Jefferson's Pillow

[MalignD at aol.com]

<< I might be daring enough to ask if  p-listers would be willing to accept 
the not very daring proposition that racism is less the cause of slavery than 
an after the fact defense of and therefore result of it. >>

Interestingly enough, I found myself wondering along these lines while 
following the arguments around whether Washington or Jefferson or whoever was 
kind, benevolent, etc. to his slaves.  I assume, at some level there is truth 
to this phenomenon, whether true in the cases of the above-named or not, and 
not merely a whitewash of what was actually the case.  My musings, then, 
turned on why this (perhaps limited) benevolence became, a century later, 
rabid racist loathing?  When and why did a cheap workforce become a despised 
people, treated as subhuman?  Your point offers one answer -- an unbearable 
self-loathing, increasing over time, then transferred onto its cause.