- Mar 11, 2015
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“Racism has set whites who are made poor in our society in competition with people of color and has also increased the separation between classes among whites.” -Horace Seldon
For the past 400 years, wealthy whites have used race to pit moderate to low-income whites against people of color. In 2016, working-class whites developed a cult-like following behind a rich inheritance baby who never really had to worry about a job or anything else ever in his life. He was a man born on third base with a gold spoon stuck in his mouth. Yet they believed this man was the one fighting for them. He baited working-class whites by using the politics of fear and racial resentment. But this division was not invented by President number 45. It started with the so-called founders. After all, a declaration was made in the late 1700s that all men were created equal, but those words were just quill pen ink written on parchment.
I have mentioned the 1790 Naturalization Act. This act allowed only white citizenship in this country. While whites could be citizens, only property-owning whites could vote. So from the beginning, poor white men did not have equal rights. White women had no rights, yet both played to race. By 1856 poor white men could vote. By 1920 white women could vote. Even after being given the right to vote, both groups were not given actual equal status with wealthy white males. Working-class whites had no work protections and were at the whims of owners. The labor unions were weak, there were no workplace safety regulations, no minimum wage, no maximum on working hours, no child labor laws, nothing.
As blacks moved north after slavery, the wealthy owners told their white laborers how blacks took jobs that white men were entitled to. The rich were getting richer, and all they had to do to keep the poor in line and dependent on the crumbs they were getting was to tell them how much they were better than blacks or others of color. All along, moderate to low-income whites have been race baited by the wealthy who did so to keep them in their place. And throughout American history, those whites have fallen for it.
Martin Luther King pointed out this phenomenon in his speech on the last day of the Selma to Montgomery march.
Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.
If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion.
face2faceafrica.com
So how much longer are you "working class" folk going to keep race hustled?
For the past 400 years, wealthy whites have used race to pit moderate to low-income whites against people of color. In 2016, working-class whites developed a cult-like following behind a rich inheritance baby who never really had to worry about a job or anything else ever in his life. He was a man born on third base with a gold spoon stuck in his mouth. Yet they believed this man was the one fighting for them. He baited working-class whites by using the politics of fear and racial resentment. But this division was not invented by President number 45. It started with the so-called founders. After all, a declaration was made in the late 1700s that all men were created equal, but those words were just quill pen ink written on parchment.
I have mentioned the 1790 Naturalization Act. This act allowed only white citizenship in this country. While whites could be citizens, only property-owning whites could vote. So from the beginning, poor white men did not have equal rights. White women had no rights, yet both played to race. By 1856 poor white men could vote. By 1920 white women could vote. Even after being given the right to vote, both groups were not given actual equal status with wealthy white males. Working-class whites had no work protections and were at the whims of owners. The labor unions were weak, there were no workplace safety regulations, no minimum wage, no maximum on working hours, no child labor laws, nothing.
As blacks moved north after slavery, the wealthy owners told their white laborers how blacks took jobs that white men were entitled to. The rich were getting richer, and all they had to do to keep the poor in line and dependent on the crumbs they were getting was to tell them how much they were better than blacks or others of color. All along, moderate to low-income whites have been race baited by the wealthy who did so to keep them in their place. And throughout American history, those whites have fallen for it.
Martin Luther King pointed out this phenomenon in his speech on the last day of the Selma to Montgomery march.
Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.
If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion.
Read MLK's moving speech on the last day of the Selma March in 1965 -
Read MLK's moving speech on the last day of the Selma March in 1965.Martin Luther King Jr. addressed non-violent protesters after the conclusion of the ...
face2faceafrica.com
So how much longer are you "working class" folk going to keep race hustled?
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