Takaki chapter 3

Takaki’s thesis in chapter 3 is that because of slavery society has changed their views and opinions about diversity, making it the multicultural America we now know. Takaki mentions that the slaves were monster like, and how they compared to apes. He mentions that the Indians were able to escape the enslavement by the whites, and were also able to fight back against the whites. This deterred the English from exploiting them as slaves (52). Even though the Africans were continually being shipped over to Virginia, they were still a minority, and counted for very little of the population. He explains that in the early 17th century, most of the “workers” were white, to be exact about 75% of them were white. They were the “out casts” of society coming from England, Ireland, and Germany. These “out casts” consisted of whores, a bonds, and cheats (54). However, all of these people were forced to come to America; they were kidnapped of some sorts. Takaki mentioned that with time, it became sin like to associate with the black slaves, and that if a white servant was caught associating with a black slave, they would be lashed out. He states “Africans, unlike whites, were being degraded into a condition of servitude for life and even the status of property.” (57) Takaki thought that Africans would eventually threaten the “purity” of white people, and that eventually a war of races would happen.
Did racism already exist? Or did the English who decided to establish the American land socially create it? Takaki seems to think that because the whites thought they were of a higher power, they created tension. Because the white population already saw the blacks as “monsters” thus giving them a negative image of them, they ended up with less rights and privileges (the blacks). Eventually the laws of slavery were established and the tension between the whites and the blacks grew stronger. It was evident that nothing positive could come from this situation, only with time would the gap begin to shrink.
I thought this chapter was moving, I was never really taught the different aspects of slavery in school, and was almost intrigued by how unbelievably ridiculous the whole thing even was. On the other hand, I am a white female growing up in a mainly white town my entire life, I never dealt with segregation or difficulties that came with having those situations. It made me feel a bit guilty when reading this, because of the fact that I was so naive to the concept of slavery. I was really uneducated, thus not really paying attention to the negative consequences we currently face as a society and as a country. This chapter opened up my eyes to a different side of the word “racism” and “slavery”.