My Lesson Actually Learned: History and Being a True American

Before you read this, I should mention that the theories in my professor's lecture have all been debated. Although there are plenty of ideas why racism came about, I'm going to talk about in this post is the theory that my professor believes had the most impact in determining how it evolved.

Today I came to understand the real value of my history classes.

I went to my History 1500 class today where the discussion was about slavery and racism. I was enthralled, because slavery is really interesting to me. My professor talked about how racism didn't really exist until the 17th century with the further advancement of slavery. He claimed that slavery actually brought about racism.

Allow me to recite some of what I learned today (if you don't mind, this helps me remember). Although slavery had already existed in various parts of the world for centuries, the basis for enslaving people was different. Up until the discovery of the New World, the justifications for slavery was mostly based on religion (mostly Muslims vs. Christians). The other would need slaves for work and would justify using the other religion's peoples as slaves because they were deemed inferior. Because of this, there were only small amounts of people in Europe they could justify using as slaves. 

The discovery of the New World gave countries and kings more opportunities to make money. Sugar, in fact, was one of they key products grown and one of the main causes of slavery in the New World. It was a huge commodity and it made people wealthy. The problem with sugar is that it was so hard to harvest and to produce, hence the need for more slaves who would be forced to do the work. The location mattered too, because sugar could only be grown in the tropics, mostly on the islands in the Caribbean. But where would they get the people to do this?
I think we all know the answer. And Africans were initially enslaved because they were thought by Europeans to be pagans. But what I learned today was that there actually was a considerable amount of indentured servants who were forced to do the labor in the New World, too. Indentured slaves were contracted slaves (usually not Africans) who were set to work for a certain amount of time. They actually got treated worse than the Africans because the slave owners wanted to keep the Africans around for as long as possible and were more profitable, whereas the indentured slaves only had a short time doing the work.
Then came the rebellions of the indentured slaves, mostly in the form of Fort George in New York City. Here the indentured slaves, including Africans, Irish, and other "inferior" people, burned the city.
This scared the slave owners, so they sought out a means to make the population of these slaves smaller and to isolate only one type of people. Because slavery encompassed a larger variety of people before this time, they needed to somehow reduce the amount of slaves to reduce the chance of an uprising happening again. White people were considered slaves at this time too, so the idea of making someone seem inferior because of the color of their skin came about to section off a smaller part of the workers. So racism, especially toward Africans and people of color, is a relatively new belief. Racism evolved because of slavery, not vice versa.
So why am I talking about this and rambling on forever? I think the real value of knowing history is to learn how it applies to our day.

Lately, I've become really disheartened with how the election is going. (Yes, I'm going to get political once again.) It really breaks my heart that religion, race, and gender are being dragged into the mix. One of my biggest problems this year is people who have talked about not voting for someone based on these factors. Haven't we learned to look past this all? 

I was really disappointed with how people treated Mitt Romney. He got so much criticism for being a member of the church. This is so hard for me to believe! I would not criticize a candidate just because they were Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, etc. I thought that he would have been an amazing president. His experience as a businessman would have helped out our country in this economic crisis. Of course, I had hopes that McCain would have picked him for the VP nomination, but I had an inkling that would not happen based on people's reaction in the primaries. 

I hate to say it, but Obama has had so much garbage thrown at him. Not only has his race been questioned, but his religion has too. I watched a video clip where one of McCain's supporters, talking right to McCain, said, "I can't trust Obama. I have heard about him and he's not...he's uh...he's an Arab."  I am amazed at the anger, hate, and myths flying around this election. 

Obama is not an Arab, a Muslim or a terrorist. What happened to learning the facts? What happened to researching a candidate without the help of email forwards and the media? Racism is something that has not been around long, so why is it so hard to give up? 

Although this lady does not represent all McCain supporters in any way, I just can not understand how there are people out there who still have problems with other people's skin color. It must be said that there are extremes on both sides of the fence, but I think people have stooped pretty low by saying that Obama is a terrorist based on the fact that his father was a raised a Muslim in Africa but later became Atheist before he moved to the states (but some people think he is because of his supposed associations with Bill Ayers. That is a recent development). I think the fear of Muslims is largely based on 9/11, but doesn't each religion have a bad example? 

Aren't we reverting back to our old ways? Since our country is largely Christian, isn't this Christians vs. Muslims yet again? I understand that not all McCain can't be Christian, and some Christians support Obama, but why all the hate? 

I hope we can all elect someone whom we think will do a good job and not let emotions, feelings, or hate get in the way. We need to focus more on who will best represent us, not focusing our anger on someone who we think will destroy America. 

The reason why we study history is so we learn from it and don't repeat it. Our nation has progressed in so many ways and done so much good. Why not learn from this and keep going forward, accepting people from all religions, skin colors, and backgrounds. Isn't this the true American way?

And after all, aren't these Christian beliefs?