Thread by @ClarenceGaines2

John Biewin produced 14-part podcast series "Seeing White" on @SceneOnRadio is so enlightening. As a child of the segregated South, the issues surrounding race have fascinated me since my teen years. This series gets my highest recommendation - sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/

'@SceneOnRadio's "Seeing White" - Part 3 Episode "Made in America" is a master class on race as a social construct - sceneonradio.org/episode-33-mad…

'@SceneOnRadio's "Seeing White," "Made in America" focuses on how race laws & structures took their distinctive & shockingly cruel forms in colonial America. The innovations that built slavery American style are inseparable from the construction of whiteness as we know it today.

Story 1 - In 1640 3 indentured servants fled a Virginia plantation. All 3 were caught. The 2 white servants had their servitude extended 4 years. John Punch, a black man, was sentenced to serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life. He was made a slave.

Why is John Punch case significant ? - "Some Africans were already effectively enslaved in Virginia by 1640. But
the Punch case seems to be the first explicit approval of lifelong servitude—and the first time African and European people were treated differently in the law."

From @PBS series "Africans in America" - "From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery" -- pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1…

"The story of race, folks, is the story of labor. They needed a consistent, reliable labor force. And they could not have a consistent, reliable labor force if that labor force was banding together and challenging the authority of the colony." Suzanne Plihcik - @racialequityllc

"The disparate sentencing of John Punch was one of the first examples, of what would become an ongoing practice by the rich landowning class & their political
representatives:"

"The practice of giving the poor people who looked like those in power, people of European descent, advantages-usually small advantages-over Africans & Native people." "This practice switched their allegiance from the people in their same circumstance to the people at the top."

"This practice eventually created a multi-class coalition of people who would later come to be called white. It created a multi-class coalition. So this was a divide & conquer strategy. It was completely brilliant." Suzanne Plihcik - @racialequityll

Story 2 - Elizabeth Key - Key, born in 1640, was the daughter of a white legislator in Virginia & an unnamed African woman, so she was biracial. She was enslaved when her father died. She eventually sued for her freedom on the basis that her father was free & she was a Christian

Elizabeth Key won her case in 1655 because under English common law, the paternity or the status of a child derived from the father. And it was also against English
common law to enslave a Christian. Key's victory in the Colonia Court clearly frustrated the ruling elite.

So what did the ruling elite do in Virginia after Key's victory? They changed the laws - by the 1660s, VA law stated that the status of a child was derived from the mother, not the father. Additionally, Christian slaves had no right to be free based on their religious beliefs.

"These legal changes, of course, expanded the pool of people who could be permanently enslaved: Christians of African descent, and the children fathered by slave-owning men through the rape of the women they held as slaves. These laws enhanced the bottom line for slave owners."

Virginia legislators "also simultaneously passed laws stating that white women could not have relations with enslaved or even Native American men. So it then
gave white men the ability to basically have intercourse with everyone, but then white women and non-white men could not."

Story 3 - The Lawmakers - "By 1680 the Virginia House of Burgesses is literally debating what is a white man. Why are we debating what is a white man? What are we giving away? Land. And rights. We’re basically deciding who is going to be the citizen of this new world."

The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first legislative body in colonial America. In 1682, the Burgesses passed a law limiting citizenship to Europeans. It made all non-Europeans – Negroes, Moors, Mulattos,& Indians, as the law put it – “slaves to all intents and purposes.”

In 1691, the Burgesses passed another law which is believed to be the first documented use in the English-speaking colonies of the word “white” – as opposed to English, European, or Christian – to describe the people considered full citizens.

The 1691 law read, “Whatsoever English or other white man or woman, being free, shall intermarry with a negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman, bond or free, shall within three months after marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever.”

"So, by 1691, we have a definition of white & we have constructed race in what becomes the USA. It’s important that we see this creation was for the upliftment of white people, primarily to support the white people at the top. Poor and working class whites will get little. (cont)

They will get just as much as is needed to ensure
their allegiance."

Story 4 - "Deciding Who Counts" 1790 is the year in which the almost new United States of America conducted its first national census. the U.S. Census is an instrument of government and it’s meant to sort out the population for purposes of governing.

We have 3 kinds of white people {white males 16 years and older, white males under 16, white females}, and then we have slaves and then we have other free people.
Remember, enslaved people were counted as 3/5 of
a person for purposes of taxation and representation in Congress.

"So, the U.S. government does not choose to count black people, except as part of other categories – slaves and, presumably, “other free persons.” Nor does it count Native Americans."

John Biewen: It also effectively,does it not,defines an American citizen as a white person.
Nell Irvin Painter (@PainterNell): That comes more clearly with the Naturalization Act of 1790,which says that the only people who can be naturalized are white,& they use the word “white”

@PainterNell Deena Hayes-Greene {@dhayes7787} : "1790, we’re seating our 1st Congress. In the 1st session, the 2nd act is the Naturalization Act…

The Naturalization Act says only free whites can be naturalized as citizens. What were rights of citizenship in the United States? Hmm? Voting. Land owning. Access and rights to due process. Being able to start a business, sit on a jury.

So what we’re saying here, this is the first time that you’re going to see a race, you’re going to see white, written into the documents that speak to our national identity. We talk a lot about, you know, race has just been around for a long time.

Slavery and oppression have been around for a long time. .... But we can see specifically that race, the way it’s been institutionalized in the United States, we have a very specific place in our history and in our country where race is showing up as an identity." @dhayes7787

John Biewen: In all these ways, over more than a century, the men who shaped the United States defined it as a country by and for the people they labeled white. And they tried to draw hard boundaries, to wall off white. Another big boulder in that wall was the insistence that

most mixed-race people with African ancestry be defined as black. The infamous one-drop rule didn’t become law until the early 20th century. But much earlier, states limited the amount of African ancestry a person could have and still be considered white – typically 1/4 or 1/8.

John Biewen: These rules were all about who was on top, and on the bottom; who got land and who didn’t; who got to vote and hold office; who was permitted to marry or
11 have sex with whom; and who could own whom.

Biewen: Suzanne Plihcik and her colleagues with the @racialequityllc say, knowing this history, it’s easier to see with clarity what racism is. They define it as social and institutional power, plus race prejudice. Or, put even more simply: A system of advantage, based on race.

Suzanne Plihcik: It is all about power. It revolves on power. It is not prejudice, it is not racial prejudice, it is not bigotry. It is power.

Love the dialogue that John Biewin & Chenjerai Kumanyika {@catchatweetdown} have at the end of "Seeing White" episodes on @SceneOnRadio. Kumanyika is an organizer, journalist, artist & Asst. Prof Journalism & Media Studies @RutgersU

Kumanyika helps Biewin "flesh out what we’re discovering, and to give me backup, to help me with any blind spots I may have as a white guy trying to see whiteness. To help us fish who’ve been taught to see ourselves as white to see the ocean of whiteness we’re swimming in."

Because of @SceneOnRadio's "Seeing White" series I'm now following - @catchatweetdown - @racialequityllc
- @DrIbram - @PainterNell - @dhayes7787 - wish I could follow John Biewin & Suzanne Plihcik - Brilliant & insightful people.

@SceneOnRadio @catchatweetdown @racialequityllc @DrIbram @PainterNell @dhayes7787 I've binged on a few TV shows but this Labor Day weekend I binged on John Biewin's 14-part podcast series "Seeing White" on @SceneOnRadio - Part 13, "White Affirmative Action," like Part 3, "Made in America" are "mind shakers" sceneonradio.org/episode-44-whi…

Part 13, "White Affirmative Action" highlights @racialequityllc Anti-Racism workshop segment on Affirmative Action that was led by @dhayes7787 - sceneonradio.org/episode-44-whi…

The gist of @dhayes7787 1st question to the group - Who knows what decade Affirmative Action was legislated? The group agreed that it was in the 1970's. By the end of Part 13, "White Affirmative Action," you'll have a different perspective.

John Biewen: In other words, we’re used to seeing racism as a system or an attitude problem that hurts people of color while leaving us white people alone. It leaves us free
to do our thing, to make our mark, in what we generally like to see as a meritocracy.

John Biewen: But as Deena is about to show, for many, many of us and our ancestors, being white meant more than just not being harmed by racism. It’s often meant getting stuff. She says the handouts started early, long before the American Revolution.

1618 - Deena Hayes-Greene: So the Headright system, created in England to address the labor shortage in Virginia, was giving people 50 acres of land, or 2 units which would be a 100 acres of land, for anyone that was willing to cross the Atlantic ocean to populate the colonies.

1705 - Deena Hayes-Greene: 1705, are you familiar with a statute in Virginia that required masters to give white indentured servants fifty acres of land, thirty shillings, ten bushels of corn and a musket, anybody heard of that?

John Biewen: 1705 is the same year the House of Burgesses passed the Virginia Slave Codes. Those laws locked in a brutal system of white supremacy by
giving slave owners sweeping rights to control and even torture the African people they owned, (cont)

and making it illegal for black people to employ white people. These two legislative moves, the Slave Codes and the payments for white indentured servants, drove a hard wedge between poor white and poor black people, who had sometimes joined forces against the white elite.

1785 - Deena Hayes-Greene: 1785, the Land Ordinance Act. Because we had been taking Native land for over a century, by any means necessary, and distributing it. And it was a very informal process but it came with some problems. There were border disputes and
overlapping claims…

John Biewen: So, the Land Ordinance Act provided a clearer system for putting formerly Native land into the hands of white settlers.
Deena Hayes-Greene: This was 640 acres at a dollar an acre, was part of that.

John Biewen: The committee that drafted the Land Ordinance Act was led by Thomas Jefferson, the noted Anglo-Saxonist. The law helped to build a nation of white
landowners.

Deena Hayes-Greene: It’s also how we created the sort of townships that we have. There would be 36 square units. Unit #16 was set aside for public education. So we can see since 1785, we’ve made some contribution, some thought around public education and how necessary it was.

John Biewen: A public education system designed to serve white children, not enslaved African children or Native Americans.

1862 - John Biewen: The Homestead Act of 1862, allowing people to claim land for free in the rapidly expanding United States. At first the Act excluded the vast majority of black people in the U.S.,because you had to be a citizen to participate and enslaved people were not (cont)

eligible for citizenship until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Homestead Act ultimately transferred ten percent of all the land in the U.S. to regular citizens. That land went to white people disproportionately, because of that initial exclusion and because of racist

practices in the distribution of the land. But many
families of color did benefit, at least temporarily. The Homestead Act helps explain how African Americans came to own fifteen million acres of farmland by the early 20th century.

Most of those black farmers would lose their land, though, in large part because of 20th century racism within the U.S. Agriculture Department.

1932 - John Biewen: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected in 1932, promising a New Deal. The result is a raft of initiatives that go on to build massive middle-class wealth in the United States.

1934 - Deena Hayes-Greene: If you wanted to buy a house prior to the Federal Housing Administration that was created in 1934, what were the terms? How much cash? Yes, a lot, fifty percent. So you had to have fifty percent or more paid in cash, and have it paid off in ten years,

less than 10 years, usually the terms were 3 to 5 years. So home ownership was really reserved for wealthy people, not a lot of people owned, so….
John Biewen: The FHA changes that, it allows much smaller down payments and the 30 year mortgage we now take for granted.

Deena Hayes-Greene: Low interest rate, low mortgage payments. Created a demand for housing that we had never seen before in this country. Homeownership went from around less than 30% to almost 70%, so it [more than] doubled. Where are the new homes being built?

John Biewen: Every economist will tell you: for working-class and middle-class people, home ownership is the most powerful way to build some kind of wealth to pass on to the next generation. But, famously, government policies pushed the practice of redlining, (cont)

giving those FHA loans to people in predominantly white neighborhoods and communities and refusing to loan to people in mostly-black areas—generally the only places black people were allowed to live.

Deena Hayes-Greene: You don’t loan here, you don’t build infrastructure, you don’t develop. So they would be destroying the value of inner-city housing for decades, and they would be increasing the value and sustaining the value of communities and homes that white people owned ..

Deena Hayes-Greene: Between 1933 & 1962, they would give out over 120 billion dollars in home & business loans. The inflation calculation says the impact of that 120 billion dollars today would be the financial impact of $2,150,949,618,320 & over 98% of that went to white people.

1935 - John Biewen: We’re not through. Social Security. It helps all Americans now, but when it was first created in 1935, it excluded domestic and agricultural workers, who of course were disproportionately people of color. (Cont)

2/3 of all African American workers were blocked from Social Security until the program was expanded in the 1950s.

1944 - One of the most massive policy initiatives ever undertaken by the U.S. government was the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI
Bill of Rights.

Among other things, the program sent veterans of World War Two, and later the Korean and Vietnam Wars, to college. On paper, the GI Bill made no racial distinctions.. White people came home and had access to government-sponsored education in ways that people of color didn’t have.

John Biewen: Millions of mostly-white men got higher education through the GI Bill and became engineers, scientists, doctors, teachers. The GI Bill also sent people to trade schools & helped veterans find jobs. (cont)

But here again, men of color were at a disadvantage because of the military’s racist practices back then in assigning jobs within the military.

Deena Hayes-Greene: So when people came home & met with a job counselor, their duties were to line up a civilian job that matched skills you gained in the military. White men came home & became builders & welders & mechanics,& men of color came home & became dishwashers & cooks.

And that has been a multi-generational situation for their families. So, it just, it pains me when we do “why people are poor” and people talk about people’s choices and
mindsets. To say that it’s just the way they think that’s responsible for their condition.

John Biewen: From its passage in 1944 until 1971, the GI Bill spent ninety-five billion dollars on veterans, helping them buy homes, get vocational training, and start
businesses. In his book, When Affirmative Action was White, political scientist Ira Katznelson writes that the

law needed Southern support to pass, and Southern white
lawmakers made sure it would be administered at the local level and would respect the quote-unquote “customs” of Jim Crow. Private mortgage lenders, employers, and trade schools turned away black applicants.

So even though some people of color did benefit
from the GI Bill, the overall effect of the law, Katznelson says, was to vastly widen the wealth and opportunity gaps between white and black Americans.

So @dhayes7787 asks her legislation ? again - If affirmative action is race-based access to institutional resources and opportunities, when was it legislated?
Hmm? 1618.

Is this affirmative action, if you’re white you get fifty acres of land, thirty shillings, ten bushels of corn and a musket solely based on the color of your skin, not for any other reason? What about the Naturalization Act of 1790, says if you’re white you can become a citizen.

This isn’t about anything except the color of your skin. Not
merit, not hard work, not meeting the criteria, just being white, the color of your skin. You have access to a loan, you have access to a neighborhood. You can live in this
neighborhood if you’re white.

So, was this country built on affirmative action for white
people? sceneonradio.org/episode-44-whi…

https://twitter.com/MitchLandrieu/status/1171090912757370883?s=20

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