Race and Greed in the United States
- Misia Lerska
- Apr 14, 2019
- 4 min read
I recently wrote this essay for an Africana Studies class.
For years, I have visited my father in California with my friend Jonathan. Jonathan’s skin is much darker than mine- consequentially, when we pass through US airport security together, he is often held back for “extra inspection”. Jonathan’s parents are of British and Polish descent. He has dark skin because of a medical condition in which his skin produces more melanin. Ethnically speaking, he is European. When people do not know this about him, however, they tell him that he has a typical African wide nose and curly hair. “Oh no, I’m not racist, I just see that you’re Black, African American, whatever you want to call it. It’s race, it’s just where your ancestors are from”. Contrary to this widespread belief, race, biologically speaking, does not exist. It is a molded construction that society teaches us. In the United States, it was put into place in order to justify slavery, systemic oppression, and extreme social disparity. Race was adopted by Euro-Americans in order to justify dehumanization and greed- a process that continues today.
In modern day America, race is a rationale for differentiation between individuals with different levels of privilege. “Thanks” to pseudo-scientists such as Samuel George Morton who studied racial intelligence in relation to cranium size, race became not only a concept but a “scientific” truth supported by data. Race, in scientific terms, does not exist. Oppression did not always have a color. Europeans enslaved each other for centuries long before the colonisation of the Americas. Serfdom, for example, is a ubiquitous European class structure from the Middle Ages that has been compared to slavery. People do not need different skin colors in order to inflict violence upon each other.
Despite this, the American people believe in race in the same way as we believe in the constitution. This is because America grew alongside our construction of race. Race as an ideology, as noted by Barbara Fields, is a reality that affects over 37 million African Americans on a day to day basis. It is insidious and ubiquitous because we are groomed not to see it. Famous media theorist Robert Mcluhan writes that “environments are invisible”. Goldfish are not aware of the glass bowl that confines them just as we are not aware of the racist coding of our everyday media. A notable example, among many others, is the representation of the African American woman on Aunt Jemima pancake syrup. The caricatured image of Aunt Jemima on a household “feel good” item perpetuates a nostalgia for the Black mammy image from Southern slave plantations. To social scientists, this is an overused and blatant example of racist media. What is most revealing about Aunt Jemima, however, is that many privileged people are not aware of the racist connotations when they are first exposed to it. Images like these, and there are many more, become normalized in our psyches. This normalizes race, difference, and persistent oppression. This pain is real- race is not.
Race was perpetuated by the Euro-American elite in order to keep their power, money and security. Jim Morgans writes that “Greed emerges with the onset of class divided society, with enough economic surplus that one person can produce enough to support others (slavery).” At the end of the 17th century, lower class white Americans and Black Americans were willing to work together to overthrow the affluent white elite. This elite then realized that in order to keep their power, they had to satisfy one of these groups. A practical solution, was then to use the word “race”. If you help us keep the Black Americans down, then we will provide you with land and money. Why you and not them? Because you’re white! Race was a byproduct of greed, not biology.
It was a clever plan that seeped into American structure until today. White Americans still receive most of their money today from inheritance. The racial gap that the 17th century white elite tried to maintain survived and grew to oppress more and benefit less. This is not a system that works for most people in this country. It affects not only Black, but Native, LatinX, Asian, and poor white communities as well. But greed is an addiction like cigarettes, and dehumanization is what feeds it. We dehumanize those who threaten our livelihood. Once this process begins, it soaks into our mediatized environments like into a sponge. The ideas then seep into our minds and affect our perceptions. We consume it every moment of our lives; those on top cannot envision living another way and oppressed communities are reminded that neither should they.
Race should therefore not be considered an evolutionary biological fact, but rather a system of intentionally constructed beliefs that shapes our modern day division. Understanding this difference is crucial if we are to strive for a different world that benefits those who are oppressed today. Accepting our individual places within this construction can be difficult, regardless of privilege, but it can spark conversation and social revolution. Looking within ourselves and understanding our artificial biases is what helps us deconstruct them.
Bibliography
Adam Harris, “White College Graduates Are Doing Great With Their Parents’ Money”, The Atlantic, July 20, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/07/black-white-wealth-gap-inheritance/565640/
Barbara Jeanne Fields, “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America, New Left Review, May-June, 1990
Emily S. Renschler and Janet Monge, “The Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection”, Expedition Magazine. Penn Museum, 2008,
Jim Morgan, “On the History of Human Nature”, Solidarity, January-February, 2004
Marhsall Mcluhan, The Medium is the Massage, London: Penguin Books, 1967
Michelle Maiese, “Dehumanization”, Beyond Intractability, Juy, 2003
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