Throughout history prejudice and racism have shaped the American psyche vehemently. This bigotry has been the sturdy backbone of America. America has literally been built on slavery, indentured servitude, and exploited cheap labor. In Racist America, the author Joe Feagin essentially asserts that racism is present in every major part of life. Racism influences every aspect of life, that the white on black paradigm is the "archetype" for racial oppression and has not fundamentally changed. Feagin argues that race determines what parents one has, where one lives, the clothes one wears, where one eats, how and where one is educated, and even their political interest. He states that white men often choose to ignore, deny, or rationalize past and contemporary racism. Thus, Feagin has offered his solution in what he calls an "antiracist theory". I strongly concur with Mr. Feagin's assertions in Racist America.
In Chapter one, "Systemic Racism", Feagin argues that the U.S. is rooted and planted off racism. The U.S. laid the foundation for a society systemically and systematically racist. Intrinsically this system was to benefit "transplanted" European immigrants and ensure them means of wealth through white privilege provided by unearned African labor. Feagin argues that institutional racism and systemic racism affects non-whites everyday. He goes on to state that the United States Constitution excluded those who weren't white and addressed blacks and other groups separately. Fundamentally, Feagin asserts, "in no institution anywhere in the U.S. society has anti-black oppression by whites been eliminated root and branch". .
I would have to agree whole heartedly with Feagin. Since early colonial America until today, whites continue to benefit and reap what they have never sown. Racist ideology ensured whites contemporary affluence. Forced African labor provided whites with an abundance amount of wealth and today this wealth is viewed to be the result of "hard work and sweat" by the new generations of Europeans.
