01:920:306 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: White Supremacy, Dark Skin, Indentured Servant
Document Summary
Roberts- the invention of race: black vs white. Race is only a social, not a biological, construct. Not enough genetic differences for races to be sub-species. In new world, black, white and indians all equal slave status at first. After all slaves rose up those in power had to find way to break unity. Decided to break races up by demoting blacks to more inferior. + even after emancipation higher class feared blacks and poor whites would join forces, and so freed blacks were still basically slaves even in the north. Blacks could not marry whites so that they couldn"t benefit from the privilege . + used as justification to continue slavery laws, lynching. + alice race ambiguous but in the end still considered black. + get out of travel laws for blacks. Judges based not on documentation but on common sense . + a white man can"t be a slave .
