Jefferson's Pillow

[jbor]

Paul wrote:

> 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.

No, I'd argue pretty strenuously that the institution of slavery, whatever
its economic expediencies, was also built upon the thoroughly racist notion
that Africans were lesser humans than white people, and thus expendable.

There are similarities with other caste and class systems which use wealth
or birthright (or for that matter, intellect - the idea of a meritocracy) or
military strength as the basis for discrimination and oppression, but these,
sometimes at least, do cut across racial lines.

In practice it isn't always clear cut, of course.

The latent racism of the latter part of the 19th C. in the U.S. is more
likely to be the result of the unwillingness of white America to actually
share their wealth and the available economic and lifestyle opportunities
with black people in the wake of abolition. For many African-Americans I can
imagine that the U.S. Civil War itself is seen as the ultimate in tokenism.

best