all-in-one-wp-security-and-firewall domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/wp_mjgj8c/racefiles.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114A\u00a0 friend of mine sent me an email with a link to an article entitled, The History of Race… And Why It Matters<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0The article tells the story about how race was invented out of whole cloth, at a time when African and European immigrants lived in relative harmony in North America, purely for the political purpose of justifying race slavery in the colonies.<\/p>\n This was news to her. She had no idea that long before the Civil Rights Movement, there was a time when Black and white people in North America lived together in integrated communities. They married and created families across race. Africans were considered more capable and knowledgeable than most Europeans in the colonies. In fact, without Africans, the colonies probably would have failed.<\/p>\n The exchange caused me to wonder. In these confusing, supposedly post-racial times, are racial justice advocates mixed-up about race?<\/p>\n You know that expression, “preaching to the choir”? By talking about the basics of race, I might be committing that sin. But suppose the choir is so out of sync that we’re in no shape to be singing in public?<\/p>\n With that in mind, here are some race basics for the choir:<\/p>\n Race, as we know it in the U.S., is a political<\/em> system<\/em> invented to justify race slavery.<\/p>\n From these beginnings, 350 or so years of assorted racist b.s. followed, including apartheid in South Africa (based in large part on “our” system), tribal terminations, Jim Crow, Chinese Exclusion, Japanese American internment, the illegal occupation of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and the continued impoverishment of Black, Native American, Latino, and certain Asian and Pacific Island ethnic groups in the U.S., among other atrocities too numerous to mention (though I invite you to add your story to the comments section).<\/p>\n And this legacy continues. It shapes our culture, our politics, and our economy, and, just as in the days of slavery, it continues to cause white folks, and some of the rest of us along with them, to act against our own best interests.<\/p>\n Don’t believe me?<\/p>\n White racist ideas about Black people are hundreds of years old, but old as they are, the world lost Trayvon Martin<\/a> to those ideas in 2012. And you think George Zimmerman acted rationally? He may not be dead but all I can say is, sucks to be him.<\/p>\n And if that’s not enough, consider this:<\/p>\n Racism just might also explain why the welfare rollback picked up serious steam when a lie was told to the public in 1976 about the Chicago Welfare Queen, a Black welfare recipient who supposedly had 80 names and 30 addresses, and four fake dead husbands on whose fictional backs she was collecting veterans benefits. Between that income, food stamps, Medicare, and 12 sources of social security income, she was supposed to have been making over $150,000 a year tax free.\u00a0 She didn’t exist. President Reagan made her up to win white votes.<\/p>\n By ginning up racism, Reagan powered-up a welfare reform revolution popular among poor white people. That movement eventually messed up Aid to Families with Dependent Children<\/a>, a benefit program that mainly helped poor white people.<\/p>\n\n