Race

“In an effort to protect their superior status and economic position, the planters shifted their strategy for maintaining dominance… the planters took an additional precautionary step, a step that would later come to be know as a ‘racial bribe’… barriers were created so that free labor would not be placed in competition with slave labor… it may be impossible to overstate the significance of race in defining the basic structure of American society. The structure and content of the original constitution was based largely on the effort to preserve a racial caste system… As James Madison put it, the nation ought to be constituted ‘to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority’” (Alexander, 24-25).

If this seems like something that has passed and you find yourself wondering how the same race antagonism could exist today let me remind you, “In Wacquant’s words: ‘Racial division was a consequence, not a precondition of slavery, but once it was instituted it became detached from its initial function and acquired a social potency all its own’” (Alexander, 26). Finally, how and why would any of this still be happening or relevant in a colorblind society?

“Tom Watson, a prominent Populist leader, in a speech advocating a union between black and white farmers: ‘You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism that enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars you both’” (Alexander, 33).

You live in a socially and systemically racist society. While white privilege affords much of the population a semblance of benefit from this condition, the primary beneficiary is the opulent minority. However, thanks to the civil rights movement and the new ‘colorblind’ agenda, the social potency of racism is turning. We have a civilization that mostly believes that racism (not just slavery, or disenfranchisement) is wrong. Use that power here, fight the colorblind propaganda now.