7
Street roots
June 6, 2014
Myth buster: Exposing the mythical origins of racism
One a u th o r’s perspective on how some Am ericans, in cluding Thom as Jefferson, created the concept o f race
BY JIM DOUGLAS
to own slaves, and they had no reason dr
need to justify slavery based on any notion
T acqueline Jones teaches at the
of race or racial inferiority. They simply
I University of Texas and has been
needed slave labor to maintain their
I awarded a MacArthur “genius”
“luxurious way of life.”
iellowship and other prizes. She’s an
Jones explains that Africans experienced
intellectual heavyweight, who specializes in
“extreme political vulnerability” to
African-American history, particularly as it
enslavement because they had no nation-
relates to labor. I suspect that historians will states to protect them and little ability to
conclude that her book is very important
resist their capture and bondage. The
Being married to an academic historian, I difference in power between Europeans and
should have known what to expect Like
Africans created what, perhaps on the
academic histories in general, “A Dreadful
surface, appeared to be a relationship based
Deceit” is based on exhaustive research and
on race. To Jones, however, it was “local
contains a myriad of specific facts,
political economies and labor demands
marshalled by the author to prove her
shaped by military imperatives 4 not racial
hypothesis. For a reader nqt trained as a |
prejudices — [that] account for the origins of
historian — even one interested in gaining a
slavery in the colonies” and the eventual
greater understanding of the history of race * predominance of African descendants in the
in the U.S.— this makes for a challenging
slave population.
read. It can be hard for many-of ,us to
Antonio was an “Angolan” in Maryland
extract the key points from the tremendous
who resisted how he was treated. In 1658, |
amount of detail concerning numerous
he had been a slaVe for about six months
people’s lives and events. But Jones
when his Dutch owner, one of the most ...
ultimately supports her thesis well.
powerful men in the colony, beat him and
Conquering the harmful divisions in our
left him to die. Perhaps surprisingly,
society based on race is critical to genuine
Antonio’s owner was later prosecuted
social progress in 21st-century America. But
(although not convicted). The key to Jones’
to accomplish this requires an
analysis is th a t in telling the story, none of
understanding of where these divisions
the participants in the trial referred to any
originated.
racial characteristics or appeared to hold
“A Dreadful Deceit” uses the life stories
any prejudice based on race.
of six people to illustrate the history of race
Up until the time of the revolution,
in the U.S. The author’s purpose is to
“neither ethnicity nor skin color correlated
contend with America’s own “creation
precisely with a specific legal status.”
myth” that “the nation was conceived in
Southern planters and others “stereotyped
‘racial’ differences” and that, over time,
Africans according to their tribal origins but
“these self-evident differences have suffused
refrained from attaching any racial
our national character and shaped our
characteristics to Africans and their
national destiny.”
descendants.” Slaveholders did not talk in
Jones sees race as a myth. She writes
term s of race or use it as a reason to justify
“raee itself is a fiction, one that has no basis
slavery. Both pro- and anti-British camps
in biology or any long-standing, consistent
offered slaves freedom in return for fighting
usage in human culture.” Instead, racial
with them.
divisions have been the result of “complex
After the Revolutionary War, Thomas
; historical processes” that have little to do
Jefferson, “architect of the nation’s
with biology and everything to do with
conception of liberty and a slaveholder
power relations and the needs of the
himself,” and other thinkers'and political
political elite atth e time. It is a provocative
leaders set out to develop the principles
hypothesis for those who may believe that
upon which the republic would be founded.
racism goes back to the arrival of the first
It was only then that a theory of social
slaves from Africa.
difference, positing “black intellectual
Even though enslaved Africans were in
inferiority,” was necessary to “rationalize
English North Anierica as early as 1619,
black exclusion from the body politic of the
until the American Revolution slavery
new nation.” It was in this context, Jones
existed without any stated basis in race.
Only the powerful and well-to-do could afford . theorizes, that Jefferson and others
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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z írfixfi ’»ss :
A Dreadful
Deceit: The Myth
of Race from the
Colonial Era to
Obama’s America
by Jacqueline
Jones
developed theories for the first time that
black people were inferior, “less intelligent
and imaginative” than white people. In one
sense it was simple: for political reasons
related to potential political power in the .
Southern colonies, it was important that
slaves not be given the same rights as free
people, especially the right to vote»
Thus, the myth of racial inferiority was
born said Jones. In addition to Antonio,
Jones uses five other examples, stretching
from Boston King, a black fugitive in
revolutionary South Carolina^ to Marxist
Simon Owens, who battled both the auto
industry and the United Auto Workers to
address the specific needs of black workers.
The different examples over time show that
the myth of racial differences is flexible,
varies by time and place and can include
contradictory ideas. In the early 1900s many
Southern whites believed that black people
were lazy and not capable of learning, yet
also believed black people should do the
hard work in the fields and passed
legislation to prevent them from going to
school, which implied their desire to
become educated.
The precise origins of American racism
or whether race is a myth, can suggest the
strategy for change.
An epilogue brings her analysis to the
current day. She cites numerous examples
proving that a “post-racial society” didn’t
follow Obama’s election: There are disparate
rates of poverty, educational attainment and
incarceration; the Great Recession had a
disproportionate impact on rates of
foreclosure and loss of accumulated wealth;
and government cutbacks and resulting
layoffs have had a lopsided impact on people
of color. And, much like the way legislative
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actions were used to hinder black people’s
right to vote after both the revolutionary
and civil wars, the onslaught of voter ID
laws seeks to have the same effect today.
Jones concludes that even though
mythologies of racial difference have largely
disappeared from public discourse,
“centuries of violent discrimination against
people of African descent” have “deeply
scarred and twisted fundamental structures
of American life.” Her analysis seems to
describe the current situation very well.
Reprinted from Real Change Newspaper,
Street Roots sister paper in Seattle, Wash.