Fair warning: easily offended individuals and people who think racism is dead should skip this post…

I have found myself having several disturbing conversations with seemingly intelligent people over the past few days. I am trying to sort through my discomfort so I apologize in advance if this post is a muddle.

I have learned over the years to mostly steer clear of conversations about racism with white people. Not all white people but most. I have found the conversations to be mostly pointless as it is clear that the people who I am talking with have absolutely no historical context at all for the discussion.

Racism is an enduring legacy of slavery and continues to impact all aspects of American life in the 21st century. If this is not the starting point for all discussions, then we really have nothing more to talk about. Throughout the 17th, 18th and most of the 19th centuries, most white Americans either accepted slavery or actually owned slaves. Indeed the Constitution of the United States sanctioned and supported slavery.

For those who are historically challenged, here are some sections that enshrine the less than second class status of blacks in the 1787 Constitution of the United States:

Article #1, Section 2, para. 3
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. [This is the infamous 3/5 clause which doesn’t actually mean that slaves were considered 3/5 of a PERSON but rather that “they would count three-fifths of a state’s slaves in apportioning Representatives, Presidential electors, and direct taxes.” Read more here about that compromise.]

Article #1, Section 9, para. 1
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. [In other words, the Congress is expressly forbidden to prohibit the importation of slaves before 1808]

Article #4, Section 2, para. 3
No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service of labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. [This is basically the language for the first fugitive slave law, requiring all states, including those that forbid slavery, to forcibly return slaves who have escaped from other states to their original owners.]

So to recap, the Constitution created a provision that counted three-fifths of the slave population in determining a state’s representation in Congress and its number of electoral votes; it permitted the slave trade to continue for 20 years; and it required every state to return fugitive slaves. Lest you think that this was an aberration, we can also turn to the Colonial slave statutes of 1630-1740 for more evidence of institutional racism in the U.S. In 1639, at a time when there were less than 200 black people in Virginia out of a population of over 7,500, the settlers passed statutes stating that all persons except negroes would be provided with arms and ammunition. In Maryland, they passed a statute in 1663 that reads:

All negroes or other slaves within the province, and all negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into the province, shall serve durante vita; and all children born to any negro or other slave, shall be slaves as their fathers were for the term of their lives.

Trust me, I was a social studies teacher for a minute so I can go on and on but will spare you because I am feeling charitable…

The key point is that slavery not only deprived black people of freedom and the benefits of their labor, it was also a system of physical and psychological intimidation and control that structured a racial hierarchy in the U.S. We are still living with its terrible consequences today and this is what I write about on an almost daily basis on this blog.

Now that I have gotten that historical context out of the way, let me return to the source of my most recent annoyance with respect to conversations about racism in the U.S. It was actually BLACK PEOPLE who were arguing with me that it is more important to focus on class oppression and exploitation today than on racial oppression. I am basically a recovering Marxist so I get this impulse. I think that economics and capitalism in particular structure and underpin a great deal of social oppression and inequality. However race is still the organizing principle of American life in the 21st century. Sorry but this is just true. No amount of discussions about post-racial America will change this. [Note: Please save any e-mails about the fact that it doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition and that we should be focusing instead on applying an intersectional analysis of oppression. I am beginning to suspect that invoking “intersectionality” is the new ‘I don’t want to address racism as a social fact’ dodge.] Sarah Debro, who was born a slave in North Carolina, was interviewed at age 90 in 1937 and had this to say: “My folks don’t want me to talk about slavery. They’s shame niggers ever was slaves (Hurmence 1990).” I’m sorry to say that for many people in America today of all races this sentiment is still true. But we can’t get around the role of slavery in shaping the fundamental character of the United States.

Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure) spent the final years of his life living next door to my parents in Guinea. But even without that personal connection, he is still a touchstone for me. In a speech that he gave in 1968, he broke down the differences between poor whites and poor blacks. I still think that his analysis is relevant today and it speaks to the point that I have been trying to make about race as the organizing principle of American life.

“I will not deny that poor whites in this country are oppressed. But there are two types of oppression. One is exploitation, the other is colonization. And we have to understand the difference between them. Exploitation is when you exploit somebody of your own race. Colonization is when you exploit somebody of a different race. We are colonized, they are exploited.

If I am black and I am exploiting you who are also black, we have the same values, the same culture, the same language, the same society, the same institutions, so I do not have to destroy those institutions for you. But if you are of another race, if you have a different culture, different language, different values, I have to destroy all of those to make you bow to me. And that is the difference between poor black and poor white. Poor whites have their culture, have their values, have their institutions; ours have been completely destroyed.

We need alliances with people who are trying to rebuild their culture, trying to rebuild their history, trying to rebuild their dignity, with people who are fighting for their humanity. Poor white people are not fighting for their humanity, they’re fighting for more money.”

I don’t agree with Carmichael’s emphasis on the unitary nature of “black culture.” I think that it would be more appropriate to characterize African Americans as having multiple “cultures.” However that is a small quibble. His substantive point about the difference between exploitation and colonization resonates profoundly with me. One group is fighting for its HUMANITY and the other is not. This makes all of the difference in the world. Most importantly, racism is the overarching reason for why one group got to keep its cultures and another has spent centuries trying to reclaim theirs. Slavery in America casts a long shadow and cannot be denied. END. OF. RANT.