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rac⋅ism [rey-siz-uh m]
–noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
Origin:
1865–70; < F racisme. See RACE 2 , -ISM
James Watson – the co-discoverer of DNA's double helix – recently made some racist remarks
The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.". He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.
THE PIONEER FUND The revival of eugenics in North America has more to do with ideology and money than with science. A New York-based foundation called the Pioneer Fund, established in 1937 by textile heir Wickliffe Draper, has provided millions of dollars (more than $10 million from 1971-1992 alone) to behavioral scientists whose findings lend credence to racist ideas and eugenic solutions, as well as to anti-immigrant groups. Draper believed that genetics could be used to prove the inferiority of blacks and the superiority of the white Anglo-Saxon stock that first colonized the Eastern seaboard. The Pioneer Fund’s original charter outlines a commitment to work for "racial betterment" through studies in heredity and eugenics and to "improve the character of the American people" by encouraging the procreation of descendants of the original white colonial stock.
The official rationale for enslaving Africans was that they were heathens, but slave traders and slave owners sometimes interpreted a passage in the book of Genesis as their justification. Ham, they maintained, committed a sin against his father Noah that condemned his supposedly black descendants to be "servants unto servants." When Virginia decreed in 1667 that converted slaves could be kept in bondage, not because they were actual heathens but because they had heathen ancestry, the justification for black servitude was thus changed from religious status to something approaching race. Beginning in the late seventeenth century laws were also passed in English North America forbidding marriage between whites and blacks and discriminating against the mixed offspring of informal liaisons. Without clearly saying so, such laws implied that blacks were unalterably alien and inferior.
Only a handful of societies made slavery the dominant labor force. The first true slave society in history emerged in ancient Greece between the 6th and 4th centuries. In Athens during the classical period, a third to a half of the population consisted of slaves. Rome would become even more dependent on slavery. It is not an accident that our modern ideas of freedom and democracy emerged in a slave society. Most early societies lacked a word for freedom; but large-scale slavery in classical Greece and Rome made these people more aware of the distinctive nature of freedom. Slavery never disappeared from medieval Europe. While slavery declined in northwestern Europe, it persisted in Sicily, southern Italy, Russia, southern France, Spain, and North Africa. Most of these slaves were "white," coming from areas in Eastern Europe or near the Black Sea.
THE HORRORS OF the New World slave system cannot be expressed in figures alone but the shear scale of these is staggering. The slave population of the Americas reached 33,000 in 1700, nearly three million in 1800 and peaked at over six million in 1850. During this period a million and a half died during the passage to the New World, large numbers died beforehand and between a tenth and a fifth died within a year of landing.
This huge and businesslike system remains one of the great tragedies of history. In The Making of New World Slavery, now available in paperback, Robin Blackburn suggests that it points us towards the "dark side of progress" (p5) in that the inhumanity of the system developed side by side with huge steps forward in knowledge and technique, such as the exploration of the Atlantic and the development of new navigational techniques. At the heart of the system lay a huge contradiction. The people who colonised the New World were largely those who rejected most strongly the old order in Europe. Yet just as unfree labour was dying out in Europe it began to develop on a massive new scale in the Americas. This contradiction was only resolved by the complete racialisation of New World slavery so that skin colour and slavery became inextricably linked.
Racism emerged out of the rise in the slave trade in the eighteenth century. Black people could be bought and sold like property and treated - or maltreated - as their owners wished, because they were regarded as something less than human. The basis for this idea already existed in European culture in general and in Catholicism in particular, which held that those who were not believers in the ‘one, true church’ were inferior beings. Around this in the era of slavery a whole system of beliefs was erected which attempted to prove that blacks were less intelligent than whites, with smaller brains and a capacity only for manual labour. They were seen, moreover, as uncivilised and barbaric. The existence of the great black civilisations has been hidden from history - right down to the present day.
Racism is a product of capitalism. It grew out of early capitalism’s use of slaves for the plantations of the New World, it was consolidated in order to justify western and white domination of the rest of the world and it flourishes today as a means of dividing the working class between white and Muslim or black, and native and immigrants or asylum seekers.
It is necessary to examine the underlying assumptions about racism in more detail in order to arrive at the materialist analysis of it. Racism is commonly assumed to be as old as society itself. However this does not stand up to historical examination. Racism is a particular form of oppression: discrimination against people on the grounds that some inherited characteristic, for example, skin colour, makes them inferior to their oppressors.
Slavery
However, historical references indicate that class society before capitalism was able, on the whole, to do without this particular form of oppression. Bad as the society of classical Greece and Rome were it is historically reasonably well documented that the ancient Greeks and Romans knew nothing about race. Slaves were both black and white and in fact the majority of slaves were white. The first clear evidence of racism occurred at the end of the 16th century with the start of the slave trade from Africa to Britain and to America.
CLR James in his Modern Politics[1] writes that “the conception of dividing people by race begins with its slave trade. Thus this [the slave trade] was so shocking, so opposed to all the conceptions of society which religious and philosophers had . . .the only justifications by which humanity could face it was to divide people into races and decide that Africans were an inferior race"
So racism was formed by the rich and powerful as an attempt to justify the most appalling and inhuman treatment of black people in the time of the greatest accumulation of material wealth the world had seen until then.
In 1784, five years before he became president of the United States, George Washington, 52, was nearly toothless. So he hired a dentist to transplant nine teeth into his jaw--having extracted them from the mouths of his slaves…
Political capital. For one thing, the South could not afford to part with its slaves. Owning slaves was "like having a large bank account," says Wiencek, author of An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. The southern states would not have signed the Constitution without protections for the "peculiar institution," including a clause that counted a slave as three fifths of a man for purposes of congressional representation.
Inside the house, she says, her chores began at 6:30 a.m. and ended only once Daniel Acha-Morfaw, his wife, Vivian Satia, and their three children were in bed; she worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for almost 1,800 days on end. If she had been earning minimum wage, well below the going rate for live-in nannies, her accumulated salary might have reached $175,000, says her attorney. But she was never paid.
Slavery is alive in America again. Today's slaves may not be bought, sold or tortured in the public square, like those in "Roots" or "Amistad," but experts with the Protection Project, an anti-trafficking program at Johns Hopkins University, estimate that 1 million undocumented immigrants are currently trapped here in slavelike conditions. (By way of comparison, perhaps 6 million Africans were shipped here between 1502 and 1808, when Congress outlawed the Atlantic slave trade.) "These are huge numbers, given the fact that people don't think this is going on," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told NBC News earlier this year.
Nike has been accused of using child labor in Cambodia. Adidas was accused of using prison labor in China and sweatshops in El Salvador. Timberland was accused of hiring 16-year old girls and paying them only 22 cents an hour, forcing them to work 98 hours a week, and exposing them to toxic chemicals. Also, "buying American" may not mean what you think you may still be paying for sweatshop labor. There are an estimated 5,000 illegal sweatshops that label their products "Made in the USA" in Los Angeles alone. (Co Op America)
Originally posted by hangedman13
So without capitalism what system do you suggest? From my own delving communism makes everyone equal by enslaving the whole working class. Any other economic systems out there?
Also as to the slave trade of Africa it followed the path of Greek and Roman slavery. Lose in a war and you got enslaved by the victor. African tribes went to war to acquire slaves to sell to the Europeans who varied in their roles in the trade. It had less to due with whites going and catching the slaves. So the real point of this post is that any race, color, or religion will sell out their own for profit.
Hey the Muslims practiced slavery well into the 20th cent. Ever watch Hildago? It had Viggo Mortensen in it, It was set in Saudi Arabia and a little side he is given a slave to be his gopher. The whole non-believer crap of being less than human.
Slavery is not a exclusively capitalist practice, stop fretting over whether or not the white nations were using it and look at the whole picture of who when and where it is or was used!
[edit on 16-9-2009 by hangedman13]
Originally posted by cenpuppie
S&F for you, your really did your homework for this.
What you just so excellently posted is The Game.
It's what i've always said to. All money in this country has blood on it..no matter if your a drug dealer or a doctor.
Google Video Link |
we are not in a capitalistic system. And we have not been under a capitalist system during any of those pictures
Since 1913 we have been in a debt based system. Where the banks and such are able to raise false capital by adding debt out of thin air. That money is created as a loan with interest that has to be paid back.
The system itself is designed for people to fail. And the banks decide who makes it and who doesn't, as we seen with the bailouts. Those who are decided to make it, are given the money needed to pay back it all, and the rest of the people are then screwed and go bankrupt. Then the banks come in and buy everything up, to loan out money again in the future and repeat the process.
If this were a capitalist society, then Fractional Reserve Banking would not exist at all. Because it would only be based on existing capital, rather than being able to create capital out of thin air.
The issue I'm talking about here is ancient stuff. Jesus called these people the moneychangers. In the bible it is called usury. Jesus also calls them a den of vipers and theives. Because that is what usury/interest is - theft.
Originally posted by ZeroKnowledge
I fail to see how you connect capitalism with racism and slavery. No, i read your post. It got a lot of information on slavery. It has info about racism. And it mentions capitalism. I fail to see how you connect the dots though. There were no African slaves in Africa? There were no white slaves in colonies? There were no slaves in non-capitalistic societies? There was no racism and genocides before capitalism?
Explotation of less powerful people by more powerful people always existed. So it is not capitalism alone that is guilty of that.
I really do not see the connections. Sorry.
Keep in mind that there is only one race - the human race.
Originally posted by KSPigpen
I disagree with your interpretation of capitalism. It is a GIVEN that our economic system is not geared towards 'normal' citizens OWNING capital privately, but someone, somewhere OWNS the capital, be it gold, resources or marks on a ledger that can be traded for something else of value. When private hands own capital, that is by definition, capitalism.
You will get no disagreement from me in principle on this statement. The average citizen, or slave of the world has very limited access to any real capital. But again, someone has it, and it's private, so it's capitalism.
Just a couple issues that I would like clarification on with this one. I have no doubt that the 'system' is not geared toward the success of the common man. It's hard for me to believe that such a system is so integral to our society that it 'makes a decision' about who 'makes it' and who doesn't. I know some fairly wealthy people that got that way through hard work, running multiple businesses and making prudent investments and decisions. I also knew some fairly successful criminals who made a good living, without the 'approval' of the system. Whether it is a plantation owner, or an international banking conglomerate, money is earned, or acquired, capital is amassed by private individuals, again, capitalism.
I do see your point on this and have no doubt that the love of money is the root of all evil. Whether I have bought slaves to provide me with a greater profit, or enslaved a world to live off of the interest of their payments to me, I have still enslaved for the sole purpose of acquiring more wealth. My PRIVATE wealth.
It is still my assertion that as long as there is even an ILLUSION of a capitalistic system in place, people will be exploited. Those people that are exploited will have to be dehumanized to justify their exploitation and that dehumanization is in fact racism.
To me though, it is still a capitalistic system, even if the capital never actually belongs to me, or anyone I know, or anyone I've ever met. as long as greed rules, then there will be slaves. As long as I can live in the illusion that I will make a profit if I cut corners and employ child labor, or slave labor then the temptation will be there for me to do just that.
The problem is that any such "capital" one might get has no value, because everyone is in the end made to accept the dollar as legal tender. Because the dollar itself is able to change in value on any given day, the capital itself is rendered worthless except for the time period when you turn that capital(most likely a commodity) in exchange for the dollar.
No sir, that is not capitalism and free market principles. If it was even for everyone, then it would be capitalism. Equal opportunity and so forth.
Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Despotism: 1. the rule of a despot; the exercise of absolute authority. 2. absolute power or control; tyranny. 3. an absolute or autocratic government. 4. a country ruled by a despot.
So with money in the current system it is an unlimited resource. It's just a number and can go on into infinity. As such, it renders all capital worthless in reality, and the entire game the central banks play is to keep that illusion of capital and value there by limiting the amount of money in circulation. However, at their finger tips lies an unlimited amount of "capital" by today's standards.
Any money created went to government services, tax and loan free etc. It had the sole purpose of easing trade, not creating false capital.
Those things happen regardless of system, it's an effect of supply and demand which is a law just like gravity.
The only way to ever get away from a capitalist system is to get rid of supply and demand. These basic principles will apply to all things, even communist systems for example. The only thing that really changes would be who decides who gets what wealth and how/why.
And you hear people talk about abundance systems. That would be the ideal system, because then if supply is well above demand, the value drops to 0. The problem with that however is that we do have limited resources. And as long as you have limited resources, you will have supply and demand.