History of Privilege

Something I cannot seem to understand about humans is their ability to de-value the lives of others. This week in studying the history of privilege we saw example after example of the rich exploiting the poor and it costing the poor their lives. This pattern seems to have repeated itself throughout history.

In each chapter that we read in Zinn we saw that there has always been disparity between the rich and the poor in America. Zinn even notes that at one point a private committee petitioned to have a Bill of Rights that included a limitation on the amount of property that a limited number of wealthy individuals could hold. Remarkably their reasoning was they found it a potential threat to the happiness of the common man. I think that this could be an example of the “guards” standing up against the Establishment like Zinn spoke of. Changing the existing Bill of Rights to better protect the rights of lower SES citizens is the kind of bold moves that Zinn dares to imagine and hope for. (Zinn, 1980).

Between the people’s history that Zinn provides and the perspective of A Brief History of America, I was questioning the very foundation of our country. We have been taught to think of our forefathers with reverence, but if they were only looking out for rich white men do they deserve that respect? Zinn suggests that it is unfair to ask this question because of their economic positon and the time period that they lived in. Michael Moore’s video suggests otherwise however. The video portrayed the forefathers as gun happy racists and it doesn’t seem unfair to do so.

As Kimberly Roppolo reminded us, the forefathers were controlling land that did not even belong to them. Long before Americans were exploiting slave labor they had to take their land from the Native Americans. If taking their land was not enough, we burned their villages, took their money, forced them to reservations or death, and broke over 700 treaties with them. In other words we exhausted these people of every single thing they had often times even their lives. And even now we continue to take advantage of the Native Americans and their resources, a prime example being the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Adams, 2013).

After unjustly taking this land Europeans then become Americans as they forcefully separated themselves from their mother country England. What I was never taught about the American Revolutionary War though is how it too exploited the poor. Zinn explains that as things between the colonies and Great Britain moved closer to war, the colonial leaders changed policies that they knew would sway colonists towards their side. Then when the war began poor colonists were forced to participate in the draft and the rich could pay their way out of it.

After Americans gained their independence they found someone else to do their work for them and they used African Americans to build their country literally and economically. And just like Native Americans even today African Americans are still being exploited. In “From New Orleans to Ferguson, a Decade of Asserting Black lives Matter,” Melissa and James Perry explain how black lives are ignored and de-valued. They explain that the economic disparity between white communities and black communities became abundantly clear during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It also became clear then that the United States was actively discriminating against these communities by refusing to invest in them and then delaying aid once the storm ensued (Harris-Perry & Perry, 2015).

So my question after all of this is how can I promote equity, benevolence, and social justice when history shows us that there will always be those with power and privilege to oppress others? Of course I don’t have an exact answer to this but I have hope for individuals and I believe that eventually that can make a difference. This revisits Zinn’s idea of a movement unlike any that the United States has seen before. He thinks that it will require many movements we are familiar with like marches and sit-ins, but he thinks it must happen on a much grander scale. I am naturally a pessimist and it is difficult for me to comprehend such a grand idea, but I think that Donald Trump’s presidency could be the driving force that unites America in such a way.

A Brief History of the USA-Bowling for Columbine-Michael Moore [Video file]. (2011, March 29). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYFRzf2Xww

Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W., Castaneda, C., Hackman, H., Peters, M., & Zuniga, X. (2013). Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (3rd ed.). New York City, NY: Routledge.

Harris-Perry, M., & Perry, J. (2015). From New Orleans to Ferguson, a Decade of Asserting Black Lives Matter. The Nation.

Zinn, H. (1980). A People's History Of The United States. Retrieved from A Brief History of the USA-Bowling for Columbine-Michael Moore [Video file]. (2011, March 29). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYFRzf2Xww