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Race


216) When the first Europeans arrived in America, it was inhabited by Native Americans. These people, although outsiders from the English culture, could not be called outsiders from another place. If anyone was an outsider, it was the settlers who tried to remove the Native Americans from their own land. When Americans pushed westward, they ran into many Native American tribes. "Particularly in the West, whites considered the tribesmen as pests at best and as mortal enemies at worst yet another editor recommended welcoming the Indians when they asked for peace and then slaughtering them as though they were as many nests of rattlesnakes." (Dinnerstein, Natives and Strangers P.225) This shows how Americans, the dominant ethnic group, felt superior to all other ethnic groups. .
             These examples show how prejudice played a key role in United States history. The prejudiced ideas about subordinate ethnic groups often led to racism as feelings of hate got stronger. Racism is "an ideology or belief system which considers a group's unchangeable physical characteristics to be linked in a direct causal way on psychological or intellectual characteristics, and which on this basis distinguishes between superior and inferior racial groups.""(Handout. Race and Ethnic Definitions) In other words, traits that one is born with can be held against them because they are different. The main thing that comes to mind here is color of skin. The biggest examples of historical racism as far as skin color goes are slavery and the treatment of Native Americans. The dark skin color of Africans defined their social status in America during slavery and afterwards. "Even before the explorations in Africa, Europeans, especially the English, believed the black connoted evil, and white purity.""(Dinnerstein. Native Americans and Strangers. P. 15) This belief justified and encouraged the white Europeans to enslave the black Africans.


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