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Bogtrotter07
Guest
Racism : My take? Racism needs to be talked about secondly. It always comes after what comes first.
What comes first? Money and power. Money and power likes more of the same. How does money and power make more of the same in first industrial, and then a post industrial world?
Create a marked for a product. Now there are only so many things a person needs. So how do we keep making money? Create more need. How? Fear is a good place to start.
Here is how it worked with racism;
We have a wonderful new invention to save you money, it is called a slave. And we have a new source that will make them cheaper and more plentiful than ever it is called Africa (and sometimes (South America, Ireland, or Asia. Anywhere we can argue that inhabitants are sub-human. [per societies that traded in slaves])
So in North America cheap slaves were brought over to work for free for the economic advantage of a few. Then something happened. Economic supply and demand took over. The market forces from the economy that made kidnapping human beings and brutally forcing them into slavery as laborers, negated the effect of that process. Before the Civil War the cost of slave ownership increased dramatically. With no war, the system would have become obsolete anyway. Good thing that didn't happen, our only salvation may be that with this evil, we recognized the immorality before we lost the expediency and obsoleted the institution.
BUT, with this all, for many years before slavery was ended, the people that had profited from it began to wonder, "What will we do with all these ex-slaves hanging around? They ain't good for nothing else!" See how I said ex-slave? Where racism comes in is that the word they said wasn't ex-slave. And inquiring minds wanted to know.
So even before the war, the Irish and the African slaves, (because they didn't become African-Americans until the 13th Amendment) were pitted against each others. Before the Civil War, during, and to a degree after the Irish were used on jobs that could easily result in death and dismemberment. Slave cost was too high and no one wanted a slave that was handicapped in a way where he could not work. This took off right after the Civil War, when African-Americans lost their value to the wealth producers. Longshore unions were segregated and the Irish were pitted against the African-American or black unions. This proceeded onward in time.
There are accounts of the government and manufacturers seeding disputes across racial divides with weapons. This became so deep seeded that there were actual organizations of whites that actually went out to find Africans that they could punish, and they terrorized them and killed more than several. Now let me ask you, and answer intelligently and honestly. Who behind sheets would feel the need to kill a man of another race unless you were deathly afraid of him? And you don't think he and his would be afraid of you, and may want a little protection of his own.
Most people don't know this, but when the anti-Civil Rights movement was at its height and Freedom Riders were disappearing right and left, a group of "black military vets" formed and stood up for protesters when the law wouldn't. I met one, a former neighbor, "Fats" was a humble no bull shiit kind of guy. Fats could tell you about that shooting war. And he could tell you how many more bullets flew his way than he sent. I am a big fan of Fats, and his brothers. They did everything they could to stand up for people that were getting mowed down, without escalating the situation.
So there is a brief run through to show you how racism will always follow economic invention and necessity. That is the end of part one. Let me know if you don't get the picture and need part two.
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