AHC/WI: Less Racist USA

Ummm no that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is physical ethnicity as a primary form of identification as we see it in racism is a very modern concept which is based on physical ethnicity. It is not solely confined to physical ethnicity or specific places of descent. When you look at the criollo-mestizo setup in Latin America and the white-black-Indian dynamic established in that period they delineate specific privileges based on descent from certain groups of people which was initially heavily based on physical ethnicity. Culture was definitely a big part of it, which I am not denying anywhere, but the primary form of identification used in those systems was based on physical appearance.



This is putting a lot of words in my mouth I never said. Please kindly walk that back, I do not appreciate what you are implying with your statements.

What you are also sweeping aside with your impassioned rant is in periods when this form of control was more overt and culturally accepted compared to the modern day, as anyone who has read up on the War on Drugs or the US prison system can tell you Jim Crow ain't dead just playing by different rules, is while there was specific culture associated with each group even if an African-American man (emphasis on man BTW) in the 18th or 19th centuries was free, owned land, managed to make it rich, get educated, and acted like a rich white man was expected to at the end of the day it wouldn't change the fact that to society he was still black. Compared to the Roman Empire, where ANYONE could become civitas romanum, or the early Caliphates, where anyone could become a Muslim and received the privileges that came with that status, its a huge difference and is a much harsher and more direct form of oppression.



The situation with anti-Semitism is a much more complex one. There are three issues at play in this case: Jewish tradition which favors birthright over conversion but allows for converts and adopting outsiders into the fold, religious issues in Christianity many of which are medieval in origin, the economic dimension, and the subsequent influence of race-based discrimination. The religious angle comes from the odd tension between the blood libel issue and the Papacy's self-proclaimed historic role as the protector of European Jewry mostly because to them back then having living Jews around helps prove Jesus happened. Economically due to many laws preventing Jews in Europe from owning land or setting up conventional businesses many went into trade, one of the few things they could legally do, and as a result a lot of crowned heads of Europe decided to make these Jewish merchants the offer they couldn't refuse of working for them as their taxman (and taking the flak from angry peasants) or being expelled. In fact many of the great expulsions (this leaves out the far more numerous pogroms by the way, that's a whole different mess) of Jews prior to 1492 in European history were frequently motivated not by bigotry but thanks to a monarch running out of money to borrow from Jewish merchants and moneylenders and said monarch deciding to deal with the question of repayment by throwing their communities out of the kingdom. It was in Spain that the concept of taint of the blood first kicked off thanks partially to the Spanish Inquisition grabbing on Jewish religious practices regarding membership in the community and using it as justification to kill a whole lot of people under suspicion of having converted insincerely. From there it was only a hop, skip, and a jump away for anti-Semitism to graft on major elements of racism to further justify its positions. It says a lot that Hitler's anti-Semitism, while coming from the same broad cultural tradition (so to speak) as Martin Luther's anti-Semitism, takes on a very different kind of language, tone, and set of specific fears and concerns. Racism, similarly, has not been static and has developed over time.



Why would you need to unless there is a significance attached to those differences? In the Roman Empire there wasn't any special significance attached to if someone looked like a Spaniard, an Italian, a Gaul, or a North African. We know the Romans had at least half a dozen North African emperors plus dozens more from outside of Italy because, among other things, they identified primarily based on culture rather than ethnicity. In the Abbasid Caliphate what mattered first was if one was a Muslim or not and second what language they spoke. In the numerous Chinese dynasties there was no special significance ever placed on race so much as on customs and language.

There's always going to be ways people will and have determine differences between groups. As happened in those examples it was frequently by region, religion, or language as well as on a broader level cultural practices. What the example of those societies shows us is one does not need to divide based on physical ethnicity and indeed as the colonies and later states that were established in the Americas, Australia, and South Africa proves is the differences of identity which society emphasizes are frequently involved in forms of social identification and control. In short you do not distinguish identity on that level unless there is a specific social reason, which is usually driven by reasons of power and privilege, to do so.



And that's bullshit.

We have numerous examples of highly interconnected societies and trade networks in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas demonstrating even in the ancient world there was a great deal of travel, communication, and cultural exchange happening between different societies and communities. We see examples in Egyptian art, specific references in Roman documents, Chinese art and documents, plus a whole host of other places which show there was definitely awareness of differences in physical ethnicity and awareness there was a great deal of variety in that. We have finds proving there were trade networks spanning from Spain to Seoul going back to the 8th and 9th centuries with merchants who traveled these routes. This also leaves aside the examples of regular contact and exchanges between groups once deemed to be different ethnicities (like how Italians weren't first really considered "white" in the US until the 50s and 60s) happening as far back as the 2nd century BC in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia for some of the more recent stuff in the Han Dynasty, Rome, Persia, and the states of India. All of this is affirmed by modern genetic mapping studies which show how largely inconsequential race is on a genetic level.

Society is a lot more intermixed, blended, and fusing into itself than you would think. The whole concept of specific ethnicities being little pockets of cultural identity as best embodied in the volkwanderagun thesis has long been debunked by history and science.


Choosing race is a modern means of discrimination where culture, language, or religion do not suffice and you are making artificial or definitive distinctions between the two where they very well might not exist. That is my point and only point.

I have no idea what you think I am implying in my prior statements that would be offensive. Again, my point is the distinction between physical features and other group characteristics is often blurred or selected based on what is morally convenient at the time.

Having polluted this discussion already, I'll respectively bow out here so as to avoid the appearance of trolling. Sorry for the tangent. I stand by the innate fallibility of humanity and suggest the USA was always going to be discriminatory/hostile toward Latinos and Chinese immigrants for that reason. Good day.
 
The idea that the USA are 'doomed' to be racist is a bit big. It could have changed much, but I give you that the PODs would have to be away, Renaissance and all at least perhaps, like removing modern slavery, and so the USA as we know could be different.. or not at all.

Still, I believe you are too 'fatalist'. Too 'it's going to follow this path'.
 
The idea that the USA are 'doomed' to be racist is a bit big. It could have changed much, but I give you that the PODs would have to be away, Renaissance and all at least perhaps, like removing modern slavery, and so the USA as we know could be different.. or not at all.

Still, I believe you are too 'fatalist'. Too 'it's going to follow this path'.



Well, a continent that owes its existence as we know it to the wholesale dispossession of its native populations, and much of its economy to the forcible transportation and enslavement of another race, can hardly avoid being distinctly racist by 21C standards.

Maybe if black servants had been treated as indentured, like white ones, rather than hereditary slaves, that might help, but I don't know what the chances are.
 
Well, a continent that owes its existence as we know it to the wholesale dispossession of its native populations,/QUOTE]

Sounds like any former colony to me, at least any colonised by a white power (even Australia has only just apologised to its original inhabititants. & until the 1967 referendum they were not even recognized as Australians). Sigh it does seem that racism is part of the human psyche, maybe the POD should be the garden of eden as earlier post mentioned :eek:
 
I think that in terms of former slaves a radical government securing justice for them and the former planter class (by compensating the former and expropriating the later) would help a lot

If it was clear that Black folk were going to be citizens and voters (and giving the security of property would make dis enfranshcisement hard.

Plus if rights were strongly enforced in South lots of racists would have left and many free blacks and anti racist abolitionists in the North might have gone there


I kind of like the idea of a failed british interventions with Native Americans bribed into changing sides. very large Indian territory with railroads and some communities having special Federal status
 
I think that in terms of former slaves a radical government securing justice for them and the former planter class (by compensating the former and expropriating the later) would help a lot

If it was clear that Black folk were going to be citizens and voters (and giving the security of property would make dis enfranshcisement hard.

Plus if rights were strongly enforced in South lots of racists would have left and many free blacks and anti racist abolitionists in the North might have gone there


Trouble is. if southern whites leave they probably go to the north and west - making those regions even more racist.

And of course they were pretty racist anyway - had they as many blacks as in the South, they would have treated them much as the South did. So they were hardly likely to lead the charge for racial equality.
 
How would you make the (esp. early) 19th century U.S. less racist, at least against Latinos and Chinese, and what would be the result?

The early 19th century U.S. was not especially racist againts Latinos (if "Latino" is a race at all).

There were no Chinese in the early 19th century U.S. to be racist against.

In any case formalized, articulated "racism" was almost entirely directed against blacks, as a necessary rationalization for slavery.

Bigotry against Chinese was simple reflexive hostility to funny-looking, funny-acting foreigners. The same for Indians. Latinos got that too, but being far less different were not as disliked.

I can suggest one way to reduce anti-Chinese sentiment: avoid the Irish potato blight and the Great Famine. That means many many fewer Irish immigrants to the U.S., at least until later. Some observers at the time thought that the major nexus of anti-Chinese feeling was working class Irishmen, who especially resented competition from Chinese labor. (It wasn't just the Irish, of course, but if they aren't around, there could be a labor shortage which the Chinese fill acceptably.)

As for Latinos - if the U.S. annexed a larger part of Mexico, that would incorporate a lot more Latino citizens, including "notables", some of whom would become US Senators and Representatives. This is something that occurred in OTL California and New Mexico, to a degree - see the career of Romualdo Pacheco. Expand it, and the U.S. has to get more used to social equality with Latinos.
 
I really dont understand why the Latinos aren't considers white in the past and in the present some Latinos are whiter than other Europeans ethnicities :confused:
 
I really dont understand why the Latinos aren't considers white in the past and in the present some Latinos are whiter than other Europeans ethnicities :confused:
Most Latinos in the United States are from Mexico and have large amounts of Native American ancestry, or are from the Caribbean and have a significant portion of African ancestry, mixed in with European ancestors. Thus, they are often hard to classify.

When applying to colleges, they have generally given me an ethnicity choice of being able to choose to classify myself as Hispanic and white, black, native American, or some combination thereof.
 
I really dont understand why the Latinos aren't considers white in the past and in the present some Latinos are whiter than other Europeans ethnicities :confused:

Because in the US the vast majority of hispanics really aren't white, they're varying degrees of mixes between natives and European immigrants (and a large number of purely native blood people).
 
As others have said, Latino in the US generally refers to immigrants from Latin America, who are people who are much more mixed with the pre-Columbian and African gene pools than the general population of the US had been. It wasn't racism against Spaniards or Portuguese, but against American Indians and Blacks.

One needs only look at such individuals as Farragut to see that, at this time, the Americans were more or less accepting of Latin Europeans. Granted, that still wasn't as good as someone who was Anglo-Saxon, Scot, French, or German, but it was tolerable.

Anyway, I really don't see how you can get a much less racist US in the 19th century, without a point of divergence thats hugely radical. It was a very populist period from Jefferson on, and especially from Jackson onward, and the populace was not all that tolerant. So, you can't really change one without the other.

You could certainly have the anti-Democratic parties be more successful (that is, the parties that stood in opposition to the Democrats: Federalists, National Republicans, Whigs, and finally, the Republicans) in the early period. But look at the second half the century: The Republican party was pretty dominant and much more open minded about race, due to its allegiance to business interests (business leaders then, as now, wanted as much new labor as possible), but still, nothing really improved. The governmental policies were enacted in response to widespread opinion.

If I had to come up with anything, I'd have to suggest a US that is, from its inception, more diverse. Picture your typical uper-USA timeline, with all of Canada, Mexico, and several Caribbean islands to shift the demographics. But thats not entirely plausible.
 
Choosing race is a modern means of discrimination where culture, language, or religion do not suffice and you are making artificial or definitive distinctions between the two where they very well might not exist. That is my point and only point.

Uhmmmm.... not necessarily. Is choosing being a Hispanic as a "race" in the United States based on culture and language? Race is a social construct anyway.


I have no idea what you think I am implying in my prior statements that would be offensive. Again, my point is the distinction between physical features and other group characteristics is often blurred or selected based on what is morally convenient at the time.

Exactly. So why the above statement? You sounded like you're contradicting yourself. Modern racism is different from tribalism right?

Having polluted this discussion already, I'll respectively bow out here so as to avoid the appearance of trolling. Sorry for the tangent. I stand by the innate fallibility of humanity and suggest the USA was always going to be discriminatory/hostile toward Latinos and Chinese immigrants for that reason. Good day.

Well... Hmmm.... seeing the prior posts, it's.... total pollution man. But it's understandable if your worldview is kinda like a "socialized predestination" thing about the "innate" fallibility of humanity that if you're a Tory or a Burkean conservative, will translate for a need for a state to regulate morality while allowing the infallible market to regulate economic choices of humans if Hayek is right. But of course, I'm not saying this is your worldview. But this worldview I guess is an example of the "innate fallibility of humanity". :p

Good day too.

Now for my own suggestion; Have a Patriot Quebec and some "civilized Indians" joining the Patriot cause through a pre-revolution POD. There were a lot of examples in this very site. You just have to look for them.

Have an early Civil War; a Planter War of some sort in the late 1790s where the federal government did a gradual compensated manumission program. There's a thread about this. Sadly it was discontinued. It's already in the 1800's. Part of what is done is also making OTL Alabama and Mississippi a federal Indian territory. It's about butterflying the South as we know it.

Through this; at least we can have less legal racism present. But the realities of the ground is still a different matter. The American elites know how to divide the masses (this is class dynamics and more subconscious) by playing the equality card among whites and direct emotions of lower class whites towards the "coloreds". This Planter War still doesn't solve the fact that American constitutional foundations entirely ignored many Native Americans as subhuman and part of the wild to be tamed. But at least there are "civilized Indians" that can be tolerated.

Creating freedmen this early also doesn't solve the fact that as part of the gradual manumission; the federal government has to give them a territory of their own where they can flourish. Doesn't mean that they will be given statehood too. In the states where they were around; they will still be put through Jim Crow like laws in states where they were numerous while they can be given voting rights in others. Doesn't mean practical racial equality but it's better.

Romualdo Pacheco is a special case and he's elite enough to be guaranteed some respect from the Anglo population. But this is fine. We just need the United States to have numerous Spanish speakers in probable states that were not US territories OTL. So a little Ameriwank.

The case of the Chinese is really different. If the whites of the West Coast want to exclude them; they have to mobilize some support from the Hispanics, blacks and natives in this prospective timeline. A Jim Crow for Asians will still be present I think but an anti-Chinese exclusion act can be butterflied away. There's a timeline that did that; since there are "colored" (enfranchised for their participation in the Union ranks plus property qualifications) representatives around that decided to vote against it because they are trying to form a bloc to represent the "unrepresented Negroes and minorities".
 
Uhmmmm.... not necessarily. Is choosing being a Hispanic as a "race" in the United States based on culture and language? Race is a social construct anyway.

Exactly. So why the above statement? You sounded like you're contradicting yourself. Modern racism is different from tribalism right?

Well... Hmmm.... seeing the prior posts, it's.... total pollution man. But it's understandable if your worldview is kinda like a "socialized predestination" thing about the "innate" fallibility of humanity that if you're a Tory or a Burkean conservative, will translate for a need for a state to regulate morality while allowing the infallible market to regulate economic choices of humans if Hayek is right. But of course, I'm not saying this is your worldview. But this worldview I guess is an example of the "innate fallibility of humanity". :p

Good day too.

My first two comments say exactly the same thing. How do they contradict themselves? This is a rhetorical question.

As to the rest, please stop putting words into my mouth and making silly extrapolations. I got into a misguided pissing match with LHB about issues that distracted from the OP, recognized it for what it was and stepped away. Respect it. Otherwise you are just trolling.

Discussing race in America is like juggling hand grenades. I've put mine down so please stop throwing new ones at me.
 
As to the rest, please stop putting words into my mouth and making silly extrapolations. I got into a misguided pissing match with LHB about issues that distracted from the OP, recognized it for what it was and stepped away. Respect it. Otherwise you are just trolling.

Ok... I am backing out as much as you've backed out from LHB. Nevertheless, I just thought that my "silly extrapolations" are sometimes subconscious on a lot of people. Maybe you have them. Maybe not. You don't have to admit anything though especially if you are convinced that there's none. And if that's the case; then I am sorry about my extrapolations.

But did you already took out the words you've made on how you also made your own silly extrapolation on LHB's statement? Maybe I am just too sensitive about matters like this.

I don't think anything that happened here is trolling. You are not trolling. I am not trolling. Especially that I just made some contributions/suggestions on this challenge rather than a "Garden of Eden POD", which totally is not helping because of some reason that... let's just say that you don't understand racial discrimination from its other forms as LHB already said... and how different discrimination from ancient times from that of post-1500s. But that's ok. The bad thing I thought is just you dismissed the entire argument of LHB as if such differences don't exist in real life, that's "he's making up things", regardless if these differences are artificial or not, which they are, I agree with you, and then you just walk away. But to your credit, Just moving on from this is a much better thing to do since not only discussing race in America but race in the world is like throwing hand grenades and since I guess we might be warned by the mods that we are starting to get away from what the challenge is all about.

So yes, let's just say that we already did what we can to help and then move out.
 
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I really dont understand why the Latinos aren't considers white in the past...

Who says they weren't?

There was no rule anywhere in the U.S. that "Latinos" were not citizens, nor any attempt to define "Latinos" in any legal way.

There was never any serious barrier to intermarriage between "Latinos" and "Anglos".

In areas where there was a serious social division between Anglos and Latinos with a high proportion of non-European ancestry, the Anglos might be spoken of as "white", with the Latino group being considered "not white" by implication. But that would be only a local condition.
 
Who says they weren't?

There was no rule anywhere in the U.S. that "Latinos" were not citizens, nor any attempt to define "Latinos" in any legal way.

There was never any serious barrier to intermarriage between "Latinos" and "Anglos".

In areas where there was a serious social division between Anglos and Latinos with a high proportion of non-European ancestry, the Anglos might be spoken of as "white", with the Latino group being considered "not white" by implication. But that would be only a local condition.
After the Texan revolution, the Tejanos which often revolted alongside American settlers were seen as the same as invading Mexicans and subsequently discriminated against and driven out. A vaguely similar thing happened to a lesser extent in California.
 
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