This is the final installment of his series, here I debunk the mythology of "reverse racism" - a phrase that "needs to be done away with." Privileges accrued over centuries of Black subjugation translate into present-day white wealth and Black poverty. "Race-neutral" public policies amount to nothing less than change-resistant strategies by those who strive to continue the old order of Black over white - a society in which whites just out of prison are more likely to get a job than African Americans with no prison record. Lending and redlining practices suck billions of dollars out of the Black community, and mass incarceration effectively destroys the futures of successive generations of young people. But huge numbers of whites believe they are the ones who are getting a raw deal. Read more...

"An oppressed people without total recall of their history of exploitation cannot craft a new history of liberation." - Manning Marable

As the current field of Democratic and Republican presidential candidates jockey for position, I believe that it is important for Black folk to examine and critically-deconstruct where we have been and where we find ourselves today. It seems that every four years we see our struggle and needs ignored, minimized or denied - additionally, 2000 and 2004 should have shown us that even our votes are under attack.

Even a cursory view of American history (current events as well) will yield numerous examples that attest to the injustices visited upon the daughters and sons of Africa. The present administration has, through its policies, shown indifference and contempt for its most vulnerable citizens (the poor and people of color).  The Supreme Court seems poised to rollback the already-meager gains made a generation ago, thus making the already-precarious position of the vast majority of Blacks even more unstable. However, we should have seen this coming; we should have been better students of history. If we were, we would have known that whenever any ground is gained, or perceived to be gained, there is a societal resistance by the dominant culture. We would have also known that our "rights," historically and presently, have never been all that secure.

In this writing I will be outlining and detailing America's history as it relates to white privilege and Black progress. The sections that address Jamestown, Reconstruction and Plessy vs. Ferguson are directly excerpted from my book When Racism Is Law & Prejudice is Policy. Particular attention should be paid to (what I call) the "triple p" paradigm. In the maintenance of injustice and inequality there are three interdependent dynamics that work in a seemingly never-ending circle. Individual perception(s) generates public opinion which creates and supports governmental policies. The longer the inequitable policies stay in place, the more they create conditions which seem to justify the prejudicial perceptions (these perceptions, by and large, are created by another "p": propaganda).  For example:  the poor quality and lack of resources of inner-city public education=students lose interest in education and fail or drop out=Blacks don't value education. This piece appears in its entirety at the Black Agenda Report

Introduction

As the popular HBO series The Sopranos winds down to a close; and the show’s stars make the rounds of talk & late-night shows, I find myself perplexed by America’s fascination with this program. Then again, why should I be? This is just another example of America’s propensity to embrace the glorification of violence and criminal activity in entertainment when those pulling the triggers and those doing the killing are white----A&E, which airs Sopranos reruns, just unveiled a commercial promoting the show and it shows a tractor exploding after the driver turns the key, a woman in an convenience store removing a bag of ice from a freezer and revealing the face of a murder victim and two kids beating a bicycle with baseball bats. This is accepted, ignored or celebrated. And so the decolorization of white violence in entertainment is achieved.

Religious Endorsement

Slavery was rationalized because Africans were not Christian, therefore labeled “heathens” and considered sub-human. The Promised Land theology of the book of Joshua with its model of military conquest was used to justify the wars against indigenous peoples, the “Canaanites” of the New World. The Puritans who came to the New World saw themselves as God’s elect, called to establish the New Israel. Frontier individualism and the optimism of progress through expansion and wealth led to the political slogan “Manifest Destiny,” which reflected Christian or Protestant ascendancy, a biblical interpretation that encouraged an attitude of the moral and economic superiority of white Christians over all others, and justified the taking of land.

"We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us...," the Puritan John Winthrop wrote. The Puritans who disembarked in Massachusetts in 1620 believed they were establishing the New Israel.

Indeed, the whole colonial enterprise was believed to have been guided by God. "God hath opened this passage unto us," Alexander Whitaker preached from Virginia in 1613, "and led us by the hand unto this work."

Promised Land imagery figured prominently in shaping English colonial thought. The pilgrims identified themselves with the ancient Hebrews. They viewed the New World as the New Canaan. They were God's chosen people headed for the Promised Land. Other colonists believed they, too, had been divinely called. The settlers in Virginia were, John Rolf said, "a peculiar people, marked and chosen by the finger of God."

This self-image of being God's Chosen People called to establish the New Israel became an integral theme in America's self-interpretation. During the revolutionary period, it emerged with new force. "We cannot but acknowledge that God hath graciously patronized our cause and taken us under his special care, as he did his ancient covenant people," Samuel Langdon preached at Concord, New Hampshire in 1788. George Washington was the "American Joshua," and "Never was the possession of arms used with more glory, or in a better cause, since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun," Ezra Stiles urged in Connecticut in 1783. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson wanted Promised Land images for the new nation's Great Seal. Franklin proposed Moses dividing the Red (Reed) Sea with Pharaoh's army being overwhelmed by the closing waters. Jefferson urged a representation of the Israelites being led in the wilderness by the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. Later, in his second inaugural address (1805), Jefferson again recalled the Promised Land. "I shall need...the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life."

The sense of divine election and the identification of the Americas with ancient Canaan were used to justify expelling America's Indigenous Peoples from their land. The colonists saw themselves as confronting "satanic forces" in the Native Americans. They were Canaanites to be destroyed or thrown out.

This view of Native Americans was challenged by a Mohawk chief named Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) in a letter to King George III of England: “Our wise men are called Fathers and they truly sustain that character. Do you call yourselves Christians? Does the religion of Him who you call your Savior inspire your spirit and guide your practices? Surely not. It is recorded of him that a bruised reed he never broke. Cease then to call yourselves Christians, lest you declare to the world your hypocrisy. Cease too to call other nations savage, when you are tenfold more the children of cruelty than they….”

English Concept of Land Ownership

Although its control had waned by the time the first settlers from England had arrived in North America, the remnants of the old medieval feudal system were very much a part of English life. This reality greatly impacted the attitudes of the early English settlers towards the Native Americans (and later African Americans). Land ownership and control was the foundation upon which the whole system rested. And this ownership and control extended to those who inhabited that land.

Beginning with the Jamestown settlement of 1607 and intensifying with the great Puritan migration of the 1630’s, Englishmen coming to the New World thought less about Indian trade, the Northwest Passage, and fabled gold mines and more about land. As the dreams of El Dorado evaporated, English attention centered on the less glamorous goal of permanent settlement. Now land became all-important, for without land how could there be permanent settlement? The Indian, who had been important when trade and exploration were the keys to overseas involvement, became an inconvenient obstacle. One Englishman went to the heart of the difficulty in 1609: “By what right or warrant can we enter into the land of these Savages, take away their right-full inheritance from them, and plant ourselves in their places, being unwronged or unprovoked by them?” It was a cogent question to ask, for Englishmen, like other Europeans, had organized their society around the concept of private ownership of land. They regarded it, in fact, as an important characteristic of their superior culture. Colonists were not blind to the fact that they were invading the land of another people, who by prior possession could lay sole claim to the whole of mainland America. The resolution of this moral and legal problem was accomplished by an appeal to logic and to higher powers. The English claimed that they came to share, not appropriate, the trackless wilderness. The Indians would benefit because they would be elevated far above their present condition through contact with a richer culture, a more advanced civilization, and most importantly, the Christian religion.

Samuel Purchas, a clerical promoter of English expansion, gave classic expression to this idea: “God in wisedome ... enriched the Savage Countries that those riches might be attractive for Christian suters, which there may sowe spirituals and reape temporals.” Spirituals, to be sown, of course, meant Christianity; temporals to be reaped meant land. Purchas went on to argue that to leave undeveloped a sparsely settled land populated only by a few natives was to oppose the wishes of God who would not have showed Englishmen the way to the New World if he had not intended them to possess it. Moreover, if the English did not occupy North America, Spain would; and the Indians would then fall “victim” to Catholicism.

Land was the key to English settlement after 1620. It was logical to assume in these circumstances that the Native would not willingly give up the ground that sustained him, even if the English offered to purchase land, as they did in most cases. For anyone as property conscious as the English, the idea that people would resist the invasion of their land with all the force at their disposal came almost as a matter of course. Thus the image of the hostile, “savage Indian” began to triumph over that of the receptive, “friendly Indian.” Their own intentions had changed from establishing trade relations to building permanent settlements. A different conception of the Native American was required in these altered circumstances.

What we see here is a subconscious attempt to manipulate the world in order to make it conform to the English definition of it. The evidence also suggests that the English stereotype of the hostile savage helped to alleviate a sense of guilt which inevitably arose when men whose culture was based on the concept of private property embarked on a program to dispossess another people of their land. To typecast the Native American as a brutish savage was to solve a moral dilemma. If the Indian was truly cordial, generous, and eager to trade, what justification could there be for taking his land? But if he was a savage, without religion or culture, perhaps the colonists' actions were defensible.

The English, we might speculate, anticipated hostility and then read it into the Native's character because they recognized that they were embarking upon an invasion of land to which the only natural response could be violent resistance. Having created the conditions in which the Native American could only respond violently, the Englishman defined the native as brutal, beastly, savage, and barbarian and then used that as a justification for what he was doing.

It has been nearly two weeks since I last penned my series on misogyny and racism (I have been under the weather and am under the care of several physicians and specialists ). So to those who believe in its power, I would greatly appreciate your prayers. When my book, When Racism Is Law & Prejudice Is Policy, was published in January of this year, I never made the connection of its publication and the 400^th year anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. This commemoration has even drawn Queen Elizabeth to our shores for this celebration. I was looking to share some passages from my book, and this look at 400 years of American history provides the perfect opportunity. I have not only written about this time in America’s history, but I have taught about it as well. I will be posting this particular passage in three different installments. I would be interested and hearing your thoughts, so feel free to comment. I commit this writing to your thoughtful and diligent consideration.