No Racism in the United States

[Xen]

How early does a POD need to be to pretty much destroy racism in the United States? I believe there will always be some coming from all races, but I want to pretty much eliminate it ever being mainstream. I was thinking of something about slavery being eliminated during the American Revolution, perhaps our founding fathers come to believe that what American should be extends to all people, regardless of race, maybe including the 13th and 14th Ammendements in the Constitution in the late 18th Century.

The problem would of course be the south so perhaps an earlier Civil War, maybe during Washingtons or Adams Presidency, or we can have an American Napoleon come to power in a second revolution. I dunno I'm just shooting off ideas.

 

[Johnestauffer]

It is hard to believe that racial prejudice will ever be eliminated. For one reason or another most people have groups (religious, ethnic, whatever) that they do not like and will make their decisions based on those feelings.
We don't have to have laws to make us dislike our neighbor. As long as groups attempt to create their own identity, maintain their own culture, and so on, there will always be prejudice.
If we didn't have slavery in chains, we could have as easily have had ecomonic slavery.
It seems to be human nature to strive to be better than others. That in itself breeds prejudice. If you can't achieve your goals, then make sure there are other people in society you can look down on to give you a feeling of sucess and superiority.

 

[Spartan]

I think he mean more like what could have been done to stop US from have become as racist not completely eliminating it. Less racist the the point where there was no need for a Civil rights movement, there was no KKK, no Black Power, no Aryan Nation, no Black Liberation Army, no Jim Crow, and no race violents like the Red Hot Summer of 1919 or the Long Hot Summers of 1965-1968. What could have been done to stop the US from becoming a breeding ground for extreme racism. Its one thing for humans to not like one another but its something else when you infuse your nation with it to the point that its like Nazi Germany. That's not human nature, that's evil in its purest form.

 

[Ivan Druzhkov]

This might sound odd, but could there be any way to keep the practice of slavery extended to poor white settlers in the Americas for a while longer? If slaves can be of any race, that might reduce anti-black sentiment a bit. It probably wouldn't do all that much, but it may be a start.

 

[Spartan]

They tried that when American was first colonized and white and Native Americans didn't work. And the problem with that is that when a white slave runs away they can blend in and hide among the larger white population Blacks can't. And a function of slavery as practiced by the West was to dehumanize the slave to make the enslavement of Black justifable. White can enslave Black because they are inferior. Its not possible to do that with your own race. Whites can enslave other whites because whites are inferior?

 

[Bulgaroktonos]

While I have qualms about comparing the US to Nazi Germany, I'd say the best way to do it is perhaps have no cotton gin. Slavery was rapidly going out of style, IIRC, because cotton was so hard to produce in high quantity that it was unprofitable. And seeing as cotton was the big crop slaves could be used to pick and the most unpleasant of jobs, if cotton goes, eventually you are probably going to see slavery in general go as more slaves are freed simply on the basis that their labor is no longer necessary and because they cost money to feed and maintain.

 

[Spartan]

I don't see any flaw in the comparison because my people have been mistreated as long as this country existed and no effort was made to recify this until forty years ago. The only different is our holocaust last 351 years and no one hunted down or punished the perpetrator of the crimes against my people.

If slavery went out then some type of sharecropping would have developed because its was should a vital crop some new system to cultivate it would result.

 

[Melvin Loh]

Wouldn't you also need to add during colonial times much less animosity, mistrust or hostility between whites and Indians ? WI somehow there hadn;'t been major Indian wars like the 1622 Powhatan rising and Metacom's War 1675-76 ?

Hmmm, interesting ideas, Xen. I agree with the possibilities of a longer-lasting white indentured servitude period in Virginia and thruout the South, and no cotton gin by the 1790s. WI perhaps prior to 1763 there was some sorta massive European struggle in North America, so's that Britain and the British colonists would've needed every single ablebodied person thruout the English-speaking colonies, regardless of race or religion, to do their utmost to thwart the French and/or Spaniards ? Or maybe if French and Spanish colonialism, which generally wasn't as harsh on racial matters as the English view, had triumphed in NA, or otherwise had some longer-lasting effect on race relations ?

 

[Straha]

Have the english never import slaves into the new world and import indentrued servants from the british isles instead.

 

[Spartan]

That's what they first did and the indentured servants would just leave if they didn't like their situation.