Thread by @jbouie

@ijbailey @TPCarney @powellnyt The short of it is that if “white supremacist” implies a belief in biological inferiority and a permanent, natural hierarchy of “races”, then I’m not sure I would describe “the founders” as a collective as “white supremacists,” since many of them did not hold those views…

@ijbailey @TPCarney @powellnyt …Instead, many saw blacks (and natives) as “degraded” humans who, with time and education, could become “civilized” and able to co-exist as equals, albeit in their own separate societies. Hence the colonization movements that emerge in the early 19th century.

@ijbailey @TPCarney @powellnyt But if by “white supremacist” we mean something like “white chauvinism” — a belief that the society is primarily for whites, with others as (for whatever reason) subordinate — then I think that’s a fair description.

@ijbailey @TPCarney @powellnyt the big thing though is that racist ideologies (like all ideologies) are not static, and modern forms of white supremacism develop over the course of the 19th century