Understanding American Racism, Part I: Culture & System

For the first 150 years of the nation’s existence slavery and the racist culture that supported it represented a critical weakness in America’s foundation. The Civil War was fought to remove the cancer of slavery and by association reject those components of the racist culture that were recognized as contrary to our founding principles. While the victory against slavery was complete, America’s culture of racism evolved and was incorporated into an expanding federal system of government producing systemic racism. For the next 100 years racism against…