Black--White Dynamics in the United States

The following are my top three recommendations for reading on black-white dynamics in the
United States, especially on the white domination and damage to blacks from 1607 to 2018:

1.  An article by philosopher/historian, Michael Stewart, in the June, 2018 Atlantic, titled
"The Birth of a New Aristocracy".  Or The Rise of the Rule of the Rich.  Or The Oppressive Rule
by Rich, White Males.  The Stewart article is summarized by this one sentence: "The gilded future of the top 10 percent - in the end of opportunity for the rest of us."

This article is about the evil economics of the rich, but it also includes a powerful paragraph on the intersection of race and class in the crucial area of wealth distribution.  Stewart's family clan was once close allies with the Rockefeller clan until they had a falling out.  So Stewart, himself, comes from the rich, white male 10%, but, in this article, he becomes a secular prophet to his own kind.

2.  Next is a book titled, "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome", by Joy DeGruy, a black social worker, who understands far better than most the deep and extensive damage centuries of white oppression have done to black individuals, families, communities and culture.  She moves beyond supposed black inferiority and black dysfunction to PTSD or, as she prefers, PTSS.

3.  I highly recommend the book, "The New Jim Crow", by Michelle Alexander, a brilliant, black, woman lawyer.  This book is about the massive and unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males over the last twenty years.  Her analysis combines The War on Drugs, racial profiling, and police brutality.  It is also about white systems of oppression in the U.S. from slavery to segregation, to mass incarceration.  These systems of oppression have even been legalized, sanctified by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Alexander rightly asserts that America never really ends systems of oppression, though on the surface, it appears to do so, it merely redesigns and disguises them.  At first Alexander, herself, was deceived by the subtleties of the system of mass incarceration as were many civil rights organizations.

Now a little historical commentary to put the above reading in context.
In the early 1600's, a slave ship dropped a few slaves off at Jamestown.  At that time, there was no slave law in Virginia, so the first slaves were made into indentured servants-short term, semi-slaves.

Soon tobacco became a good cash crop for Virginia colonists.  It could be sold in Europe.  One problem: growing and processing tobacco required lots of cheap labor in order to be profitable.  By 1660, white Virginians had turned black individuals into life time slaves.  The problem was solved.
Greed and economics drove the creation of black slavery.  It wasn't race or racism that created slavery.  Race/racism came later to justify slavery.

Next a little biblical perspective from Luke 4:18-19 and 4:25-30:
The Gospel, according to Luke, begins with a strong economic emphasis with major themes being the poor, the oppressed and Jubilee Justice.  The economic poor became a primary focus in Luke.  The economic oppressed, as well, with orders "to release the oppressed".  Two chapters later, Jesus makes the rich another primary focus: in Luke 6:24, Luke yells out, "Woe to the rich".  His marching orders for the church were to do Jubilee Justice; specifically this meant to free slaves, cancel debts, and restore land.

In sermon B, 4:25-30, Jesus confronts a second social evil.  This was ethnocentrism, not racism.  Ethnocentrism was the supposed cultural superiority of the Jews over the Gentiles.  Ethnocentrism is based on culture not biology.  Its a cousin to racism in its dynamics, but it is different from racism.  There is no biological racism in the Bible.

When Jesus confronted the Nazareth Jews about their religiously based ethnocentrism, they tried to kill him on the spot.

Most American social problems have multiple causes.  Seldom is there one cause-class or race or gender.  Instead think class and race and gender.  Think rich and white and male.  The founding fathers were rich and white and male.  The ones they oppressed were poor and black and women so the ones they oppressed were triply oppressed.

Most of the 10 percent Stewart writes about are rich and white and male.