Racism and Immigration

Until I started on my odyssey 4 years ago I'd done almost all my
traveling in the theatre of the mind through books. But for all their
verisimilitude they cannot totally replace first-hand experience.

One of the realities that has struck me in the last four years is the
degree to which slavery and racism are alive and well after over a
century and a half. As an outsider I recognize that I have to tread
lightly but as a caring Christian I cannot miss the tensions that lie so
close under the surface. I have been in the presence of people I sense
to be Klan and known families that, though they will not discuss it,
obviously once owned slaves.

Growing up in rural Nova Scotia I spent the first 18 years of my life
having never seen a person of colour. I grew up with the language of
racism which seems to be endemic but it didn't mean anything to me,
black people were an exotic species. In college I met International
African Students who were just as homesick as myself.

It wasn't until I read TJ Styles biography of Jesse James that I
confronted the concept of one man actually owning another and an
understanding of the fact that the wealth of a plantation owner lay not
in his crops or land but in the human chattels which he possessed. I
had, of course read Gone With the Wind and its counterpart Uncle Tom's
Cabin but these romanticized versions of slavery and its economy did not
strike home in the same manner.

This morning listened to CBC's Writers and Company, a podcast of a
program that won't be aired until 3 this afternoon. I'm ornery enough
that I resist reading books that are on the best-seller list though
sometimes I'm shocked to learn a book I liked actually made it onto such
a list. My taste in TV is such that I've come to consider my liking a
show the kiss of death for its continuance. This by way of saying that
if Oprah endorses a book I generally steer clear. That book stores will
order 50 or 100 copies of an unknown book just on the strength of that
endorsement seems scary. But I digress. Toni Morrison was interviewed
this morning and what she had to say about slavery and racism struck a
chord.

Racism between poor white people and black people was necessary to
prevent the two from uniting to destabilize the upper classes.
Separating the two guaranteed the security of the position of the upper
classes. It ensures that poor whites and poor blacks will never
associate socially and politically for their own betterment. In Virginia
no black man shall ever carry a weapon and no white man shall ever be
accused of hurting or killing a black man. Equating black people with
slavery was what was wrong. Racism was necessary for slavery to
function. It protected the elite. The wealthy of every nation won their
fortunes through slavery. Although my upper-middle-class white friends
in Austin may bristle at the thought I equate labour laws in Texas with
slave-like conditions, the fact that construction workers are not owned
by their employers is moot.

Unemployment, poverty, and lack of education breed racism as well as the
use of illicit drugs in Canada as well as America. It was with some
interest I learned that an African Methodist Church in Oakville was once
the Northern Terminus of the Underground Railway--in what was the
richest community in Canada. Back on topic another concept I've mastered
is poor white trash. Anyone not a landowner, a member of the small
Merchant Middle Class, or a plantation overseer wasn't long in
discovering that his labour was worthless in the South. Why would anyone
pay to have work done their slaves could do? The manner in which this
circumstance bred resentment and fueled racism is obvious.

There is no easy frontal assault possible against racism. The education
of the public at large, the provision of work, and the raising of living
standards are the surest ways of obliterating these attitudes. Universal
Health Care is one plank in that war on poverty. The provision of
educational opportunities another though I do not endorse a university
education as the Holy Grail for all. Affirmative action programs have
been implemented to ensure a more diverse cultural and racial workforce
but as with forced busing of students to integrate schools the outcomes
for the people involved are not always positive and those passed over to
implement these programs cry reverse discrimination.

Having spent time in Southern California I have become vividly aware of
the way in which hiring practices in police services made it impossible
for Asian Ethnic Minorities to get work there resulting in a situation
where police had no one who spoke the language to combat the Asian
Triads when they moved in. The situation today is such that law
enforcement may never recoup the situation in many cities. I was shocked
to see full-page ads for officers on tourist literature. There is a
price to be paid for discrimination.

It was in Natchez Mississippi I confronted the reality of a Black Man
owning slaves. Somehow that just seems so wrong on so many levels.