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?