Racism

10 Pages 2428 Words

f the powerful, furnishes the “chosen ones” with wide
latitude to create theoretical arguments that justify and perpetuate
systemic arrangements of inequality. John Winthrop outlined his
reasoning for the British right to North American land in terms of
natural rights versus civil rights. Natural rights were those that men
enjoyed in a state of nature (i.e. Native Americans). When some men
began to parcel land and use tilled farming, they acquired civil rights
(English colonists). Inevitably, civil rights took precedence over
natural rights. This method of thinking enabled privilege to the
English and provided a justification for the institutional and systemic
extermination of the indigenous people (Growth 83).
Before addressing the subjugation of African-Americans by the English,
I think it is important that I make an important theoretical point in my
argument. All political systems are rational, in the sense that there
is a logic and a thinking that guides those making the rules. White
supremacy and its associated be...