A Short Summary of American Racialization (thread):
1. Racist ideas began to flourish in Europe through story, literature, art, religious accommodation, etc., in the 15th century as Enlightenment era expansionism sought out economic interests in foreign lands.
1. Racist ideas began to flourish in Europe through story, literature, art, religious accommodation, etc., in the 15th century as Enlightenment era expansionism sought out economic interests in foreign lands.
2. These ideas were brought to the Americas by both Pilgrims, Puritans, and those seeking economic resources in this “new” land—a land that would be taken by theft and near genocide of its indigenous peoples.
3. Under the influence of false ideas about Africa, Africans, and imported racist ideas, indentured servants began to be distinguished by group, with Africans supposedly worthy (by religion or otherwise) of less rights than other indentured servants.
4. After, e.g., Bacon’s Rebellion, laws protecting indentured servants were granted to all but those of African descent. Africans became subject to life-long servitude as property and the “white race” was born in America.
5. Justifications began to abound, from “Biblical” to biological and anthropological, developed over 200 years. These racist ideas were also accompanied with false stereotypes—hyper sexualization, mental inferiority, proneness to fits of rage, laziness, etc.
6. Please note: the development of this vast system of racist ideas was born as JUSTIFICATIONS for existing oppression. (Yet they've had a life of their own in American consciousness and institutions. See implicit bias research even today.)
7. When these arguments and assumptions lost enough force to justify the brutal and unchristian practice of chattel slavery and economic interests became disentangled from slavery in the North, abolitionism ultimately led to the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation.
8. But, with slavery outlawed, the centuries long developed racist ideas and stereotypes did not disappear, but rather became the bases for new forms of social control, the South with legal Jim Crow, the North with de facto Jim Crow.
9. The Civil Rights movement, accompanied by international affairs after the Holocaust, forced the Federal government to pass civil rights protections, and even create propaganda pamphlets to prove to former colonies that our problems were solved.
10. But again, the racist ideas, assumptions, and false stereotypes that justified chattel race-based slavery did not evaporate. The CR movement itself became a basis for justifying racist ideas, such as the supposed incivility and violent temperament of black Americans.
11. On this basis, new social controls were implemented in the post CR period—not necessarily due to hatred, but as paths of least resistance given centuries of people and institutions encultured with racist ideas, assumptions, and stereotypes.
12. E.g., strict “law & order” policies played on American assumptions of black Americans’ supposedly violent nature, winning Republican landslide victories in the South.
13. A “war on drugs” was also manufactured & has since imprisoned millions of predominantly black Americans (though use similar to whites), destroying families & incentivizing illegal activities, continuing the cycle of incarceration and life-long systemic marginalization.
14. Due to racist ideas & biases—recognized as such or not—and through continued race steering, normalization of “whiteness” (yes, in the church), law & order, war on drugs, employment discrimination, blaming black Americans for their historically created circumstances, …
15. … and having done nothing to right centuries of inaccessibility to wealth accumulation, lack of home ownership, educational exclusion, ecclesial leadership, etc.—vast disparities continue to exist in both church and society. (Google it.)
16. In 2018? As black Americans begin to more and more make gains in conservative institutions, including seminaries, their voices are being heard, & the racist ideas we have inherited as the legacy of America’s “birth defect” (C. Rice) are being addressed with force of argument.
17. More and more white believers are also beginning to see and believe the words of their brothers and sisters in Christ. This, unfortunately, has led to the inevitable backlash in conservative—social and religious—institutions.
18. But, to be sure, this is nothing new; it happened prior to the Civil War in response to abolitionists, it happened in response to Emancipation in the South, in response to the Great Migration to the North, and in response to the Civil Rights movement itself.
19. So, we just call them Marxists and theological liberals and move on.
End.
End.
See also,
