Issue Position: Racism and Inequality

Issue Position

We have to deal with systemic racism in our society. Race which really means a pigment or physical difference as there are no "races" just human beings with the same genetic code. What we are really talking about is "Xenophobia" which is the fear of others. Skin color is the easiest way to differentiate people. The Nazis used badges sewn on clothing. Slave owners didn't need to. American slavery came from the West Indies and Brazil where plantation owners imported slaves from Africa to replace the Native American slaves that died from western diseases. The production of sugar which was highly lucrative is energy intensive and the slaves brought from Africa were used to the diseases of malaria and yellow fever that effected the area. Slaves were then shipped to Virginia to work on tobacco plantations. North American also had indentured workers filling the work force. The workers and slaves were treated similarly until the landowners realized that they would see the rebellions that occurred in the West Indies if they didn't crack down and institutionalize a harsh treatment of slaves. To do that they had to make sure the slaves were treated as subhuman to separate them from the indentured workers. Once this started it was easy to make slaves subhuman. They didn't speak your language, they didn't worship your god and they didn't look like you. There were times in our nation where we could have rectified this but didn't, as the economy of plantations demanded cheap labor for tobacco and cotton. At the beginning of our nation we should have not given an inordinate amount of power to slave owners or we could have just freed slaves. Our founders struggled with this issue but failed at every turn. They allowed states to be formed that made them de facto slave states. They allowed bounty hunters to come into states that outlawed slavery and take escaped slaves back, saying it was an issue of property rights. They arrested those who helped them. After the emancipation of slaves we failed once more. There was a moment after the Civil War where appropriated plantations could have been sold to freed slaves. Economic freedom would have at least stopped the feudal relationship of sharecroppers. The nation made sure that freed slaves never got political power through the ballot box. The power elites used racism to not only keep African Americans down but it also allowed them to reduce wages for working class Americans. Racism was a part of every institution, education, religion and government. Through racist policies, capital was never allowed to be obtained through real estate for African Americans, which is so important for working class Americans. Everyone is xenophobic. We need to recognize it and fight it within ourselves. Life is not a zero sum gain. We don't need other people to lose so we can gain. When we keep people down we lose what they could contribute to society. We have a long way to go and the first step is to see how we used racism to hurt our own society, others and ourselves.

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