Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery

Download or read book Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery written by Theodore W. Allen and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Racial distinctions in U.S. society, and the racism that accompanies them, continue to be integral parts of the American experience more than 100 years after W.E.B. DuBois identified ¿the color line¿ as the most significant social feature of the United States. Even within the complex racial and ethnic dynamics that have developed in the United States since the immigration reform of 1965 opened the door to millions of Latino and Asian newcomers, the question of racism directed at African-Americans carries special weight. This is so not just because millions of African-Americans continue to be adversely affected. As Ted Allen shows in this pamphlet, the system of racial oppression in the United States, rooted in African-American slavery, was organized to discipline and suppress European as well as African labor, and has from the beginning had profound and contradictory consequences for European-Americans. For almost the whole of American history, this system of social control has effectively derailed working class unity. And it continues to shape controversies surrounding the arrival and absorption of new ¿minorities¿ to this day.