How America Bought and Sold Racism, and Why it Still Matters

November 24, 2015 7:17 AM

"The truth is when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, the economic subjugation of African Americans, and the terrorism used to maintain it, did not come to a grinding halt." "
posted by roomthreeseventeen (10 comments total)

Quite frankly, a lot of the abolitionists would be racists by today’s standards. They also thought blacks were inferior intellectually and morally. [from the first link]

Sadly, even Abraham Lincoln stated unequivocally that he did not think the negro race was equal.
posted by puddledork at 7:39 AM on November 24, 2015

No shit.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:46 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

“The truth is when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, the economic subjugation of African Americans, and the terrorism used to maintain it, did not come to a grinding halt.”

When was this pull quote news?
posted by Going To Maine at 7:56 AM on November 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

When was this pull quote news?

Pew: Anxiety, Nostalgia, and Mistrust: Findings from the 2015 American Values Survey (emphasis mine)

More than four in ten (43%) Americans say that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities, while 55% disagree. Opinions about “reverse discrimination” have remained fairly constant over the past few years. Half (50%) of white Americans—including 60% of white working-class Americans—agree that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities, while fewer than three in ten Hispanic (29%) and black Americans (25%) agree.

In order to provide an overall measure of Americans’ attitudes about race, we created a Racial Inequity Index (RII). Overall, more Americans score low than high on the scale. One-third of Americans score very high (10%), or high (23%) on the scale, indicating that they perceive systemic discrimination against racial minorities as having continued impact on inequality today. About one in five (21%) Americans fall into the moderate category, and nearly half of Americans score low (38%) or very low (8%) on the RII, believing that racial minorities today have equal opportunities as whites. Approximately three-quarters of Republicans (74%) and Tea Party members (75%) perceive few continued effects of racial discrimination today (low scores on the RII), compared to just 22% of Democrats.
[...]
Nearly six in ten (58%) Americans disagree that blacks and other minorities receive equal treatment as whites in the criminal justice system, up from 47% in 2013. More than eight in ten (85%) black Americans and two-thirds (67%) of Hispanic Americans disagree that non-whites receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system. White Americans overall are closely divided (52% disagree, 47% agree), but white college-educated Americans are significantly more likely than white working-class Americans to disagree that minorities receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system (64% vs. 47%, respectively).

Americans are also closely divided over whether there are racial disparities in death penalty sentencing. A majority (53%) of Americans agree that a black person is more likely than a white person to receive the death penalty for the same crime, while 45% of Americans disagree. American attitudes about the way that the death penalty is applied are virtually unchanged from 1999. More than eight in ten (82%) black Americans and roughly six in ten (59%) Hispanic Americans, compared to fewer than half (45%) of white Americans, believe that a black person is more likely than a white person to receive a death penalty sentence for the same crime.

posted by zombieflanders at 8:08 AM on November 24, 2015 [6 favorites]

That quote's not news to me, but I hadn't thought much before about how "black memorabilia" was produced and sold as propaganda to support the Jim Crow terror state. I'd dismissed it as horrible racist kitsch, and let my mind slink away from the uncomfortable question of why it existed in the first place.

I learned something from this article. Thanks for posting.
posted by asperity at 8:11 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Who, breaking news here. Thanks!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:21 AM on November 24, 2015

Pew: Anxiety, Nostalgia, and Mistrust: Findings from the 2015 American Values Survey (emphasis mine)

That’s a very interesting report, but I think that saying that people incorrectly believe that prejudice against blacks has been cleared up in the present is significantly different than implying that they believe that all racial problems were all solved after the emancipation proclamation. (I mean, I’m not quibbling with the article here. I just think that that pull quote is much more dog-bites-man than man-bites-dog - in contrast with those Pew report excerpts, which I think are kind of surprising and worth pulling.)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:30 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

The conservative id, everyone!

@ajjaffe Huckabee notes protesters are free, won't get shot, and jokes "I know there’s some people in the audience that wish they would," to laughter

Another daily reminder that White America's 2nd Amendment rights will always trump anyone else's 1st Amendment rights, har har har.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:37 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Pun very much intended.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:37 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'd be interested to see similar statistics from the Civil Rights Era. I wasn't alive then - but my impression, based on reading about the reactions of whites, is that there was a similar level of denial about racial inequality, even when it was enforced by law. And denial is reflected in many of the famous quotes from the time:

If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there. - Malcom X

Which makes me wonder how the numbers themselves compare. They obviously have more to do with white denial than with reality.

And that makes me pretty depressed, because it means that no matter how blatant racism is, there will always be a significant - in the sense of affecting climate and policy - number of whites who will deny that it's a problem.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:48 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]