Prometheus 6 continues to be one of the deepest bloggers on the web, especially when it comes to addressing this myth that we call race. (A myth with very real social consequences, of course). Here's part of his latest post on the subject:
A couple of years ago a friend of mine was asked in a Black history course she was teaching how the construct of race came into existence. In response I suggested chapter three of The Shaping of Black America, titled "The Road Not Taken." It documents the reasoning behind enslaving Africans as opposed to Amerinds or European indentured servants, and the steps taken to make it legally and socially acceptable. Recently I added the chapter as a permanent piece of my web site for discussion and documentation purposes. It's an important chapter because it documents how legitimizing slavery damaged both Africans and Europeans in ways that survive to this day.The reasoning behind the institution of slavery tends to be ignored or misrepresent by historians....
To say there is a natural or cultural bias toward domination in all Europeans is an ugly thing. Especially since there is proof that Europeans at the time (they weren't "White people" yet any more than Africans were "Black people") worked together, intermarried to some degree, escaped bondage together and on the whole held common cause against an oppressive land-owning class.
Until the advent of African slavery. At that point a society was built that automatically enforced and invisibly rewarded differences that, up until that time, were seen as purely cosmetic. Even religion was turned to this purpose. So now we are the recipients of over 350 years of programming....
Black people had to be broken to be slaves, and White people had to be broken to be masters. How else can you explain slave owners who allow slaves to buy their own freedom when laws states anything the slave owned belonged to his master in the first place?
It is critical for Black people and White people to recognize this, that it is not natural for us to be divided. It is not natural for us to consider our differences to be more than cosmetic. A society was built that trains us to see these differences as significant. The result of this is ugly.
Now Black people aspire to become all that White people are... never understanding that White people are no more what they would have been than they [Black people] are.
Black people have only been free for two generations. White people have only had free people of other races around them for two generations. Neither group has mastered their situation yet, and who can blame either?
Because the society still gives racialized feedback so clearly and strongly that the honorable efforts made by many on both sides of the veil are simply overwhelmed....