Roots of Racism

This week I decided to discuss an article about the roots of racism towards Native Americans and African Americans dating back to colonial times. The article discusses how the United States was founded upon the principles of freedom and equality but those ideals only applied to white males. White settlers did not see the "savage" Native Americans or "inferior" African Americans as human beings. The article also discusses how Native Americans and African Americans were exploited. He brings up the point that the Declaration of Independence states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." But the irony of this statement is that the signers of the Declaration of Independence did not believe this because a majority of them were slaveholders and all of them pushed the population of Native Americans completely to the west. 

I thought this article was very interesting because colonial times the American Revolution are often glorified in the eyes of many Americans today. People see the original colonists and founding fathers as noble, brave, and endearing men who fought for equal rights and freedom. In many ways this is not true. Some of the earliest settlers cam to America in search of religious freedom or other freedoms. They faced discrimination in their homeland and came to America for a better life. These same settlers killed much of the Native Americans and drove many of them off their land because they claimed they were "savages." Americans slaved an entire race because they felt African Americans were inferior. Our country was founded upon the ideals of equality and freedom, but it's founding was also filled with discrimination and racism.

I think a lot of the discrimination and racism toward Native Americans and African Americans had to do with ethnocentrism and culture shock. The colonists and settlers probably experienced a culture shock when they landed in America and found a culture so different from their own. In today's world people still face culture shock when they travel and, with the internet, we have so much more knowledge of the world. The earliest colonists did not even know the continent existed. Americans also viewed their culture and way of life as superior to the Native Americans and African Americans. They forced their culture upon them with a very ethnocentric attitude. They did not understand their cultures and therefore condemned them. I think this article shows the hypocrisy of America at its foundation and these issues should be addressed. People should not glorify the founding of our country as much as they do. I hope this article can show people of what really happened.