Empire, Power and People with Andrew Gavin Marshall - Episode 8

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Andrew Gavin Marshall

“Black History in the United States: Slavery, Segregation, and Social Control”

 

In a highly critical black history of the United States, this episode examines the social construction of race (and racism) starting in the late 1600s as a means of social control, devised through the colonial legal system to separate white and black labour, prison labour, black education system, the developments of ghettos as a means of segregating the black population, the civil rights organizations in an attempt to steer the movement away from its natural and potentially revolutionary course to confront the entire social- economic- political system of racism, and the “war on drugs” and laws disproportionately targeting the black community. 

Understanding the history of those who have been most oppressed within it is vital to understanding the true nature of the society we live in; thus, the black history of the United States is indivisible from the total history of the United States, and the subject bears relevance to the future of poverty and class struggle in a world of enormous inequality.

An Empire of Poverty: Race, Punishment and Social Control

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Andrew Gavin Marshall

Slavery & the Social Construction of Race

 

Between 1619 and 1860, the American legal system, from that imposed by the British Empire to that constructed following the American Revolution, “expanded and protected the liberties of white Americans – while at the same time the legal process became increasingly more harsh as to the masses of blacks, with a steady contraction of their liberties.” This process marked the ‘social construction’ of race and with it, racial superiority and inferiority, delegated to whites and blacks, respectively.[1] Interesting to note was that between 1619 and the 1660s, the American colonial legal system was “far more supportive for blacks; or, phrased differently, the early legal process was less harsh.” Georgia’s original charter, in fact, had three prohibitions: no alcohol, no free land titles, “and no Negro slaves.” In Virginia, as late as 1672 and 1673, there were legal records of some slaves “serving limited terms as indentured servants rather than being sentenced to the eternity of slavery.”[2]

The colonies in the Americas required a massive labour force, “Between 1607 and 1783, more than 350,000 ‘white’ bond-labourers arrived in the British colonies.”[3] The Americas had both un-free blacks and whites, with blacks being a minority, yet they “exercised basic rights in law.”[4] Problems arrived in the form of elites trying to control the labour class. Slaves were made up of Indian, black and white labourers; yet, problems arose with this “mixed” population of un-free labour. The problem with Indian labourers was that they knew the land and could escape to “undiscovered” territory, and enslavement would often instigate rebellions and war:

 

The social costs of trying to discipline un-free native labour had proved too high. Natives would eventually be genocidally eliminated, once population settlement and military power made victory more or less certain; for the time being, however, different sources of bond labour had to be found.[5]