The Persisting Effects of Post - Slavery Racism in America

The Persisting Effects of Post-Slavery Racism in America

“All you hear is grievance, grievance, grievance, money, money, money.” said Bill O’Reilly reflecting the attitudes of many Americans on the topic of race relations. In a large percentage of Americans’ minds we live in a post-racial society where every person has an equal opportunity in life regardless of their background if they work hard and get an education. However, this attitude turns a blind eye to our history and ignores the reality of large swaths of the population. The past 12 months have been filled with as much racial tension as any in recent history. Yet a Pew Research Center survey found that a plurality of white Americans believe that race gets too much attention. An even more surprising example was a survey conducted by scholars at Harvard and Tufts that found whites believe the anti-white bias is stronger and more prevalent than the anti-black bias. Therefore white U.S. citizens, on average, don’t just view racism as a non issue; they view it as a barrier they must overcome.

Oftentimes when discussing racial inequality the statement “Slavery ended 150 years ago.” arises. Which yes, under the traditional definition of slavery this is an accurate statement. However, such a statement indicates a shortsightedness prevalent in the American psyche. Immediately after the Civil War recently freed slaves already faced disappointment. Many freedmen believed they had a right to a share of the land they had worked. They had been promised it by Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15, which gave each freed family 40 acres and a mule. However, this order was soon revoked by Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln after his assassination. Therefore, after the civil war many freed slaves’ were forced to enter into an agreement called sharecropping. This was when landowners rented a piece of their land to a tenant in exchange for a portion of the crops produced on that land. Oftentimes, freedmen would work on the same land as they had as slaves under the same land owner. Freedmen found little relief compared to under slavery; they were released, homeless, with few possessions, in the same area surrounded by those who believed they still ought to be slaves. With no protection from the police, landowners acted with impunity while bales of cotton would disappear during count or the share the tenant received would arbitrarily be reduced. Although free, they had few, if any, of the privileges enjoyed by white Southerners. Along with many other racist policies that were rampant throughout the nation, but especially in the South, the majority of blacks were unable to really make progress in climbing the socioeconomic ladder. This allowed the rest of the nation to point to their extremely high level of poverty and say that they were unfit to make their own decisions and be treated as first class citizens.

The effects of