Noam Chomsky on the Roots of American Racism

[AUUSN 823]

Noam Chomsky:

The America that “black people have always known” is not an attractive one. The first black slaves were brought to the colonies 400 years ago. We cannot allow ourselves to forget that during this long period there have been only a few decades when African-Americans, apart from a few, had some limited possibilities for entering the mainstream of American society.

We also cannot allow ourselves to forget that the hideous slave labor camps of the new “empire of liberty” were a primary source for the wealth and privilege of American society, as well as England and the continent. The industrial revolution was based on cotton, produced primarily in the slave labor camps of the United States.

As is now known, they were highly efficient. Productivity increased even faster than in industry, thanks to the technology of the bullwhip and pistol, and the efficient practice of brutal torture, as Edward E. Baptist demonstrates in his recent study, “

The Half Has Never Been Told

.” The achievement includes not only the great wealth of the planter aristocracy but also American and British manufacturing, commerce and the financial institutions of modern state capitalism.

It is, or should be, well-known that the United States developed by flatly rejecting the principles of “sound economics” preached to it by the leading economists of the day, and familiar in today’s sober instructions to latecomers in development. Instead, the newly liberated colonies followed the model of England with radical state intervention in the economy, including high tariffs to protect infant industry, first textiles, later steel and others.

There was also another “virtual tariff.” In 1807, President Jefferson signed a bill banning the importation of slaves from abroad. His state of Virginia was the richest and most powerful of the states, and had exhausted its need for slaves. Rather, it was beginning to produce this valuable commodity for the expanding slave territories of the South. Banning import of these cotton-picking machines was thus a considerable boost to the Virginia economy. That was understood. Speaking for the slave importers, Charles Pinckney charged that “Virginia will gain by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, and she has more than she wants.” And Virginia indeed became a major exporter of slaves to the expanding slave society.

Some of the slave-owners, like Jefferson, appreciated the moral turpitude on which the economy relied. But he feared the liberation of slaves, who have “ten thousand recollections” of the crimes to which they were subjected. Fears that the victims might rise up and take revenge are deeply rooted in American culture, with reverberations to the present.

The Thirteenth Amendment formally ended slavery, but a decade later “slavery by another name” (also the title of

an important study by Douglas A. Blackmon

) was introduced. Black life was criminalized by overly harsh codes that targeted black people. Soon an even more valuable form of slavery was available for agribusiness, mining, steel — more valuable because the state, not the capitalist, was responsible for sustaining the enslaved labor force, meaning that blacks were arrested without real cause and prisoners were put to work for these business interests. The system provided a major contribution to the rapid industrial development from the late 19

th

century.

That system remained pretty much in place until World War II led to a need for free labor for the war industry. Then followed a few decades of rapid and relatively egalitarian growth, with the state playing an even more critical role in economic development than before. A black man might get a decent job in a unionized factory, buy a house, send his children to college, along with other opportunities. The civil rights movement opened other doors, though in limited ways. One illustration was the fate of Martin Luther King’s efforts to confront northern racism and develop a movement of the poor, which was effectively blocked.

The neoliberal reaction that set in from the late ‘70s, escalating under Reagan and his successors, hit the poorest and most oppressed sectors of society even more than the large majority, who have suffered relative stagnation or decline while wealth accumulates in very few hands. Reagan’s drug war, deeply racist in conception and execution, initiated a new Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander’s apt term for the revived criminalization of black life, evident in the shocking incarceration rates and the devastating impact on black society.

Reality is of course more complex than any simple recapitulation, but this is, unfortunately, a reasonably accurate first approximation to one of the two founding crimes of American society, alongside of the expulsion or extermination of the indigenous nations and destruction of their complex and rich civilizations.

G.Y.

: While Jefferson may have understood the moral turpitude upon which slavery was based, in his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” he says that

black people are dull in imagination, inferior in reasoning to whites, and that the male orangutans even prefer black women over their own

. These myths, along with the black codes following the civil war, functioned to continue to oppress and police black people. What would you say are the contemporary myths and codes that are enacted to continue to oppress and police black people today?

N.C.:

Unfortunately, Jefferson was far from alone. No need to review the shocking racism in otherwise enlightened circles until all too recently. On “contemporary myths and codes,” I would rather defer to the many eloquent voices of those who observe and often experience these bitter residues of a disgraceful past.

Perhaps the most appalling contemporary myth is that none of this happened. The title of Baptist’s book is all too apt, and the aftermath is much too little known and understood.

There is also a common variant of what has sometimes been called “intentional ignorance” of what it is inconvenient to know: “Yes, bad things happened in the past, but let us put all of that behind us and march on to a glorious future, all sharing equally in the rights and opportunities of citizenry.” The appalling statistics of today’s circumstances of African-American life can be confronted by other bitter residues of a shameful past, laments about black cultural inferiority, or worse, forgetting how our wealth and privilege was created in no small part by the centuries of torture and degradation of which we are the beneficiaries and they remain the victims. As for the very partial and hopelessly inadequate compensation that decency would require — that lies somewhere between the memory hole and anathema.

Jefferson, to his credit, at least recognized that the slavery in which he participated was “the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.” And the Jefferson Memorial in Washington displays his words that “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.” Words that should stand in our consciousness alongside of John Quincy Adams’s reflections on the parallel founding crime over centuries, the fate of “that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty…among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgment.”

What matters is our judgment, too long and too deeply suppressed, and the just reaction to it that is as yet barely contemplated.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2015/03/18/noam-chomsky-on-the-roots-of-american-racism/?referrer=

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

OMG.......another thread about racism.

[homersapien 11,352]

OMG.......another thread about racism.

You're just jealous that someone else started it.

[autigeremt 6,568]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

[AUUSN 823]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

Hence the title......The Roots of American Racism.

[AURaptor 1,121]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

It's worse when America does it, because in Noam's eyes, America is worse, period.

[AUUSN 823]

CLAIBORNE COUNTY, MS (Mississippi News Now) - The Claiborne County Sheriff, Marvin Lucas, has confirmed that a body was found on property located off of Rodney Rd in Claiborne county.

The Coroner, J.W. Mallett, confirms the body was found hanging from a tree.

Now, Claiborne County branch of the NAACP is indicating the man found hanging is Otis Byrd.

54-year-old Otis James Byrd was last seen when a friend dropped him off at Vicksburg's Riverwalk Casino ten days ago.

They hadn't heard from him since then.

The NAACP has now sent an email requesting the US Department of Justice "join the current investigation of the suspicious hanging death of Mr. Otis Byrd."

The email goes on to say: "Mr. Otis Byrd's body was [found] today, Thursday, March 19, 2015. After several days of missing, [he] was found hanged to death."

We are continuing to follow this story and will update you with new information as soon as possible. http://m.msnewsnow.com/msnewsnow/db_330626/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=mOJ1BVmU

[AURaptor 1,121]

CLAIBORNE COUNTY, MS (Mississippi News Now) - The Claiborne County Sheriff, Marvin Lucas, has confirmed that a body was found on property located off of Rodney Rd in Claiborne county.

The Coroner, J.W. Mallett, confirms the body was found hanging from a tree.

Now, Claiborne County branch of the NAACP is indicating the man found hanging is Otis Byrd.

54-year-old Otis James Byrd was last seen when a friend dropped him off at Vicksburg's Riverwalk Casino ten days ago.

They hadn't heard from him since then.

The NAACP has now sent an email requesting the US Department of Justice "join the current investigation of the suspicious hanging death of Mr. Otis Byrd."

The email goes on to say: "Mr. Otis Byrd's body was [found] today, Thursday, March 19, 2015. After several days of missing, [he] was found hanged to death."

We are continuing to follow this story and will update you with new information as soon as possible. http://m.msnewsnow.c...ntguid=mOJ1BVmU

Point ?

[homersapien 11,352]

I think the Choam piece was great.

While I knew slavery was the foundation of Southern wealth, I never thought about how England profited from it at the same time.

The rest of the article - while unsettling - should be read by all Americans, to check our hubris if for no other reason. I'd like to think we - as a whole - have the courage to face such facts, but I doubt that's the case. The power of myth is too great.

[homersapien 11,352]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

What's his "agenda"?

[AURaptor 1,121]

Nonsense beyond words. America is far more than a great nation built purely if even mostly on the backs of slaves.

[autigeremt 6,568]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

Hence the title......The Roots of American Racism.

Hence America was made up of people from all over the WORLD, bringing their racism with them.

[autigeremt 6,568]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

What's his "agenda"?

The same as yours......and every other progressive.

[cptau 169]

Good old norm, the libertarian socialist. His ideals sound good, its just human nature prevents them from working on any large or long term scale.

[Mims44 1,864]

England found themselves in a weird spot during that time.

On one hand they were totally against slavery anywhere in the world, on the other hand they loved the US cotton and the large quantities made through slave labor.

Then in the Civil War they never took one side or the other, but the only threatened attack was against the Union.

[homersapien 11,352]

Nonsense beyond words. America is far more than a great nation built purely if even mostly on the backs of slaves.

Hmmm, historical facts are "nonsense beyond words"?

Greetings from bizzarro world! :-\

[homersapien 11,352]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

What's his "agenda"?

The same as yours......and every other progressive.

And that would be?

(We may be on to something here.)

[homersapien 11,352]

Good old norm, the libertarian socialist. His ideals sound good, its just human nature prevents them from working on any large or long term scale.

I didn't see any political proselytizing in this piece.

[icanthearyou 4,462]

The roots of racism go much farther back in time than ole Noam writes about. But hey, his agenda is clear.

What's his "agenda"?

The same as yours......and every other progressive.

Progress? Prosperity for ALL? A better tomorrow?