The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the near genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another. This is simply a historical statement of fact. The historical record of how white Europeans conquered North America by destroying the native population and how they then built their new nation's economy on the backs of kidnapped Africans who had been turned into chattel are facts that can hardly be denied. .
However, before I enlighten you about racism in America I would like to clarify some negative myths that have been in circulation and stated about Africans before slavery. In the 15th (and well into the16th) centuries, the average African was better off than the average European. Africans produced more steel, more textiles and more gold than Europeans. They produced more art an ornaments, and their literature -while still largely oral (except in Islamic controlled regions) - was thriving at a time when Europe was still struggling to emerge from the darkest age of its medieval period, the 14th century. Africans were generally better fed than the average European, in both terms of quantity and variety of food regularly available. .
The greatest difference between Europeans and Africans was in seagoing technology, but when looking at inland trade -the Africans possessed a greater and more dynamic system of trade than the Europeans of the early 15th century. West Africans, trading across the continent with Arabic traders had access to a greater variety of goods from India and China and Japan than the Europeans, who were isolated behind the barriers they had erected to trade with the Arabs in the course of the Crusades. Yet to speak honestly of such historical facts is to be charged with "living in the past- or out of date. Racism is no longer a hot topic. After the brief "racial revolution" of the '60s, white America, including many of those involved in the civil rights movement, has gone on to other concerns.
