White Supremacy

  

White supremacy

Peter Schultz

 

What's the better description of the regime created in the United

States with the Constitution and thereafter, a slave regime or a white

supremacist regime? The latter. "then again, there was the fact that

a third of the refugees [from Cuba] were free people of color,

forbidden to immigrate to the U.S. and unwanted by whites in New

Orleans - particularly by English-speakers who preferred the

ostensible clarity of their own American pattern in which all black

people were assumed to be enslaved." (54)

 

Or deserved to be enslaved. Enslavement was a value, not just a

fact. Such value required white supremacist thought, belief. White

supremacy was/is more fundamental than slavery, as slavery as a

fact could be accidental or incidental, as could be white rule as well

But regimes are not the results of accidents or incidents. They don't

grow. They are constructed on the basis of values thought to be

best, with the possession of those values justifying rule.

 

"Allowing slavery's expansion, the mayor and other wealthy

Louisianans insisted, made white New Orleans and white American

more prosperous and more united, binding states and factions

together." (55)

 

"The governor himself enforced only a single law. Following territorial

regulations to the letter, he expelled all free males of color over the

age of 15 who had entered on refugee ships." (55)

 

Slavery was a reflection of white supremacy. But white supremacy

was a reflection of elitism. Elitism is the fundamental political

phenomenon that needs attention, that needs to be dealt with to

ameliorate the human condition. Should Plato's Republic, e.g., be

read as a critique of elitism? And wouldn't that be "a horse of a

different color" than that ridden by the neo-cons and others?

 

[Page numbers are from The Half Has Never Been Told]