Race and Class in 2014

I am often reminded by the saying that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Nowhere is this saying more true and applicable than in the United States of America. Throughout human history when our better angels were at play – people generally understood the need for compassion, caring for ones fellow-man and general empathy for the less fortunate or aggrieved; however these altruistic feelings are easily moved aside when such visceral feelings as fear and insecurity come into play.

There was a time in the United States when people generally united around class interest regardless of color or ethnicity in as much as these individuals saw themselves as being part of a common lot. This interest based unification of indentured servants proved disconcerting to the wealthy planter class during the colonial period as it often led to unified acts of labor rebellion of blacks and whites against the wealthy elite who controlled the colonies during the colonial period.

One such revolt against the exploitive conditions endured by indentured servants during the colonial period was the Bacon Rebellion of 1676 that saw Africans and indentured European servants unite and pick up arms. The response of the elite to this event could be considered one of the causal events in the construction of a racial caste system or white supremacy in the United States the vestiges of which are ever-present even in 2014.

However what is instructive is that the response to this rebellion by the wealthy elite was to devise a system that would ensure that indentured white and black servants would never unite against them in the future and threaten their economic and political domination of the colonies. Suffice it to say that the institution of white supremacy/racism was created by the wealthy whites of Jamestown in the 17th century.

This system was designed to pit the perceived interest of poor European immigrants against those of enslaved blacks by giving them a stake in the slave system as overseers, patrollers (which has morphed into the police) whose job it was to put down slave uprisings or capture escaped slaves.

After the end of slavery – this system would morph itself into Black Codes, Jim Crow and other laws, practices and policies that would legally provide economic, social and political advantage to poor and working class whites over blacks.

As levitra generic canada more hit the market every year, spurred on by an increasingly health conscious public, this list is for the benefit of writers so that any site that shares videos or images, or bookmarks of any other media, are not included. The active component Tadalafil then inhibits PDE-5 and undermines its functioning. best soft cialis Caverta found blessings for the ED confronting sildenafil 100mg tablets people. But how do you know cialis without prescription you are buying a medicine with sildenafil citrate has enabled millions of men to avail a healthy treatment when also taking kamagra . However what is so instructive from history is that as mentioned in the beginning of this article is that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The wealthy class of slave owners who created the system of racism in the United States did not care for the welfare lower class whites any more than that of the slaves. However they understood that they needed to share some of the fruits of the system with the lower class of whites to ensure they remained loyal to the system as a whole even if it meant they would remain poor – at least they could say they were not slaves.

Now this psychic arraignment has been passed down for several hundred years now as if it is the natural order of things and not a deliberate construct that has privileged whites and discriminated against blacks. What is instructive is that the slave holding planter class was replaced by the Robber Barons, Industrialist and Royalist as FDR would call this class have shown an absolute indifference if not an utter disdain for the lower and working class whites all while employing dog whistle politics.

Class warfare by the wealthy has always employed racism “hatred of blacks” as a convenient diversionary tool whether it be by expanding slavery to lower wages of poor whites, using blacks to break union strikes years later (unions that excluded blacks) and the perceived reverse racism of Affirmative Action, while jobs were being shipped overseas.

It has always been an elite propaganda ploy to blame everything wrong with the economy/society on the black population to divert attention away from corporate greed and lack of patriotism. Hopefully this tried and true tactic will lose its effectiveness in the 21st century.

Submitted by Christopher A. Clarke on 9/17/14. 

Christopher A. Clarke is managing editor of Black2020.Com and can be reached through the sites contact page.

Professor Gerald Horne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiycTP0APQ#t=371

1 Comments

  1. cclarke100@optonline.net September 19, 2014 at 3:12 am

    Very educational.

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