Johnson Chapter 3

In Johnson’s 3rd chapter of PPP he begins by explaining the fact that racism and white supremacy is something relatively new and has only occurred over the past few centuries. So the question becomes, why did racism and slavery begin in the first place? This question can be answered several different ways. Johnson begins by explaining the effect that capitalism has had on the world (especially in the United States). The Capitalist system is made up of three parts. First there are the people know as the “capitalists. These are the investors and owners of companies that produce goods and services for profit. They produce goods and services that are sold throughout the country and to the rest of the world on the global market. Of course someone has to make these products. These are the workers, or laborers (labor force). These people work for the capitalists to produce their product. They tend to be paid very poorly. For the capitalists (owners and investors) to make any money they have to sell their products for more than what they are paying their workers. This is how they turn a profit. So why would these laborers work for such low wages? To be perfectly honest they really don’t have a choice. The investors control the factories, tools, and every other aspect of the capitalist system. So the laborer can either work under their conditions or they could not work at all. Although it might not be clear at first, racism ties in directly with the growth of capitalism in the early days of our country. One of the major problems with capitalism is the division of wealth. There is a small percentage of the richest people in America but they share the majority of the wealth while there are many more poor people who share a much lesser degree of the overall wealth in our country. Looking back in history the white male was always the wealthy land or business owner. This was generally because whites used blacks as a “FREE” labor source. This made the whites even more wealth because it hardly cost them anything to produce their product. So why did the whites feel that they had the right to enslave African Americans? White men on this era created the term “Whiteness”. This term expressed those who were human and civilized. If you were found to not have “whiteness” then you were found to be inferior and therefore the white man could justify using colored and foreign people as means of production. It is important to remember that this was the thinking of men over 200 years ago. Yet aren’t we still experiencing the effects of this closed minded way of thinking today? Privilege of white men and the oppression of African American still exist today. I feel that capitalism was a major cause of the racism that was born into our country. However capitalism is still hard at work today. So what does that have to say to the future of the under privilege labor force that is still facing the oppression that blacks and other minorities faced over 200 years ago?