This article was "Drawing The Color Line", it was chapter 2. The article discussed the starting of racism. The fact that blacks were slaves did not fully disclose the idea of racism. Their were also white slaves, but the problem was that white slaves were given more pride by their owners than black slaves. The Europeans did desire to make the Indians their slaves but fortunately the Indians completely outnumbered the settlers and were much better at living off of the land the the Europeans. To attempt to enslave the Indians the Europeans would have in sued a massacre of their own people. Therefore the blacks were the obvious choice to make slaves. After the blacks were brought all the way from their homes and placed in the tight confines of the slave ships, which embodied spaces barely large enough for coffins and chaining the slaves together while forcing them to sit in slime and their own excrement for the entire journey, the slaves were psychologically and physically unable to resist. Many times the slaves would throw themselves overboard as to save themselves the ongoing torment of being captive on the ships any longer. Once the blacks arrived they were sometimes forced to walk hundreds of miles then caged to be picked from by the white masters. When the slaves were being punished the black slaves were often punished more so than the white. In some cases where the slaves would try to run away and caught the white slave got a somewhat bad punishment while the blacks were horribly mutilated and burned. This was the essence of racism, the unequal treatment of people, even slaves based on their color. The theory was that blacks were always lower than white no matter what class of citizen. Now there was slavery back in the native countries of the slaves which sometimes ended up being much more brutal than what the whites forced the slaves to do but that doesn't make it right. Since the slaves were gaining strength and knowledge they were starting to run away and gain assertiveness. Whites were getting nervous about the slaves causing an uproar and starting a revolt. The whites were not all very scared of this occurrence because the majority of blacks were still scared of their masters and the repercussions of what could happen if they were to leave which is most likely the reason that a huge overturn of government didn't happen.
1) When did slave owners start leinency toward white slaves?
2) Why didnt the slaves comprehend they were greater in numbers?
My reaction to reading this article was somewhat suprised because I never really thought of any slaves getting better treatment, I knew that blacks were treated cruely but I never really thought about how the white slaves were treated any better.

BakerCh.3

Power, Privilege and difference. This chapter was an argument on how the idea of race was created by the wealthy as a way to keep the lower class down. When an economist uses race he may use it in such a way that slavery was brought to the U.S. When the cotton gin was produced many economist capitalists brought large amounts of slaves over to increase what the could produce in a given time period. Capitalists used slaves because they made profit from the money left over after they paid for the supplies in production and then paid for their labor. Now the lower ones labor cost is the higher ones profit will be. With this kind of thinking not many people were going to give up free labor, which is why between 1800 and 1860 the slave population jumped from 1 million to 4 million. After the civil war the idea of race was also shown to the Chinese while they were forced to wok in sweatshops, and then the Japanese who were forced to work on pineapple farms.
For the whites to believe that what they were doing was right, such as stealing the "New World" from the Indians and Mexicans or to force every other race into slavery. The whites created this idea for which they were the epitome of humans and anyone else was below them. Capitalists use to use racism even to keep white people below them. If white laborers desired raises better benefits or etc. than the company would let them go and hire minority's for cheap labor. This worked in controlling the labor and their demands.
Another point in this article is to point out the privileged and not. When we think of privileged we believe of white males. The problem is that there are so many status dropping things that any status is not untouchable. For instance a white middle aged male is said to be one of the top classes but if he is known to be homosexual than his status could suffer and his manhood could be in question. A white woman may be white but she is a woman therefore shes not ranked as highly as males.
My reaction to this chapter was not total surprise. I knew that race was always used but didn't know the full extent of it. When you think of the way whites just made up a theory of ultimate existence in which no other race fell into, therefore the other races are lower and should not be granted the same rights such as land, freedom, etc.
1) Who all was made slaves?
2) Why didn't whites go to S. America for more slaves?
3) Who helped spread the theory?

BakerMoviePost

This screening was to show that different races are not inherently biologically different but are culturally different and most of the differences are perceived. The biggest differences between people are about ten times less than houseflies. A small part of the video was a group of volunteers who tested their own oral swabs and mitochondrial DNA to check and see how close each one was to the others. The volunteers were asked to guess which others they thought they were more closely related to, and to no surprise each thought they were more like the ones which had the same racial background. When the test results came out the students were surprised to figure out that the majority of there similarities and differences were not who they though they would correlate to. The movie also discussed how many Caucasian scientists back during slavery were ruthlessly attempting to figure out the biological difference between whites and blacks. The findings were that there is actually no biological trait to make someone a different race. The scientists would test everything from toe shapes in length to forehead sizes to leg lengths. The movie also talked about the supposed physical benefits from being a different race. Many people believe that blacks have a genetic disposition to be better athletes than whites along with other races and that whites are smarter. The thought was that blacks had an extra muscle or something that whites don't have which allowed them to excel at sports and that they didn't have the brain capacity that whites had. What sparked this thought was when the Olympics were held in Germany and Hitler's Arian race was put to shame when Jesse Owens dominated all of the running events. Jesse Owens was tested, retested and critiqued after his performance at the Olympics and was made to feel as a lower being when in actuality was a hard working man who was just really talented.

One question I have is why were whites so persistent at trying to find a reason about genetic differences when it just continued to be obvious there were no real differences?
Another question is why didn't the people doing the studies understand that comparing privileged whites to poor blacks couldn't work because of so many different externalites? Even back then we understood that different environments caused multiple findings.

My thoughts throughout the movie was how could the white race really be so idiotic and stubborn about the way they think. All their starting ideas were not something that they had tested but just illogical superiority complexes. It makes me sick to think that so many people are actually so stuck in their ideas that they cannot comprehend that we are all one species and no one color has an advantage over another, whether it is physically or mentally.

This article was "Drawing The Color Line", it was chapter 2. The article discussed the starting of racism. The fact that blacks were slaves did not fully disclose the idea of racism. Their were also white slaves, but the problem was that white slaves were given more pride by their owners than black slaves. The Europeans did desire to make the Indians their slaves but fortunately the Indians completely outnumbered the settlers and were much better at living off of the land the the Europeans. To attempt to enslave the Indians the Europeans would have in sued a massacre of their own people. Therefore the blacks were the obvious choice to make slaves. After the blacks were brought all the way from their homes and placed in the tight confines of the slave ships, which embodied spaces barely large enough for coffins and chaining the slaves together while forcing them to sit in slime and their own excrement for the entire journey, the slaves were psychologically and physically unable to resist. Many times the slaves would throw themselves overboard as to save themselves the ongoing torment of being captive on the ships any longer. Once the blacks arrived they were sometimes forced to walk hundreds of miles then caged to be picked from by the white masters. When the slaves were being punished the black slaves were often punished more so than the white. In some cases where the slaves would try to run away and caught the white slave got a somewhat bad punishment while the blacks were horribly mutilated and burned. This was the essence of racism, the unequal treatment of people, even slaves based on their color. The theory was that blacks were always lower than white no matter what class of citizen. Now there was slavery back in the native countries of the slaves which sometimes ended up being much more brutal than what the whites forced the slaves to do but that doesn't make it right. Since the slaves were gaining strength and knowledge they were starting to run away and gain assertiveness. Whites were getting nervous about the slaves causing an uproar and starting a revolt. The whites were not all very scared of this occurrence because the majority of blacks were still scared of their masters and the repercussions of what could happen if they were to leave which is most likely the reason that a huge overturn of government didn't happen.

People's Hisotry of U.S.

The authors thesis is that we should not fully judge what former "heroes" had done in the past, we should recognized what they accomplished in their lives. The authors main argument is that Christopher Columbus should not entirely be judged based on his horrifying mistreatment of the Arawak people but on the advancements he made over his life. On Columbus's fisrt voyage he was financed by spain to go find new land over an unknown ocean and he came accross amazingly friendly indians. Columbus wrote with much exageation how giving the the Indians were to convine Spain to continue financing. When Columbus returned home he promised Spain that he would bring back slaves and boat loads of gold for the population for his second voyage. When Columbus returned to the islands there were many slaves but no sign of fields of gold as he had promised. Columbus went from village to village with his seventeen ships and gathered slaves of all facets, men, women and children. When no gold was found Columbus returned to Spain with what was left of five hundred slaves he originally set sail with. With hardly any gold the slaves were sold relentlessly at auction and tormented. The male slaves were sent to work in mines where many of them died while the omen were left behind to work in the soil. The working conditions were horrible. Infants would starve because the mothers were so mal nourished they could not produce milk. Mothers started to drown their children once again to save the from a slow painful death. Columbus was so desperate to find gold he would send the Arawak's out every month with a certain amount of gold to find and if they found it they would receive silver to wear around their neck, if an Indian was found without this they would have their hands cut off and bleed to death, this was an impossible task. The author shows that even through all Columbus did one should also look at what he accomplished through life and what benefits mankind has made from this. He may have done wrong but according to the author the sins he commit ed should be ignored for what he has accomplished even though they were ill gotten
Why should his actions be ignored just because he found new land?
Was any real amounts of gold salvaged?
I knew that the Indians were always mistreated but was always kind of hinted that Columbus didn't have any part in the mistreatment.