zinn journal #2

The thesis of chapter two, “Drawing the Color Line” of Zinn’s book is that out of all the countries in the world ours, America, is the most obsessed with a persons race. If a person is not English or “white” they are not Americans and are/where subject to ridicule, racism and slavery.

Zinn’s main idea here is racism, even though it was never called racism back in the 17th century, it was just hatred towards people of a different background. The colonists in Virginia started the whole idea of slavery, when they started dieing off because they were unable to keep themselves alive during times of hardship. The Indians had taught the colonists how to grow tobacco, so they could make profit and export it, but because of their population the colonists could not enslave them as Columbus had done. For a hundred years the blacks in Africa had been labeled slaves so it was only natural to import them and use them as their own slaves. American slavery was the worst of all the other countries because of the Americans dire want of profit and the fact that they degraded a slave to not even feel human. The rule was that the whites are masters and the blacks are slaves. Being unable to take care of themselves with just the land at their hands the colonists were desperate for help. Well, the Indians were out of the question and the whites were to hard to control to even bother with it, what other choice did they have but blacks. There was a plethora of them in the Americas now and they were very easy to control, so again, it was only natural to enslave them. The colonists became very fearful that the slaves would rebel since the runaways in 1640. The thought they had to keep their labor where it was, was to exert everything they had in their power against the slaves. The colonists only other fear was that the disgruntled colonists would join forces with the black slaves and try to gain control.

Personally I don’t feel that Zinns position in the chapter affects what he is trying to argue. Zinn is simply saying that America is governed by racism and he gives supporting evidence on that. What he says throughout the chapter is factual, taken from books and actual people. I feel that no matter what side Zinn was on he would argue the same way, maybe omitting or adding just a few things to the story, as so many of us do in our stories.

I feel like this chapter educated me on the fact why so many people are still racist, because I firmly believe that if our ancestors hadn’t been so racist back in the 17th century, we wouldn’t be today. And the majority of us say we are not racist, but everyone is a little bit prejudiced, at least, if not racist.