That was just the way it was historically.
You are quite right about the fear of slave uprisings.
Actually during slavery and after many people of European descent ( shall we say i.e. Indentured Servants, et. al) were discouraged from fraternising with slaves on pain of extreme punishment and later were certainly threatened by people of color, because slaves not only worked on plantations, but held sway in all trades such as blacksmiths, leather tanners, carpenters, salesclerks, builders.
In other words any trade or occupation a white non-slaveholder could do, they had to compete with free slave labor and so of course, they were threatened. They also deeply resented having to go to war over slavery.
In the latter years of slavery poor whites and even native American Indians owned slaves to show they could compete with the European version of ‘civilized society’. These were choices made by immigrants to disassociate themselves with blacks even though they themselves were downtrodden and at the bottom of American society. (See “How The Irish Became White”, Noel Ignatiev; Harvard PhD. Dissertation)
After slavery it was not the very rich who fought tooth and nail with not to cede one iota of privilege (they were way beyond that and had set the tone) , but the lower-classes who aspired to such because of the changes in the slavery laws that stated the Africans were not really human, but a sub-species suited to slavery and therefore inferior to any Euro-American or non-Black.
These notions of inferiority persist today; ergo the attack on Affirmative Action. Not one single person of African descent is equal to any white person and now to any non-black; therefore if one is let in because of Affirmative Action, he/she is unqualified.
For a law-by-law documented chronology of the planting, cultivation, weeding and fertilization of racism by American Presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton refer to “Nixon’s Piano”, University of Alaska at Anchorage Press; that is IF you can find it.
Cheers,
Wilma
On 11/17/03 4:03 PM, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
In a message dated 11/17/2003 2:14:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I am not discounting what you say, but the truly rich have never been threatened by people of color; it’s those in the middle-class that are threatened and resort to snobbery, etc.
I would have to disagree there. Thomas Jefferson may not have felt threatened; as a slaveholder he managed to feel unthreatened enough to have sex with his slaves without a condom. But it is axiomatic that the slaveholding classes in this country (read the truly rich) have always felt uneasy at the prospect and reality of slave uprisings. And if you read the history there were many more of these than standard white bourgeois historians have let on.
And after slavery times, the truly rich have always felt threatened enough by people of color, women, and the working classes to fight tooth and nail every inch of the way in order not to cede an iota of privilege. Part of the procedure is the cooptation of the bourgeois and enough of the working classes by measly tax cuts and a few economic sops to maintain the ruling classes in power. The process continues today, in case nobody has noticed. Despite decades of progress in the organization of labor unions, Wal-Mart and the University of Pennsylvania are still fighting savagely to deny working people a modicum of their rights (I'm referring to Get-Up, for those of you not familiar with the local scene. BTW staff unions are so recent on Ivy League campuses that it wasn't until 1983 that Columbia staff won the right to unionize -- having had some experience in that campaign, I can say that black workers were those the administration was most afraid of).
In this neighborhood the wealthy and haute-bourgeoisie are so nervous about the coloreds that they have to shut down the flea market at the Whole Truth Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith. Half a dozen Negro teenagers hanging on the corner gives the UCD, the SHCA, and the UCCC a hissy fit. This sissy little neighborhood is a quintessential microcosm of power, property, class and color relations, not to mention roles of women, gays, lesbians and immigrants. What baffles me is where all the blinging Marxists are?? We're probably the only neighborhood in Philly that has a Communist HQ right across from the Wobblies, not to mention ANSWER, MOVE and UHURU yet do you hear a whisper of good old dialectical analysis on this list?? Nooooo
Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org
