Formed by White Men in Power in the 17th Century
“Today we have a great bounty of written materials – books, pamphlets, diaries, letters, public records, etc. – penned by Americans in the 1600s. In all of these, we do not find the descriptive racialized phrases white person, white woman, or white man until the 1680s. It was only in the late seventeenth century that white Americans began in earnest to formalize a culture of white-body supremacy in order to soothe the dissonance that existed between more powerful and less powerful white bodies; to blow centuries of white-on-white trauma through millions of Black and red bodies; and to attempt to colonize the minds of people of all colors.
The concept of ‘the Negro” was created to help white Americans deal with the hatred and brutality that they and their ancestors had themselves experienced for many generations at the hands of more powerful white bodies. The phantasm of race was conjured to help white people manage their fear and hatred of other white people. In the next chapter, we’ll look more closely at how these efforts were strategically and systematically carried out.” – Chapter 4, European Trauma and the Invention of Whiteness in My Grandmother’s Hands Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
In other words, it was used as a scapegoat. Think on that. Wealthy white land owners used the construct of race to create division.
Sound familiar?
You may be dirt poor. ‘Things may be unfair, and you may be taken advantage of. But at least you’re not as bad as ‘those people’. There’s hope for you,’ that was what they sold.
But Times Have Changed … And We Know Better
Beautiful Chorus – I Am featuring India.Arie (Official Lyric Video)
What I seek I have What I want to know I understand All I wish I could I can Who I wanna be I am
This song is about reaching the inner chamber of our selves, summoning forth all we desire, and deeply realizing that we have all we need and are all we desire to be.
This post is part of Goddess 101 Texts – telling another side of Our Story.
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