The "Accidental" Racist
Webster’s provides 2 somewhat overlapping definitions for the term “Racism.” The first is - “a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” The second primary definition is - “the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.” I view these as overlapping because the second definition is almost entirely dependent on the existence of the first. The United States of America is unambiguously Racist. I’m sure some of my friends who’ve never experienced living with a permatan will have their doubts about that last statement. (Might be worth reading an earlier post on the topic - https://bigdub1.substack.com/p/down-for-the-brown ). No doubt that’s because they can point to the first definition and, honestly, assert they do NOT believe members of their particular race are better than the members of any other race. Seems fair enough EXCEPT, as I have already noted, AMERICA IS A RACIST NATION.
The reasons I hold this view (which are also the reasons my prior statement is true) are literally embedded in the history of the USA. To be completely fair, much of that truth was initially built upon a shared belief that the religious and economic systems of white Europeans were vastly and inherently superior to those of brown people. Wrong as that view was and is, its long term effects surround and plague our nation today.
In early Puritan America, religion and commerce came together and boiled virtually all “success” to dedication to never-ending hard work. Indeed, without such work all “Sinners” were sure to burn in Hell (a la Jonathan Edwards - Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God). The Puritans were generally aligned with Calvinists for whom Jonathan Edwards delivered his quintessential “puritanical” sermon. America’s “work ethic” was a direct product of this mindset.
What is rarely, if ever, taught in America’s public schools is the “result” of this mentality, to wit - its impact on the aboriginal people of the Americas and the enslaved Africans the Puritans and their ilk continuously brought here over hundreds of years. Members of both of those groups had a fair amount in common. One was skin that was varying shades of brown. Another was their general relationship with nature. Their cultures also had some shared values. They deeply valued community, they respected nature and were genuinely grateful for all it provided. However it is what they did NOT value that links them, in my view, most of all. They did not value work as some sort of salvific act but rather as a means to an end. Among both of these broad groups there were, of course, variations based on regional origins and familial connections however the fundamental sameness was almost universal.
To briefly recap, we have the OG Racists from Europe relying on their belief God had given them superiority as humans versus the brown aborigines and the imported Africans. After developing communities “safe” from the natives and strong enough to ensure slaves could not escape, the EuroRacists started to move West. Along the way their relative immunity to loathsome diseases allowed them to subjugate the natives who were devastated by diseases imported into the Americas. Despite (or possibly due to) the horrors that marked their march to the Pacific, the Racists continued, eventually encountering new groups of brown people including those previously and violently conquered by the Spanish who routinely intermarried to spread their own faith and subjugate the natives.
Naturally, in the views of the Racist American settlers, they were entitled to these lands peopled with lesser humans because their rights were God-given. It took the progeny of those first “Puritans” 400 years to displace or kill literal millions of brown people and build ‘merica, which brings us back to my first statements above. Today, many puritanical descendants view themselves (and their ancestors) as descended from technologically advanced individuals who simply wanted to build a better world (even if only to benefit themselves).
The Racism of the 21st century is ingrained, even if sub-consciously, in the psyche of non-brown people because it served (and serves) as the foundation of the USA. Had the advance of those first groups across the continent been halted in the 1600s, America today would be much more like it was, a land where the native peoples lived in harmony with nature. Instead, it became a bastion of Capitalism. Its dreams fueled not by love and deep respect for nature but by viewing nature as a treasure chest to be looted and destroyed for the betterment of bank accounts and material possessions. What the Puritan heirs of America today fail to understand is that our economic system, which underpins virtually everything that exists in this country today, was literally built by Racists FOR Racists. The mere fact that someone can honestly believe they are NOT superior to someone with brown skin does absolutely nothing to deconstruct a society that was built on Racism. Those who’ve already succeeded and flourished in this racist infrastructure make a fundamental mistake if they believe their personal views do anything to undo 400 years of suppression and worse.
Racism today is but the fruit of “the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.” It is so embedded in the hearts and minds of many non-brown people they view the slightest attempt to level the playing field as unnecessary and certainly unwelcome. Racism persists because those who have, consciously or unconsciously, benefitted from it view corrective actions as some sort of blame game rather than genuine efforts to right centuries of wrong. In the end the real question is NOT who we can blame for the way things are (because the past, is in fact, PAST), rather it’s what can we do, here and now, to assist those who continue to suffer due to America’s Racist roots? How can we begin, in some real fashion, to undo the foundational barriers brown people continue to experience for something with which they were literally born? One thing I know with certainty, and I say this as a man whose father was as white as any long dead Puritan, is that it is up to those who are not brown, to bring about the needed changes to ensure we can move forward as ONE people. My father did so by marrying a Mexican woman from California and ensuring his children knew and embraced their mother’s culture at least as much as his Irish roots. I know I’m biased but I think that was a great place to start.