One of the myths that surrounds American history is that it has been relatively non-aggressive and, of course, anti-colonial.
The new colonial settler society was by its very nature expansionist and aggressive, with an insatiable appetite for territory.
It was characterized by aggressive expansionism, acquisitive
materialism, and an overarching ideology of civilization that
encouraged and justified both.
It bred both a particularly abhorrent form of racism and a new kind of capitalism.
With a seemingly limitless supply of land, every white male settler
could ultimately fulfill their dream of becoming a landowner.
America's restless and constant desire for expansion is rooted in its settler origins.
The settlers constantly set the agenda of government when it came to
the theft of Indian land, irrespective of the treaties that the
government had solemnly agreed with the Indians. [1]
Britain: The Founder of Modern Racism
Capitalism causes racism, it uses it to justify slavery and war, to legitimise military occupations and colonialism.
Capitalism seeks to create division in the working class, to turn us
against each other and waste our energies fighting other workers when
we should be uniting and fighting the system as whole.
Racism is a centuries old theory that is used to justify a global system of discrimination against ethnic minorities.
It stems from Britain’s role as a colonial power - seizing control of
Africa and India and looting them of food, minerals and precious stones.
In Africa the British ruling class found a massive supply of cheap
manpower waiting to be tapped. 115 million Africans were forcibly
removed and taken to work against their will in America on cotton,
tobacco and sugar plantations.
At home, the British ruling class attempted to present themselves as democrats and "good christians".
To justify this system of cruel and despicable exploitation the capitalists developed the theory of modern racism.
Today, imperialism has not died. The advanced capitalist states are
still imperialists that exploit the former colonies and keep billions
of people below the poverty line. [2]
America: Racism Is in Your [White] Mother's Milk
America is a colonial society. This is reflected the brutal racism that was a major factor in the founding of modern America.
All capitalist colonial-settler societies, such as the USA, and Israel,
have been founded on such attitudes towards indigenous peoples.
Racism — treating and judging people on the basis of superficial
physical attributes, particularly skin colour — is endemic to
capitalism.
Its pervasiveness under capitalism leads many to think that it is a
“natural” if unfortunate aspect of human history. However, the above
examples suggest that racism is tied to particular social interests.
Capitalism Bloomed on Cheap and Slave Labour
The European colonial expansion into the Americas that was the basis
for the development of capitalism posed the problem of creating a cheap
labour force in the new colonies.
It is not well known that the forced labour that was essential to the
commercial plantations of North and South America and the Caribbean
initially consisted not just of kidnapped Africans but also of
indentured white European servants.
However, early class struggles such as the 1676 “Bacon’s rebellion” in
Virginia in which black and white labourers launched an armed
insurrection convinced the colonial rulers and plantation owners they
needed an ideological prop to divide the labouring poor.
Racist ideas are fostered not just by the conscious use of “divide and
rule” by the ruling class, the paranoia of small business people under
economic insecurity, and the xenophobic nationalism of reformist labour
misleaders.
They are also fostered by the relative advantages that have gone to all
people socially categorised as “white”. Indeed, that has helped racism
to continue even after it has ceased to be official policy.
Racism is often more subtle today, particularly since the horrors of
Nazism's strict “racial” categorisation of ability and nature has gone
out of fashion.
Often “cultural difference” is a substitute, as in government and media
vilification of Muslims — the practitioners of which, along with those
who blame Indigenous people for their own conditions of extreme poverty
and shocking health, rush to deny is racism. [3]
Inside America Today
Nothing much has changed since the founding fathers justified exploitation and oppression:
The extreme racial, ethnic, religious and territorial fragmentation of the nation’s working-class and populace.
The alternately deadening and cooptive influences of imperialism, mass
consumerism, Winner-Take-All electoral politics, corporate media and
more.
There’s no room either for the remarkable persistence of tyranny –
business-class (corporate-capitalist) and white-supremacist rule, the
reign of the military sector, and the rise of a powerful
prison-industrial system.
Color-Blind: Reassuring the Master Race
Most black politicians, like Barack Obama, try to cover their asses
with white America by claiming that “what ails working- and
middle-class blacks is not fundamentally different from what ails their
white counterparts.”
Equally soothing to the master race is Obama’s argument that “white
guilt has largely exhausted itself in America” as “even the most
fair-minded of whites...tend to push back against suggestions of racial
victimization and race-based claims based on the history of racial
discrimination in this country”.
Part of the reason for this “push back” – also known as denial – is,
Obama claims, the bad culture and poor work-ethic of the inner-city
black poor.
Never mind that lower-, working-, and middle-class blacks continue to
face numerous steep and interrelated white-supremacist barriers to
equality.
Or that multidimensional racial discrimination is still rife in
“post-Civil Rights America,” deeply woven into the fabric of the
nation’s social institutions and drawing heavily on the living and
unresolved legacy of centuries of not- so “past” racism.
Never mind that the long centuries of slavery and Jim Crow are still quite historically recent
It would continue to exercise a crippling influence on black experience
even if the dominant white claim that black “racial victimization” is a
“thing of the past” was remotely accurate. [4]
America Is a White Supremacist Country
When visiting academic Robert Jensen gave a lecture at York University
earlier this month, he began his address to the audience by bringing
attention to something that usually doesn't need to be said: he is
white.
"In a white supremacist country," he said to the culturally diverse
group of students, faculty and visitors, "white people have some
advantage."
In 2005, Jensen published The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race,
Racism and White Privilege. The book closely examines racism in the
United States by exploring the concept of white privilege, and then
points the finger at the politically correct "multicultural" approach
that conceals the reality of racism that still exists in our society.
White privilege is a Westernized concept that concentrates on the
invisible benefits - earned and unearned - that white citizens have.
"Whiteness" is actually conceived of as an ethnicity in itself,
recognizing how societal structures fix it as the normative - also
known as "the white guy."
If you click onto the Wikipedia entry for white privilege, there's
an extensive list of "whites-only" benefits: The ability to turn on the
TV or read a newspaper and see themselves represented, and the freedom
to speak their opinions without having to speak of their race or
appearing as a threat to the dominant society.
In his lecture, Jensen gave a historical overview of the "empirical"
history of the United States, and how it was that background that led
to social and political constructs like race, class and gender to
define white privilege. Or in Jensen's own terminology: white
supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy. [5]
[1]
Martin Jacques
[2]
World Revolution
[3]
Nick Fredman
[4]
Paul Street
[5]
Rea McNamara