What Is Racism ON?

How Did Racism Began?

Racism began when Europeans arrived on the Americas and began planting European crops and having their colonists come from a different continent to work those fields, explains Kshama Sawant, Socialist Seattle City Council Member and a third-generation East Indian. She argues that the history of racism has long been a narrative used to justify American imperialism. It allows the elites to justify pillaging and occupying other countries. They blame the indigenous for killing their European conquerors. And it gives the settlers "a sense of security and order."

Sawant has been attempting to put a halt to racist policies, including ID laws, for years. She's even sued the city of Seattle, an early adopter of surveillance state policies like the Port of Seattle's Passenger Processing Center in SeaTac.

"The very reason that we're enforcing ID laws is because this is about reducing migration of Black and brown people from Seattle. It is about curtailing our right to live here," said Sawant in an interview. She and the grassroots group Socialist Alternative have been pushing to recognize the history of racism and address its contemporary manifestations, like the new Passenger Processing Center. Sawant has also been fighting for a $15/hr minimum wage and the $15/hr Transit Riders Act, a measure for workers to unionize, among other issues.

“That history continued in the economic policies of President Obama, who wanted to see government growth and wanted to cut back on investments in education, healthcare, and housing,” says Sawant. “So people of color were put in places where the government didn’t have the resources to do justice to them.”

Sawant hopes that the arrest of the two young girls, Nia Wilson and Letifah Wilson, at a BART station in Oakland, CA will get the national media's attention and bring the question of racism to the forefront of political discussions.

Nia and Letifah were stabbed to death by John Cowell on the BART station on Sunday. Nia's father has said he believes that he was racially profiled for carrying a switchblade.

"For an American city, it’s an outrage that John Cowell, who is a white man, is able to get rid of a knife," says Sawant. "We live in a country where a white man is able to easily bring a knife and use it to murder two black girls and then kill himself.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League, white supremacists are in fact committing the majority of violent crime and being the perpetrators of attacks. "It’s because they know they have an ally in the White House.”

How Is Racism Going On Here?

Racism in America is once again on the rise. We've seen thousands of Americans don white hoods and intimidate those of African descent, we've seen police shot people because they've gotten too close, and now there's a presidential election where Donald Trump has filled the nation with a lot of people who are racist.

When you look at the current situation, I would like to ask you: how is racism going on here? Because at the end of the day, most African Americans in the US, when they say "racism", they mean "we got issues", right? We got issues in our communities, we got issues in our institutions. So, where's the racism coming from? Why is it my president gets compared to Hitler almost every time he open his mouth and more so whenever he make a racist comment? So, it is not coming from my president because my president is a human being. He does have a problem sometimes and there are some mistakes, but so does everybody. So, I know in my heart, the majority of the American people are good people. But we've got bad apples in the bus, man.

Who are the bad apples?

Well, who are the people who are racist? Who are the people who are holding the African American community down? So, what is the answer? The answer is not a lot of people in the United States. There are very few white people in the United States who are racist. There are some; but they are not the majority. The majority of the white population do not want to be associated with that, or want to be called racist. But, I can tell you that many, many African Americans and Latinos are racists, and the majority of us do not want to be known as racists because we love America and we love our communities. So, it is what I call racism in sheep's clothing. The people who are wearing the hoods are not the majority. But, a lot of the people in the hoods are normal, everyday people.