Takaki chp 3

Ricky Woodie
Ethics
Chp 3
September 25, 2007

Chapter 3

In chapter 3 of Takaki, his thesis is that the arrival of servants here in America in the early 1600s, is what brought about slavery and ultimately racism towards blacks. It starts out talking about how the blacks were viewed as vile to the English and how they got their skin color from the devil. The Africans were compared to apes and were considered savages. In the begging it says how Africans and whites came here together as servants. Both would receive similar punishments and both would run away together. Since they were integrated owners separated them more and more and made it illegal for them to fornicate. They began to be separated more and more and blacks started to be treated harsher than whites. Blacks began to be come slaves in the 1660s when they were begging to become servants for life. Once they became servants for life, owners began to turn away from white servants and got more black ones because it was more profitable to have them for life. So that blacks would not over throw the government, every white man was required to bear arms. At the end of the 17th century nearly half the work force was African American. In 1680 slaves were denied any freedom. Blacks were demoted to a lower class then any white worker and all were considered slaves. It then finishes by mentioning that Jefferson too was a slave owner and after awhile began to feel guilty and tried to get slavery abolished. He said once that happened we would have to ship slaves back because blacks and whites could not get along. He claimed that blacks were not as intelligent as whites and were an inferior race. He thought that’s blacks would threaten the purity of whites and that a race war would eventually happen.
The question here is did the servants here start racism in America? The answer Takaki claims is yes. He shows how English already looked down on blacks and once here they were given less rights then white servants and ultimately became the only servants once they were forced to work for like. He gives examples of the laws that were passed that developed slavery and showed how the gap betweens whites and blacks grew over time.
In my opinion slavery was definitely one of the causes for racism. It put us in a huge of that we still are trying to did out of. Slavery brought upon white privilege and it is a key factor to why there is still racism today even where all people are now considered equal with the same rights.