that “All men are created equal” while holding hundreds of humans in bondage. How to reconcile this? By attempting to convince himself and others that the people he was enslaving were not fully men, but something less. He had a “suspicion” that black people were inherently inferior to whites and therefore not entitled to full equality with whites. He challenged science to prove him right.
In 1857, seventy years TJ penned his “suspicion”, Roger B Taney, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court would affirm Jefferson in writing the majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision: “The question before us is, whether the class of persons described …[people of African ancestry] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a SUBORDINANT AND INFERIOR CLASS OF BEINGS, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power, and the Government might choose to grant them.”
Unlike Jefferson, Chief Justice Taney was not trying to justify his own personal interests; he had emancipated all of his slaves years before. No, he was acknowledging what some of the most prominent scientists of the day had “proven” to be true. “Types of Mankind”, co-written by Dr. Louis Agassiz of Harvard and Dr. Sam Morton and published in 1850, was considered the definitive scientific finding on human races. Based on their measurements of brain sizes, the authors determined that whites were the superior race, and all other races were inferior with black Africans being the most inferior of all. When asked, Dr. Agassiz advised President Lincoln that “no two races can dwell together on equal terms.” One race, the white race, must always dominate.
Be that as it may, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments gave the rights of citizenship to formerly enslaved black Africans. But this did not change the overwhelming perspective that whites were the superior race. When it came to immigration, only whites could become citizens. In the early 1920’s two relevant cases went to the SCOTUS. They did not challenge the premise that only whites were qualified to be US citizens; rather these two men, Takao Ozawa and Bhagat Thind, of Japan and India, respectively, argued that they were sufficiently white enough to become Americans. In Ozawa’s case, the Supreme Court said that Japanese were not Caucasians so therefore not qualified. Thind provided scientific evidence that he was “Caucasian”. The Court conceded that while that might be true, he would not be considered white by the common American and therefore denied him citizenship. Following that ruling, the state of CA stripped Thind of his property and sold it to white men.
This perspective that whites are the superior race and should be granted special advantages in America over other races, especially blacks, continued through and after WW II. Our legal systems and societal structure were built on this premise. During my lifetime, this presumption was finally challenged and has been debunked scientifically with the Genome Project. Laws have been changed. The social structure with people held in their places based on their race has forcibly been unraveled. After centuries under the previous order, forming a new social structure where all people are in fact considered and treated as equal, has understandably been a very difficult challenge. And it is not going to just happen without a lot of smart, hard work by people who have the most resources and influence to bring this about.
Perhaps the main demographic that this responsibility falls on is mine: rich white men. So what is it that we need to do?
Responses to Segment #3.
Mike Norton
I continue to believe that the goal of equal treatment cannot be achieved unless the concept of race is eliminated. Classification is a divisive tool.
Jeffry Sanford
The Human Race is the only race. When we ALL, each and every one of us, accept responsibility for remedying the damage done in our name by our government, from the slightest theft to the greatest mass murders, understanding the sovereign nature of Man, we will have arrived at the solution.
Daniel Runkle
Dave, instead of myopically focusing on the 18th and 19th terribly ignorant anthropology and antiquated “science” of those centuries, why not focus on the eternal priciples found in Scripture and History that the Church used to overturn that pseudo science of the 1800s? Preaching the Gospel is what brought freedom amd emancipation.
For example, in Acts 8 we read about the very well educated and royal Ethiopian Eunuch who was travelling to Jerusalem to worship, when he became one of the first non-Hebrew people to hear and receive the Gospel. Thus, the ancient Ethiopian Synagogue became the earliest Gentile nation Church, even before Paul’s missionary journeys to the Gentiles, and Thomas’s travels to India. Africa was top on God’s priority list for salvation.
Ethiopia had associated and worshipped in Jerusalem and Judea since the time of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
The descendants of Cush (Hebrew word for black), aka Ethiopia, were known for their advanced technology in stone cutting, architecture, hunting, and prowess in battle since the time after the flood. There’s even archaeological evidence that proves this. Moses’ wife was African.
Up in Brittania, and Germania, at the edges of the Roman Empire, our ancestors were still running around painting their face blue, and living in primitive living conditions as savages in the 1st century.
Preaching from the truth found in Scripture is what liberated the world from slavery in Europe and North America. That should be our focus!
Are you trying to incite a race war, or bitterness by returning to a focus on the terrible ignorance of the 18th century or what. The Bible teaches us to repent and move on in forgiveness. It seems like you’re doing the opposite of that. It seems like you’re fostering bitterness and resentment for the ignorance of the past. Instead, Focus on the enduring truth found in Scripture. Study Genesis 11 and focus on the fact that we’re all cousins based on Noah.
Don White
We White folk need to confess the toxic systemic racism following from our privilege and work to eliminate it within ourselves and the emotional systems in which we live, work, worship, and play.
Until we have the moral courage to recognize and acknowledge the systemic racism within white culture we can do very little to effectively remove this cancer from our society.
Gordon Fremaux
Great post. Thanks.
Larry Simeral
One of those cases where the Bible spoke first and best. God created everything and everyone. Wilberforce had no problem with this.
Dennis Leger
First, EVERYONE agrees that treatment of black folks many years ago was an American tragedy. Secondly, anyone who does not believe that America has made TREMENDOUS progress in race relations is either 1)too young to have witnessed such progress, 2)does not know any history regarding this matter, or 3)in complete denial of such progress. Take your pick in which category you are. I notice a common thread in your post, how often past tense words and phrases are used: was, was not, were, were not, were at that time, had, had been, have been, had no rights, held the power, did, did not, formerly enslaved. Your post is clearly an attempt declare that the past on this issue equals the present. Thank God for all the progress that has been made, and we are much better than our ancestors were. You even refer to a document from 1857, some 164 years ago. Let’s stop bringing up the past and suggesting that things are the same today. Certain people want to make EVERYTHING about race today. They don’t really believe it, but they make it work for them. As long as it gets them free benefits from the government, and favoritism, they will surely keep singing that song. How about if we just declare a moratorium on even mentioning race? Let the best person get the trophy, the job, the raise, etc. Which group screams RACE about EVERYTHING? Ding, Ding, Ding, you are correct; the left-liberal democrats. I just heard this morning that being able to do math correctly is RACIST! Does this suggest that blacks are incapable of doing math correctly? I don’t believe that B.S. for one second. How ridiculous is that? That’s just how absurd they have gotten with playing the race card. Today, in America, there is nothing a black person does not have the opportunity to do, accomplish, achieve that their white counterparts have. I’m not declaring anything that anybody reading this post doesn’t already know. God grant me the COURAGE to change the things I can, ACCEPT the things I cannot change, and the WISDOM to know the difference. I ACCEPT that slavery was a horrible stain on American history, I cannot change that. I ACCEPT that I am white, and I had nothing to do with slavery, I cannot change these facts. I have the COURAGE to face my accusers who will falsely blame me for what happen nearly 200 years ago. I have the WISDOM to know that there is nothing I can ever do to cause my accusers to move forward beyond the past, and not allow it to continue stealing their future.
Fast forward to today. Black inequality has all been erased by law..so now it is up to them to pull themselves out of the crapper….race baiting is a tool of the left to promote inequality. Take your research to all the benefits and programs directed at minorities to assist in the assimilation and growth out of poverty and you will find that it is their lack of desire to stay dependent on us..not our racism toward them..Look at the Hispanic and Asian communities..hard working bootstrapping folks and compare…your answer is there
Steve, your response is a very honest one. It is held by the majority of white people. It is one that I have held for much of my life. But I don’t any longer. I am hopeful that some of my other Facebook friends will respond to your post and explain why what you have stated above is at the very core of the problem that our society has with racial injustice.
Dad these points are very good – these segments are important and I look forward to reading more. I think it’ll be important to talk about the way policies from 300, 200, 50 years ago built the inequality we have today. To the people saying non white races can “pull themselves up” themselves and that there are social programs that make up for the gap, its so far from true. The wealth gap between white and black americans is so large, and this is due to policies put in place throughout history and today to keep the white race in power. I look forward to seeing your thoughts on where we are today and what that means for wealthy white people of the country who care to fix it.
Sophie, Perhaps you can answer a few questions. This can be a bit uncomfortable for those who truly believe that blacks in America are not doing better today because of something that happened 200-300 years ago. After posting these questions several times, nobody has been willing to answer them thus far. 1)In America today, what opportunities for achievement, accomplishment, business success, financial success, family life success is available to white people (or others) that are not available to blacks because of their skin color?
2)Do you think that among the black community the same phenomenon exists that is present among every other race or ethnic group — that those who are more intelligent, or willing to work harder and put forth more effort than others have a better chance of becoming successful at anything?
3)If “oppression” of black folks is still happening today, how do you explain the many, many black Americans that came from poverty to become very successful, some incredibly successful? Was it their attitude? What did they do so differently from their peers that are still wallowing in poverty? Did they make a choice to leave that old “white folks owe me something” mindset behind? Did they wake up and realize that what happened to their ancestors 200-300 years ago would have no impact on their success today? How did they come to that choice while so many others did not? Perhaps the answer is exactly the same for ALL ethnic groups; those whom are smarter and/or work harder, and are willing to put forth the extra effort have a much higher chance of becoming successful. Likewise, regardless of which ethnic group they belong to, those whom are lazy, and don’t want to work, depend on others, have a much lower chance of any success. We both know all of the types of people I have described. The truth is that in America today, there is absolutely NOTHING a black, brown, blue, white, or yellow American citizen cannot accomplish solely due to their skin color. There are certain individuals who cannot and absolutely will not admit to this truth.
David Treppendahl
Dennis Thank you for taking the time to post such a well written and thoughtful question. It goes right to the heart of the issue. I will hold off responding for several days. Let’s see what other progressives have to say. Again, thanks for such an excellent response
David
David E. Weller
Yes David we as a country have a dark past. Today we are not a racist country. Is there racism, of course, but not systemic racism as the media and democrats try to make us think. I have worked with many black people in my career of 37 years. These were successful people. They got an education and worked hard just as you and I have done. They are good people with good lives. I am friends with many. Bringing up the partial person issue now accomplishes what? All races are not considered equal in the eyes of our government and most citizens.
Racism will always be on Earth. Due to the fallen world there will always be evil and hatred. Those who constantly keep bringing up how America whites use to feel does not help the moving forward but the opposite.
Bill Hall
David E. Weller, as you say this country has a dark past, as does every civilized country, and it is this dark past that Democrats, the Biden Administration, Progressives, Liberals, American Socialists, American Communists, Black Lives Matters, and the Al Sharpton wannabe race hustlers are dredging up as a way to validate their claims we are a racist country with “systemic racism” running rampant through our society. What we are seeing is a coordinated effort on the part of the Democrats to make people believe this line of racist bullshit they’re spreading as a way to get those black and Hispanic voters who voted for Republican candidates in 2020 to vote for Democrats in 2022 and beyond. In other words, they want those voters to get back on the plantation where their liberal white masters will take care of them.
Bill Pitre
David, Neither you nor I have ever been or will be racist. The existence of white privilege in my lifetime has been non existent I have and will continue to have business and social engagements with my black friends (who are republicans I may add)
It is my belief and my black friends belief also that the current level of “racism” has been falsely exaggerated by the black community and there leaders for financial, power and political motifs. They believe as I do that personal choices are available to black people to be successful if they choose.
On another note, when I was doing business in Minneapolis in 1988 the race profile was 98% white and 2% other. So Minneapolis’s people have net had the long exposure to blacks also the profile of black people there is extremely different than in Louisiana many more criminals percentage wise. Not sure why but true. Remember my son is a police officer.
So, the current exposures and news coverage are extremely politically driven. And not for the benefit of the black community.
David Treppendahl
Bill Pitre – Well, you are hanging out with a very small minority of people in the black community. Only 4% of blacks consider themselves to be strong Republicans. Only 8% affiliate with the party. I have been spending time with and reading books by members of the black community who make up the vast majority of their political spectrum. And none that I have spoken to or read books by subscribe to the elite blacks you hang out with. Let me suggest two books to you to read: “Caste” by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson and “I’m Still Here” by Austin Channin Brown. The social structure we have operated under in America for over 300 years – one based on white supremacy and all other races being in their places below us – has been torn down. It no longer functions, but many vestiges of it still linger. We need to form a new social structure where people of all races are truly treated equally. We have made some progress in that direction, no doubt, but there is a whole lot more work to be done. Before we pass this on to the next generation to deal with, I think that us rich white guys with time, power and influence should invest ourselves in mitigating the problem as much as we can before we exit stage right. No doubt, if you are in Wisconsin delivering Covid vaccines to the underserved, you understand that we need to be giving back. Effectively addressing racial injustice is an area that will require a lot of hard work. A big step is to get white people to see that this is a very real and very big problem that is doing great harm to our society.
Segment #4. “Why African Americans are Uniquely Challenged and Why Whites are most responsible for and most able to Help Them.”
I am responding to the excellent posts on this topic from Dennis Leger, Steve Jordan, David Weller, Bill Pitre and others. As I understand, the gist is that there was a time when America was a racist nation – 300, 200, or 100 years ago, but that is all in the past. As a country, we now recognize that all men are created equal and African Americans (AA’s) have just as much of an opportunity to achieve the American Dream as anyone else. And, when you factor in such things as Affirmative Action, they even have a leg up on the rest of us. If they are falling short, it is their fault, not ours. They need to stop whining, knuckle down, and work hard. If they do that, they will enjoy the same quality of life that whites and any other race does in America.I get this perspective. I have held it for most of my life. After all, we ended Jim Crow 50 years ago and we have we elected an African American (at least half) as President and then re-elected him. But I no longer hold this perspective. On Monday, I completed a 25-hour on-line webinar with 12 other people on “Faith & Racial Equity: Exploring Power & Privilege” which was developed by JustFaith Ministries of the Catholic Church. Including the books and videos required for the course, I invested about 75 hours of my time attempting to better understand why racial problems have not yet just gone away in America.I think that I am safe in saying that those who have inveighed against my perspective that racial injustice is a huge problem we need to address agree that AAs’ current “performance” as an ethnic group falls short of essentially all other demographic groups with the possible exception of Native Americans. AAs on average score lower on standardized tests, have lower graduation rates, a higher ratio of people in prison, hold fewer positions of leadership in industry, and have much less accumulated wealth. I think I am also safe in saying that people with black skin who have immigrated to America in the post Jim Crow era by and large have been equally successful as other ethnic groups with different skin hues, including whites. (I am stepping outside of what my seminar taught in saying this.) So, I proport that today it is not as much the color of the skin as it is the collective experience of AAs that results in their poor “performance” relative to other people groups. The point is that AAs have experienced something that is unique and innately debilitating that no other people groups in America, except perhaps Native Americans, have experienced. America, as we track our history, began 400 years ago. For the first 235 years, AAs were heritably enslaved. Among the worst aspects of this was that nuclear families were not allowed. AA’s were subject to having their spouses and children separated and sent away at the whim of their white masters. Following the dozen year interlude of Reconstruction, AAs were forced into a subservient caste under Jim Crow until the 1970’s. This was enforced with multiple laws at the local, state, and federal level which included prohibiting FHA home financing to AA’s up until the 1960’s. A few other things to note: In 1930, Louisiana had a total of 4 high schools for AA’s. Until the 1960’s, if an AA swam in most public swimming pools, the pool had to be drained and scrubbed before whites would swim in it. The Alabama constitution prohibited interracial marriage between whites and AAs until 2000 when it was put to a referendum. Forty percent of the Alabama electorate voted against the change. This is not ancient history. African Americans have been dealt a uniquely terrible hand by whites, the American dominate caste. Their unique failure to measure up to other ethnic groups in “performance” is the result of this terrible hand and not because they are innately inferior and lazy. We whites of today, who enjoy the greatest prosperity of any nation in history (and ten times that of AA’s), did not personally enslave nor force AAs into a subservient place. But we have greatly benefited from this arrangement and most importantly, we are the ones in the best position from a standpoint of wealth and influence to effectively address the racial inequities of the past that are still causing huge problems today. If we don’t do it, who will?
Segment #5 – Ron Perritt’s Take on the Issue.
Ron Perrit participated with me in the Catholic Church’s JustFaith series entitled “Faith & Racial Equity: Exploring Power & Privilege.
There are several factors necessary for accumulation of wealth in our economy, especially since WWII. These include opportunities for good paying jobs, education, and financial resources. In general, wealth in one generation is necessary to access to higher education and good jobs for the next generation. The disparity between black citizens and white citizens regarding these factors has been enormous for decades. When black people have had access to these requirements, they have indeed done very well. The general economic condition of the black community today is a result of decades of being denied these success factors in previous generations. Certainly, no one can argue that the quality of the educational system for black people was anywhere near that for whites until recently. Segregation resulted in a second-class education for most black children. For example, in 1930 there were just four black high schools in the entire state of Louisiana and black teachers were paid just over half of that paid to white teachers. Since white people owned most businesses, good jobs most often went to white family members and friends. Redlining has prevented black families from access to good housing available to white families. Because of all these, there has been less opportunity to accumulate wealth in the black community. Here are three examples of how government programs have often been biased in favor of whites.
(1)”One of the multiple programs a newly-elected Franklin D. Roosevelt established to stimulate the economy offered home-buying aid for Americans—but only white Americans. The Federal Housing Administration, operated through the New Deal’s National Housing Act of 1934, promoted homeownership by providing federal backing of loans—guaranteeing mortgages. But from its inception, the FHA limited assistance to prospective white buyers…The FHA had a manual which explicitly said that it was risky to make mortgage loans in predominantly Black areas, …And so as a result, the federal subsidy for home ownership went almost entirely to white people…The assistance program not only limited recipients to white Americans, it established and then reinforced housing segregation in the United States, effectively drawing lines between white and Black neighborhoods that would persist for generations. For example, in 1940, the FHA denied insurance to a private builder in Detroit because he intended to construct a housing development near a predominantly Black neighborhood. The FHA only wanted to insure houses in white neighborhoods.” For a fuller discussion of this topic, see https://www.history.com/news/housing-segregation-new-deal-program and The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.
(2) Benefits under the GI Bill program after WWII were denied to millions of black service men. Thus There are several factors necessary for accumulation of wealth in our economy, especially since WWII; opportunities for good paying jobs, education, and financial resources. In general, wealth in one generation is necessary to access to higher education and good jobs for the next generation. The disparity between black citizens and white citizens regarding these factors has been enormous for decades. When black people have had access to these requirements, they have indeed done very well. The general economic condition of the black community today is a result of decades of being denied these success factors in previous generations. Certainly no one can argue that the quality of the educational system for black people was anywhere near that for whites until recently. Segregation resulted in a second-class education for most black children. For example, in 1930 there were just four black high schools in the entire state of Louisiana and black teachers were paid just over half of that paid to white teachers. Since white people owned most businesses, good jobs most often went to white family members and friends. Redlining has prevented black families from access to good housing available to white families. Because of all these, there has been less opportunity to accumulate wealth in the black community. Here are three examples of how government programs have often been biased in favor of whites.
(3) Although our government’s most basic responsibility is to ensure every citizen has a right to vote, it was only in 1964-65 that most black people had the opportunity to vote and have a voice in changing policies that were clearly detrimental. It took our predominantly white government 200 years to mandate the most basic constitutional right for everyone, a right that is continually under siege by white legislators at the state and federal level.
I was able to go to college because my father went to college on the GI bill and, as a result, got a good job which gave me opportunities that I would have never have had otherwise. The point is that the disparity in access to the factors needed for success, particularly in the last decades, has drastically reduced the opportunity for black families to succeed compared to whites. You miss the point if you think that David is arguing that the events of 200 years ago are the reason blacks are far behind economically. It’s the predominant attitude of white people 200 years ago that has propagated into the 20th and 21 centuries resulting in conditions that have disadvantaged the great majority of black people in virtually every possible way.