Racism is common to all folks, even blacks.
White folks aren't particularly racist, but those of N European extraction do seem to be particularly so. The Anglo-Saxons seem to be the worst.
That is not due to anything inherent in white or European DNA, but its probably cultural and historical. After all, African and Indian tribes often enslaved people of their own race. So did the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Vikings, etc.
In the past, slavery was something that happened to losers, either losers in war or criminal prisoners. To the Romans and Greeks, for example, a slave could be a former noble or king, considered intelligent enough to manage your farm, or design your buildings, train your troops or maintain your accounts. They were still your property. And so were their children, because in the ancient world, the family took precedence over the individual.
But when Christianity came along, preaching the equality of all men, and that each man was responsible only for his own sins (not those of his descendants) Europeans needed to justify their slavery by designating non-whites as savages, heathens, or even non-humans. That made it OK to enslave them. They DESERVED it. Its no coincidence that commercial, industrial and agricultural slavery on a large scale started in Europe's colonies, first with Rome (slaves were cheaper than paid labor) and then with the rise of European colonialism and imperialism--and of course, Capitalism. Household slaves were always a small minority, the plantation system, mines and quarries
made slavery an economic force, essential to the big enterprises of the time. And we all know once a practice, however barbaric, becomes profitable, it becomes very difficult to remove.
In my family, we always wondered why Americans seemed to be so racist compared to us Latins. After all, our Spanish ancestors in the Americas had black slaves, and didn't abolish the practice until well after the American Civil War. The Spaniards even treated their slaves more brutally than the American Southerners treated theirs. But once the Spaniards were kicked out of power, the slaves were freed, and although racism still persisted, it was social and personal and economic, nothing like in the USA; no lynching, no Jim Crow, no institutionalized segregation, and nothing like the KKK. We Cubans may have been racist, but it was without the hatred.
Now you see why the Right is so dead set against CRT. They need to believe their racial attitudes come directly from God, not cultural, historical or economic forces set in motion centuries ago. This is why white American kids need to be taught these things, formally, in school. I was brought up with this knowledge, I got exposed to it at home, from my own family history and the ethnic beliefs of my parent's own nation, and I only had to look at the Anglo social landscape around me to immediately grasp how obvious it all was. And how clueless the "white" society around me was.
CRT doesn't teach that white folks are naturally racist. It just recognizes that they are culturally blind, incapable of recognizing the cultural origin of their psychological prejudices. That disease, fortunately, can be cured.
Current Events » in reply to Some say racism will eventually die off.
Some critical race theoruy
