All right. We need to talk about white supremacy, slavery, colonization, and why the Right keeps pushing fake history.
The truth is that white supremacy is built on the lie that white people are acting out of kindness as they murder and enslave.
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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/white-suprem…
The Right has been rabidly pushing this lie that capitalism isn't racist, that America isn't prejudiced, and that anyone talking about history or politics otherwise is engaged in an attack.
What they're doing is desperately attempting to protect themselves and their power.
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It's no coincidence that this has been happening more and more lately. Incidents like Rick Santorum's disgusting remarks, saying that America was made from "nothing" and that natives had no culture or influence are intentional defenses of white supremacy and its mythologies.
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The truth is that the "America" found by explorers and colonists was already brimming with natives who had complex cultures and political systems.
They were divided into nations and had intricate societies largely based on communal care and support.
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Santorum's remarks are as ignorant as they come. Native societies were so advanced, in fact, that the Founders were inspired by their governments and relationships in crafting the Constitution.
Our system of government is HEAVILY influenced by them.
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But the mythology necessary to continue white supremacy demands that we view indigenous people and people of color as inferior, their societies and ways as barbaric.
It must be a "mission," from God and progress, that white people came along and attacked and exploited them.
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White supremacy was inextricably linked to the Christian faith, the mythology used to launder oppression, violence, and exploitation through a "benevolent" need to "civilize" people of color and bring them into the flock.
It was a lie. A bloody lie.
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The partnership between nations seeking riches/resources and the Christian Church meant whites took a "paternal" role wherein they could exploit the native people, take their riches and land, all while claiming what they were doing was charity and God's will.
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As whites took resources and land, enslaved people, forced their labor, and attempted to systematically indoctrinate them and destroy their cultures, the "reality" of the world shifted.
The accumulation of resources taking place was seen as progress and moral.
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The idea of white supremacy is based on these lies, these mythologies, and has given credence to abhorrent actions like slavery, genocide, and theft on a scale never seen before.
It was about repositioning abusive, violent white people as a moral force working for good.
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The idea that capitalism is somehow removed from this or cures this is not only absurd, it's dangerous.
It hides the fact that white supremacy used slavery, colonization, and violence as a means of starting the process of capitalism that has continued to roll on.
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Now, the Right wants you to believe the only racism imaginable is when people pick up a Confederate or Nazi flag. When people spew racial slurs.
This has been part of a larger project to hide racism and prejudice and continue its work in the shadows.
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This process was undertaken by Ronald Reagan and the forces of hypercapitalism, which adopted the idea of "colorblindness" to their prejudiced projects.
In this new, twisted reality, people could pretend to hate racism while continually trafficking in it and benefiting.
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One of the main perpetrators of this idea was Lee Atwater, a GOP strategist who even admitted that the Right had moved from using racial slurs to hiding their racism behind economic and cultural appeals.
It was an intentional burying of the filth while maintaining it.
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What happened over time was that racists like Donald Trump began claiming they weren't prejudiced at all, that white supremacist attitudes and ideas were a matter of being a "realist."
They were living in the alternate reality created to intentionally hide racism.
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We're currently living in that twisted funhouse, where the Right is angrily and violently rejecting ACTUAL HISTORY in favor of their created alternate reality that denies racism while continuing to profit and benefit from it.
This is MAGA in a nutshell.
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Meanwhile, the partnership between white supremacy, capitalism, and Christianity continues as this group worships wealth, power, and sees their exploitation, violence, and cruelty as being ordained by God and thus necessary.
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The Right and those benefiting from the exploitation, namely the wealthy and powerful, will continue to push this mythology of benevolent white supremacy and altered history, because it is their main weapon and defense.
They will defend it with violence. They always have.
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