2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Kos: A Black Man's take on NN/BLM dustup: "Black Folks No on Bernie? Really?" [View all]jtuck004
(15,882 posts)you wish, most of whom say economics and racism are part and parcel of each other - is wrong. (other than the right-wingers who insist that race and economics are separate. They aren't worth my time).
There was economic exploitation of people all over the world before this country was exploited, mostly slavery or servitude of people with the same color skin. By the time we get around to the exploitation of Early America, when the Native people refused to be slaves and moved, white people were then used but they had to be paid and could free themselves.
People from Africa were then stolen from their homes, and the ones who lived were enslaved here, not only on plantations but on many small holdings. But like those who had gone before them, there were free black folk, and those who could purchase their freedom.
As slavery itself became threatened, our uniquely virulent, hateful, murderous brand of racism in the U.S. - different, more deadly, more ingrained into our life than nearly any other place in the world, began to grow in response. We built on that economic exploitation by passing laws that began to teach people to hate black folk, to see them as less than human.
You can no more take the foundation out from under a house and expect it to be the same than you can take economics out of racism and discuss it separately. I won't bore you with the list of people I spoke with in earlier years, people you may know but have certainly read about the places I went or studied.
It's a quick synopsis, but I am on a laptop keyboard, so it's close enough. That's what they taught me.
You seem to think you know better than all of them, so please feel free to lay out any major (is there anything not major on DU? lol ) points of contention, who might have other evidence that is as well supported and useful, etc. Something other than just one of 412 million or so opinions again. Please. Oh, please.
I might be wrong. I'm told I have been before. But I hate to lose the chance to learn something.