Fabrication of Racism

In both Leslie Harris’s In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City and Thelma Foote’s Black and White Manhattan: The History of Racial Formation in New York City, the issue of white supremacy in colonial times is discussed. The facts surrounding this issue reminds me of the philosophical question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”. It seems to parallel the question of which came first, black inferiority or the persecution of blacks as slaves. At first thought, it may be assumed that black inferiority is what led to their rampant slavery, while in fact the opposite is true. In reality, the idea of black inferiority was a construct of white men to justify and rationalize their harsh treatment of blacks. The white men of the New World were eager to make slaves out of the African population and used the concept of social inferiority to maintain their false constructs. At this time, slavery was crucial to the economy of New York, the northern state with the highest number of slaves. In fact, the concept of black inferiority was so irrelevant to the immergence of blacks as slaves that whites even tried to enslave Native Americans when they could. It was only due to the fact that the blacks offered more productive and abundant slaves that the idea of black inferiority was spread to maintain this slavery. The false idea of black inferiority was taken so far that the church even refused to baptize blacks as to close out a way for them to gain freedom. It is important when looking back at history to remember this idea used to justify slavery in America. Without keeping this in mind, one may come to understand and accept the horrible acts of whites during this time. This would distort history in a malicious way. As comedian Chris Rock once put it, “white people got less crazy”. What he meant by this is that by saying that the black community “made progress”, it implies that their initial slavery was in fact justified. It implies that the blacks were the ones who needed to improve in order to deserve free lives. However, in reality it was the whites who needed to “get less crazy”. The cruel ideas of black inferiority used to persecute them as slaves needed to be erased. These false ideas were constructs of the white men of America, created for the sole purpose of economic gain, and holding no basis in truth. Recognizing the origins of racism in America is important for understanding the journey of former slaves to freedom, for the racism that caused so much pain and persecution for them had no truth whatsoever.