undoing historical amnesia: a quick thread on the origin of america, white supremacy, antiBlackness, the economics of slavery, and exceptional evils

first, let's make things very clear: the jamestown settlers did not come to the US to flee persecution or to establish a country on liberty + freedom. they were owners/employees of a company called the virginia company of london.

they wanted to "civilize" infidels and "savages"

they wanted to establish a colony in N. America, and so they did. In 1607, 144 men established the jamestown colony, named after king james I. such a venture allowed the crown to reap the benefits of colonization [nat. resources, new markets, etc.] w/o bearing the costs

the founding founders were racists. they were not "products of their time." they knew slavery was wrong and inhumane. they fought + debated on it. gouverneur morris - who penned the preamble for the constitution - said the following:

thomas jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal" yet enslaved more than 600 ppl over the course of his life. while he made some legislative attempts against slavery, he also profited from it as an institution and wrote on the "inferiority" of nonwhites in his book

even the most applauded american "revolutionaries" were a bunch of racists who threw a fit b/c the Royal Proclamation of 1763 kept them from expanding slavery. the degree to which the american "revolution" was a coup by the slave-holding bourgeoisie is much too obscured in the US

the american "revolution" was a bid by a nat'l bourgeoisie and planter class to preserve a white supremacy that served their specific interests. your "founding fathers" didnt care one bit about liberty or freedom—they cared about expanding their wealth + the interests of settlers

in short, the american "revolution" was only that in name, not in nature

there is nothing revolutionary about the establishment of a white supremacist settler state

after the so-called american "revolution", the US could've been poor - we did owe britain, after all. so how did we pay back our debt?

we sold native american land

then that land was sold for cheap — just $1.25 an acre in the 1830s ($38 today) — to settlers

planters understood that their profits jumped when they extracted as much labor as possible from workers. they paid close attention to inputs + outputs by developing systems of record-keeping. book keepers were just as important to slave-labor camps as field hands

naturally, the first to cash in were the land speculators. companies operating in mississippi flipped land, selling it soon after purchase, commonly for double the price.

even abraham lincoln was a white supremacist. that is not my opinion. that is historical fact. he wrote how negroes were "not [his] equal in many respects - certainly not in color" or "in moral/intellectual endowment". he also oversaw the largest mass execution in US history

someone we don't discuss much is andrew johnson, who took over after lincoln. johnson, like his forerunners, was a white supremacist who fought against reconstruction and denied dignity + rights for freed slaves

the johnson regime installed white supremacists all across the US [see: william marvin] while open white supremacists worked behind the scenes to create laws to keep freed slaves as close to the condition of slavery as humanly possible

white supremacists sought to develop policy meant to hide the insidiousness of overt, confederate style white supremacy behind laws and government action. as this was done, rightist-paramilitary groups mobilized. this is how we got the klan and its offshoots

when i say that the confederacy, or adolph hitler are not "exceptional evils", i mean that evil is nothing special, glamorous, or new. understand this. evil ppl are not glamorous villiains like in movies. what hitler did, and what the US has done, is not a new or unique violence

the truth is that the confederacy considered itself the true ancestor of america and that the north had betrayed america's founding and purpose as a white supremacist state. the confederacy was battling over the US, not over making something new

attempts to continue white supremacy and the confederacy still live on in US politics, from nixon [see: the southern strategy] to reagan [who took it another step forward and hid it behind tax rhetoric and "colorblindness"] to trump

the myth that the confederacy's evil simply went away when it surrendered is false. america re-took it, its white supremacy, and its customs. the constitution is full of compromises between the north and south over slavery — the electoral college, the 3/5ths clause, etc.

white supremacy is the reason there is an electoral college. there were more blacks enslaved in the south, which would give the south an advantage if they counted slaves as people.

so what was the solution?

count them as 3/5ths of a person

the electoral college is one of the most fundamental building blocks of systemic racism, designed to ensure white supremacy. ending it should be a primary goal of any progressive. white supremacy is the reason every state has different voting laws

white supremacy is the reason america has a police force.

the economics that drove the creation of police forces were centered not on protection of every citizen, but on the preservation of slavery. policing institutions began as slave patrols tasked with chasing down runaways

white supremacy is the reason behind the US's military might

white supremacy is the reason behind redlining

white supremacy is the reason behind gerrymandering

so much about the US is confusing and nonsensical until you remember white supremacy

you wanna talk ACAB? the US is the cop of the world. the cost of BIPOC citizenship has always been our sovereignty, and the conditions of [our] citizenship has always been in service to white supremacy

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