Race and class

Economic lens…

Many people think of racism as an irrational hatred of other racial groups. Although this may accurately describe the views and actions of particular individuals, it is not helpful for understanding how racial beliefs and practices help to build and maintain the structure of racial inequality in a society.

Consider the fact that white racists today would not be in favor of bringing hundreds of thousands of Africans to the United States, nor smuggling them into the country if it is not legal to do so. But in antebellum America, this is exactly what white racists did. Slaveholders imported hundreds of thousands of Africans at considerable expense, and when the slave trade was made illegal, occasionally, they would smuggle Africans into the country.1 Racism as hatred would lead us to expect that white racists would bar Africans from the United States, but this is the opposite of what occurred.