Racism is No Worse Than Any Other Human Dilemma

I define racism as the study of race. I define race as the erroneous belief that physical characteristics define and limit personal performance and the content of character. Therefore, a racist believes that certain specific physical traits, e.g. so-called skin color, hair texture, etc. cause and/or limit behavior. On its face, that belief system poses no specific challenge to anyone, but when a racist uses that belief to justify unfair, contradictory, even illegal actions, then racism becomes a national delimma we must resolve.

My calculations indicate that racism in the United States of America began 388 years old, as of this past August. According to Dr, Lerone Bennett, editor emeritus of Johnson Publishing Company, in his book Before the Mayflower, the first 20 Africans were brought to this country in August 1619. They had been captured at sea by the captain of a Dutch warship. When this captain ran out of provisions, he dropped anchor at the port of Jamestown, and traded these 20 Africans for sufficient provisions to complete his return to his home port. Meanwhile, back in Jamestown, adventurers there, many of them forced into the hazardrous Atlantic crossing by wealthy English investors, did what human nature often directs. Within the next two decades, they treated the 20 Africans as they had been treated--unfairly and harshly. Using their perceptions of differences, driven by specific economic concerns, the Jamestown adventurers assigned the 20 African to lifelong slavery, rather than limited indenturement. Thus did slavery, based in racism, begin what what was to become the USA.

Therefore, racism exists as a paradigm, a mindset, a way of thinking, very similar to my definition of crime. Remember that in previous AC articles, I defined crime as "a way of thinking that justifies harming others for self-gain." As a paradigm, then, racism is a way of thinking that justifies trying to destroy the personhood of others for self-gain, aka to build wealth.

First of all, in this analysis, let's make the distinction between slavery and racism. In the 8th edition of his classic history book--From Slavery to Freedom, Dr. John Hope Franklin and his co-author, Alfred A. Moss, Jr. describe this distinction: "When the Christians of Western Europe began to turn their attention to the slave trade in the fifteeneth and sixteenth centuries, they were not introducing a new practice . . .As a matter of fact, slavery was widespread during the earliest known history of Africa as well as of other continents. Doubtless there was cruelty and oppression in African slavery as there was anywhere that the institution developed. At least in some portions of Africa there was no racial basis of slavery. The Egyptians enslaved whatever peoples they captured . . .Slavery in the Greek and Roman empires is well known. In both empires the traffic in human beings from western Asia and North Africa brought a continuous stream of slaves to perform personal services and to till the fields of the ruling class. Neither in Greece nor Rome was menial service regarded as degrading . . .When the Muslims invaded Africa, they contributed greatly to the development of the institution of slavery by seizing women for their harems and men for military and menial service . . .It is to be noted, however, that slavery among the Muslims was not an institution utilized primarily for the production of goods from which wealth could be derived . . . Slavery was, therefore, a manifestation of wealth, and the institution showed little of the harshness and severity that it possessd in areas where it was itself the foundation on which wealth was built.( From Slavery to Freedom, Franklin & Moss, pp. 34-38)

History teaches, then, that slavery, operating in numerous worldwide cultures, existed, even thrived, long before racism became an economic tool to protect and expand the wealth development strategies in the so-called new world.

Franklin and Moss also document when race became the deciding factor in defining slavery in the American colonies. They wrote: "The twenty Africans who were put ashore at Jamestown in 1619 by the captain of a Dutch frigate were not slaves in the legal sense. And at the time, Virginians seemed not to appreciate the far-reaching significance of the introduction of Africans into the fledgling colony . . . But as time went on Virginia steadily fell behind in satisfying the labor needs of the colony with Indians and indentured servants. It was then that the colonists began to give serious thought to the 'perpetual servitude' of blacks. Virginians began to see what neighboring islands in the Caribbean had already recognized, namely, that blacks could not easily escape without being identified; that they could be disciplined, even punished with impunity since they were not Christians; and that the supply was apparently inexhaustible. Black labor was precisely what Virginia needed in order to speed up the clearing of the forests and the cultivation of larger and better tobacco crops. All that was required was legislative approval of a practice in which many Virginians were already engaged. Indeed, by 1640, some Africans in Virginia had become bond servants for life. The distinction between black and white servants was becoming well established. In that year, when three runaway servants, two white and one black were recaptured, the court ordered the white servants to serve their master one additional year. The black servant, however, was ordered 'to serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere.' Thus, within the first generation of Virginia's existence, African servitude was well on the way to become African slavery." (From Slavery to Freedom, by Franklin and Moss, p.65)

History, therefore, teaches us further that in the United States, the court--the so-called dispenser of blind justice--became the initial and most formidable tool to introduce racism into the nation's practice of slavery, co-mingling the two concepts until they began resembling flip sides of the same coin.

This paradigm continued, grew, took on new shapes, encompassed numerous other institutions for 258 years--from 1640 until 1898 when the 13th
amendment was ratified.

Before I end the first of these series of articles, let's clarify what might appear to be a contradiction in dates. I count slavery and racism from 1619 because the 21 years to 1640 was the seedtime of the concepts. In 1640, the Virginia court indentified and codified the potential harvest of co-mingling the concepts. In 1898, from the brutal war over slavery, the nation, with ratification of the 13th amendment, appeared to denounce the concepts--racism and slavery--but did we?
Next: What does the 13th amendment actually say and what does it mean today?