Racial inequality is a problem we don't want to fix

I finished the book The 1619 Project, a New Origin Story, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones. This started as a special edition of the New York Times Magazine published in 2019. It prompted such a response that the ideas of the magazine were expanded into this book, which was published in 2021. Those ideas are how slavery shaped and continues to shape most aspects of American history and life. The title comes from the year the first slave ship landed in America and sold its cargo to the colonists. Slavery began here before the Pilgrims landed, yet the full history of slavery and its effects on the nation are rarely told (I certainly didn’t learn it in school) and are rarely a part of our national sense of self. I highly recommend this book. This is an important part of our national history. It’s a story that can be wearying because the whole thing is about how black people tried to better themselves and white people beat them back. Again. And again. But keep at it. There are insights all along the way. The book is a series of essays by different authors about aspects of American life and how they are affected by our slavery past. In between are descriptions of historical incidents, about a paragraph or two long, paired with a poem or short story that elaborated on that incident. The essays of the book have been developed into lesson plans for schools. The title uses the word “Project” to say the work is ongoing. Additional books should be published, though searches online don’t show any yet. Here are some of the things I learned: About ten days ago I watched the first episode of Ken Burns’ American Revolution on PBS. Before watching I had read this book’s chapter on why the colonies split from Britain and saw the contrast between the book’s reasons and what was portrayed in the show. Our Declaration of Independence accused King George, that he “Excited domestic insurrections among us.” Those insurrections were slave insurrections. Britain had said slaves on British soil were free, in contrast to slaves on British colony soil. The colonists wanted to keep slavery. They were afraid their slaves would try to get to Britain or that Britain would outlaw slavery in the colonies. The PBS show says a big reason for the Revolutionary War was taxation without representation. This book say a big reason was to preserve slavery when the parent country had banned it. The US Constitution was written by enslavers. They wrote it in a way to avoid using the word “slave,” hiding their true meaning from the Europeans who helped win the war and would be looking over the document. Some of the ways the Constitution supports slavery are: Each state gets two senators (and states were then added one North, one South) to prevent the North from being able to ban slavery through democracy. Representation in the House was dependent on the number of slaves (though counted as three-fifths), which gave slave owners more power. And the Electoral College. In England the status of the child is the same as that of the father. In the colonies the status of the child is the same as the mother – if the mother is a slave the child is too. The enslaver can rape the enslaved, not be prosecuted, and be rewarded with another slave. This law is why there were other laws against black men having sex with white women. Black women were and are seen as hypersexual. Their consent for sex can be assumed and a charge of rape is meaningless. White planters across the south were highly frightened by the slave revolt in Haiti. That prompted the creation of slave patrols, which is where our Second Amendment comes from. There were many revolts on the mainland, justifying the patrols. After the war with the South in economic collapse whites were less afraid of being poor and more afraid of the inversion of the social hierarchy. They feared if blacks got into power (and during Reconstruction many did) they would do to whites what whites had done to them. This book talks a lot about the social hierarchy and how important its maintenance was to white people. Poor white people said my life may be miserable but at least I’m not them. Readers of this blog know that I talk a lot about the importance and evils of the hierarchy in life. In 1808 the US government banned the importation of more slaves. There was soon a thriving market of slaves between the Upper South that had extra slaves and the Deep South that needed more. Growing cotton was labor intensive. The invention of the cotton gin allowed the expansion of cotton plantations (frequently referred to as enforced labor camps). That prompted expansion into land held by Native nations. The government tried assimilation because farmers needed less land than hunters. The government taught the best way to farm, including using slaves to increase profits. Turning Natives into farmers wasn’t enough and they were forced out. Many on that Trail of Tears took their slaves with them. Many Native nations in Oklahoma sided with the Confederacy. Only now are Native nations dealing with the racism. American capitalism is based less on the cotton mills of the North and more on the cotton plantations of the South. This is where capitalism learned to pay labor as little as possible (preferably not at all). It is also where factories learned about efficiency and bookkeeping, to the oppression of slaves who didn’t keep up with increasing quotas. The Constitution, including the prized 14th Amendment, emphasizes the rights of owning property, much stronger rights than would be needed if property can’t flee or revolt. Corporations have seized on the primacy of property rights to bolster their position. The plantation was also where capitalism learned how to speculate, how to acquire wealth without work, that growth should be pursued at all costs. Before the Civil War many planters, and the South as a whole, became fabulously wealthy. The US labor movement faltered because, while white and black laborers had common goals, the white laborers refused to work with the black. We’re the only major democracy without a Labor Party. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution define “citizen.” It isn’t defined until the 14th Amendment. Before then black people demanded that definition and Congress kept fumbling. White people developed myths to describe black bodies as a way to justify enslaving them. Those myths still influence the medical care (or it’s lack) black receive today. A big myth is that black people feel less pain – a myth that allows the enslaver to feel no remorse after whipping his property. America doesn’t have universal health insurance because those in power want to make sure health insurance is not available to black people. The black church was and is a place controlled by black people. It was an early place to provide assistance to black people and where they developed their theology of liberation. That is why black churches were frequently burned. America loves black music. American music is heavily influenced by black musicians. The troubling history is the Minstrel show where white performers used blackface to perpetuate racial stereotypes. Many of Stephen Foster’s songs are Minstrel songs. Black performers could not appear in these shows unless they were disguised to appear to be white people in blackface and perpetuate the stereotypes. That influences today’s music through black performers accusing each other of not being black enough. America talks a lot about its racial progress. That is a myth, or more accurately, propaganda. Talk of racial progress has been around since before the Revolution. This talk is encouraged because it allows each generation to say racial inequality is not our problem. We’ve made progress, so we don’t have to do any more work on inequality. After the Civil War black people, now free, had nothing and very little institutional support. White people essentially said you’ve got your freedom now, whether you survive or not is up to you. We as a country may have achieved equality in rights and in voting (though there are active efforts to overturn both). But the country continually prevents working towards equality of wealth. Many measures of wealth inequality are presented. The barriers to wealth equality are so high there is no way black people can routinely overcome them on their own. Yet, not overcoming them is seen as a character flaw of the black person. Black people created so much wealth for the country yet were able to control or enjoy so little of it. In addition to slavery, there are many stories of a black person becoming rich (as in doing much better than poverty) and then being lynched for it. Which means now is way past time to enact reparations. We’ve done it before – see the Japanese after internment during WWII, and there are ways to do it now to reduce the inequality chasm. We can not be held responsible for the wrongs of our ancestors. But if we do not choose to do the right and necessary thing, that becomes our burden. Now go get a copy and read it. There is, of course, a great deal more than what I could mention here.