OOPS! form until after July 4, 1875 when a state grounded in slavery pronounced that "All men are created equal." I think you mean July 4, 1776.

Another point here: In the late 1600s in the colony of Virginia, African Chattel slavery was born. That is to say: permanent servitude without compensation was forced upon the African (Black) indentured servants and not the White indentured servants. This was, in North America, the first incarnation of the concept of racial hierarchy. Crude as it was, it laid the legal and moral foundation for 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st Century forms of institutional and personal racism.

In another part of the world-- in the Americas -- the concept of racial hierarchy was more developed in the 1600s by the Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese and British enslaving colonizers. The portuguese had, by the 1700s, developed an elaborate racial categorization that consisted of at least 27 different descriptions of Blackfolk, Indigenous and "mixed race" folk. They also had-- since the late 1500s a category of "mixed race" men and women who were the sons and daughters of the Portuguese merchants who traveled/traded and often lived along the Upper Guinea Coast. These children of African mothers out of royal families were called "Assimilados" and were deliberately educated (mainly the boys when they reached about 10-12 years old) in Portugal or France to become the gobetween administrator in their father's business.

The Assimilado was seen in the 1500s onward as being "better"/"smarter"/"prettier'/handsomer than their Darker African bretheren.

So the evolution of racism is a little more complex than what many folk think. Social construct indeed is the bedrock of "race" and racism.

Sam Anderson

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Cox, Carrol" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: May 8, 2018 4:07 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Racism was . . .Joel Kovel
>
>Note that in The Merchant of Venice Shylock is punished by forcing him to allow his daughter to marry a Christian.
>
>That is incompatible with the early 19th- c racializing of anti-Semitism.
>
>Carrol
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Science for the People Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cox, Carrol
>Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2018 2:58 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Racism was . . .Joel Kovel
>
>"White Racism: A Psychohistory", the review quotes from Joel's book: racism is "a set of beliefs whose structure arises from the deepest levels of our lives.”
>
>=====
>
>This is both simply untrue _and_ profoundly ahistorical. For most of human history racism did not exist. Features of racism began to appear in the 16th c. but it did not begin to flourish in its modern (pseudo-science) form until after July 4, 1875 when a state grounded in slavery pronounced that "All men are created equal."
>
>One can debate endlessly about the details and precise history, but any explanation of racism that does not ground itself in recognition that racism is a social construct is wrong. It is not grounded in Human nature" etc. It is strictly historical.
>
>Carrol
<[log in to unmask]>