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Contrary to popular belief, racism in America was designed to keep the

white man down. The horrific effects of racism on people of color remain
an intentional side-effect.

Many of the pilgrims were “poor vagrants, criminals, and rebels against
the state,” forced to migrate to the Americas and work for free. Poor
children found living on the streets of England were regularly rounded up,
forced into slavery, and shipped over to the colonies in America. The
ruling classes referred to these poor white citizens as masterless men and
waste persons, complaining of the crime and filth caused by these so-
called worthless human beings.

The Elizabethan Poor Laws made it illegal to be poor and unemployed, so

any child could be captured from the slums and enslaved as an
‘apprentice’ or ‘indentured servant.’ They were beaten, raped, forced to
work, and murdered without consequence.

When these poor whites arrived in the Americas, their masters continued
these ruthless traditions. Whenever they got the chance, these white
slaves, and their non-white counterparts, would runaway. The vast size of
the Americas, combined with the extreme ethnic and linguistic diversity,
made it impossible to tell who was a runaway slave, and who was not.
Prosperous communities of former slaves of all ethnic and religious
backgrounds emerged across the New World. This was a great thing for
runaway slaves, not so great for the ‘landowners’ hoping to benefit from
forced labor.

After yet another rebellion where a coalition of ethnic groups fought to

toss off the chains of colonial oppression, the ruling elite invented race to
stabilize the system. Skin color of course existed before this, but there
were no ideas of united races. An individual was Scottish, Irish, Dutch,
Akan, Mohawk, Yoruba, etc. In this new system, those of African descent
were placed at the very bottom of society to pacify white slaves who made
up the majority of the forced laborers.
White slaves continued living in horrid conditions, but now had someone
to look down upon. These ruling classes went on to build incredible
wealth while white laborers remained, and still remain, extremely poor.
Rather than improving life for poor white laborers, all the ruling classes
had to do to keep poor white people pacified and working hard was to
treat black people worse and worse. This sadistic schadenfreude is all poor
white Americans have to show for their complicity in systemic racism.

By shifting the narrative to race, wealthy whites successfully convinced

poor whites that so long as the people at the top of society were
exclusively white, then life was good. This of course was not true. Poor
white Americans toiled right next to slaves for hundreds of years. As
industrial towns began to emerge, poor white laborers lived in the same
dilapidated shacks as poor blacks. Whites were given preferential
treatment but remained extremely poor relative to the wealth that existed
in the United States.

White Americans remain some of the poorest people in the rich world. 20
million non-Hispanic white Americans live in poverty, making up more
than half of the poor population in the United States. Adult white
Americans have an incarceration rate of 678 per 100,000. That means
that if white American men were their own country, they would have the
highest percentage of their population in cages compared to any other
country in the world.

A white man in America is 4.5X more likely to be in jail than a man in the
UK, and 10X more likely to be in jail than a man in Japan.
 AB"&1%C@1*",+$2%/+,1%'$1%'/%&B1%B"#B12&%"$,+*,1*+&"'$%*+&12%"$%&B1%='*35

Poor white people even get shot and killed by the police officers they love
so much. Those officers then get no jail time and a pension because no
one cares if you kill a poor white person.

How could white men, who absolutely love freedom, be ok with being
incarcerated this much? Racism. Black and Hispanic Americans are
incarcerated even more, therefore pulling the wool over the eyes of white
men about their gross lack of freedom.

A white child in the United States is 4x more likely to live in poverty than a
child in Denmark. How could Americans be ok with this? Racism. They
aren’t as poor as black and Hispanic Americans, so they are happy with
their poverty.

It’s about time that white Americans look up and realize that they have
been had, been took, hoodwinked, bamboozled! Race was not and is not
designed to oppress poor minorities. No, minorities are just collateral
damage in the war by rich white people on poor white people.

Poor white people are openly called deplorables, white trash, and
hillbillies, publicly ridiculed as “poor, illiterate, and strung out.”

“Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. You’re just as poor
as Negroes. You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor because
through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that
oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. And all you
are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major
instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And
you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here
marching with every one of us every time we have a march.”

-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. !"#$%D$ E1&%2&+*&15

The real struggle is for money. So many white Americans truly believe that
we are in a post-racial society because they can’t imagine how the lives
they are living can be called “privileged.” The white privilege they have
been promised is a centuries-old lie. They will remain poor and oppressed
until they wake up and realize who it is that is keeping them down. White
privilege is an economic toll on an increasingly poor white society,
compensated for only in the form of a sadistic schadenfreude.

The identifying feature of a billionaire is wealth, not whiteness. Until

working-class white people realize this, they will sheepishly continue
oppressing themselves with racism. We can easily eliminate poverty in the
United States as soon as we help poor white America take the shackles off
their minds.