Whiteness Is Not Real (Hello)

Let me say that again The whole history of America Is the history of rich white men Telling not rich white people That their enemies are black and brown It starts in the colonies of What would become the United States Let's remember, during the colonial period Mid-1600s, there was No such thing as white people I know some people Who are now called white Find that shocking because they think whiteness is real But whiteness was created Europeans didn't call themselves white. We didn't call ourselves white We weren't all members of one Big happy family. Are you kidding? Have you studied the history of Europe? The history of Europe was About killing each other That's what we did in Europe We just killed each other Before we figured out There were other people to kill We just killed each other. I mean That was the history of Europe The English hated the Irish right? Northern Italians didn't even think That Southern Italians were Italians The Germans hated everybody And everybody hated their Ass right back, right? There was no team called white, no race called white But all of a sudden, in the middle Of the 1600s, there was Why? Why was it suddenly necessary To create this thing called The white race? Well Because rich people can count And that's why And so rich folks looked around, the ones that owned All the land, you know, in the colonies The colonial elite looked around And they realized something That they were heavily outnumbered By African enslaved folks By European indentured servants Who were just one level above a slave Which or other Europeans who weren't technically indentured servants But they were still peasants Didn't have any money Didn't have any land And they could do the math They added it up, and they were like Damn we've got to figure out A way to split these folks apart From one another or They're going to rise up And take our stuff Right? Because after a while These black folks who Were enslaved Africans And these, quote unquote White folks who were poor Europeans Were going to figure out They're all getting played By these rich people. Right? So ultimately, the rich figure out They've got to come up With some way to get somebody In that group on their team The easiest thing is to get The poor Europeans. At least They look like you They sort of share some Of the customs and the culture So they all of a sudden Create this thing called whiteness And they say, now you're part Of the club. Now we're going To let you testify in court Enter into contracts, vote At least if you're a man Own a little bit of land At least if you're a man, right? And we're going to get rid of indentured servitude. No more of that Because you're too good for that And we're going to take the white men Now called white men And put them on the slave patrol To keep black people in line Give them a horse and a gun And a badge and make them Feel big and powerful. Right? They're still poor. They still Don't have anything They didn't pay the slave patrol well Right? Just exploited them Used them as a buffer Between the elite and The other poor folks Particularly poor folks of color And pretty soon the rebellions That occasionally happen Where black and white got together to overthrow the elite Those skills Because the divide and Conquer had begun to work. Right? You could turn people against Each other by telling Those poor white folks They got to keep black people in line And so that divide and conquer Gets initiated in the colonies Rich white men telling Not rich white people That they're going to be On the ground. Fast forward To the Civil War era, and you have I'm from the South, right? Black people the elite in My part of the country right? Actually announced that the reason They wanted to break away From the Union and possibly Go to war with their Brothers and sisters to the North Was in order to maintain slavery And white supremacy They said that at the time We lie about it now And we say it had nothing to do With that. But of course At the time they didn't have Any shame about it so They just said it openly. Right? The Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stevens, said that the cornerstone of the government was The great truth that the Negro Is not the equal of the white man So that's the reason The Confederacy was formed And existed. But here's the trick If I'm rich and I want to go to war To protect my ownership And other human beings My property but you're poor And you don't own any enslaved people Why the hell would you go fight To protect my stuff? Because I'm a rich person I'm not going to fight rich people To go to war. Rich people get poor people To go to war for them, whether it's in 1860 Or whether it's during the 1960s Or whether it's today. Right? Rich folks get doctors to write notes For them that say that They have heel spurs So they can't go to Vietnam And if you don't know Who I'm talking about You can Google that shit Because you're sitting in the White House right now. Right? Why would you go fight? I have heel spurs since 1948 So that's a long-standing tradition So the rich have to Figure out a way to convince The poor to go fight for them But that's a hard thing That's like a hard sell Right? So why would you do that? Why would you go fight to protect My property rights when You don't own anything? Only way you would do it Is if that rich person comes To you and says, You got it You got it. You got it Because we got to maintain Our way of life because If these people get free They're going to take your jobs No, fool They already got your job That's how it works. Right? Because if I'm white and I got to charge you a dollar a day To work on the farm But you can get a black person To do it for nothing Because you own them Guess who got the job? Free got the job. Right? So in a sense, poor white folks Would have been better off Joining with black folks To overthrow the slave system That would have raised The wage floor of all Working people But they got took, they got tricked By rich white men telling t Hem that their enemies Were black and brown Fast forward to the 1930s And you have white labor leaders They're not even the elite, right? The labor leaders are not the elite But they're the elite within The labor movement And even they had fallen For it at this point So they didn't want to Integrate their unions And they would say things like Well, we can't have black people And Mexicans and Chinese folks In our unions because if we do that It's going to reduce The professionalism Of our craft. We have to maintain The integrity of our profession No fool, You need more people In the damn union is what you need And if you don't let those folks in Guess what happens When you go out on strike? Who is the boss going To use to replace you? They're going to they're going To replace you with The very same black and brown Folks that you didn't want To work next to Right? And then you're going To blame them for taking Your job rather than The white rich dude for Giving it to them. Right? Divide and conquer Telling not rich white folks That their enemies Are black and brown And now we fast forward To the president We've got the president of The United States becoming president on the basis Of that same rhetoric Telling not rich white folks That the reason they don't have A job is because Mexicans took them Right? That's the argument Keep in mind, there's been A net outflow of Mexican folks From this country, out of this country In the last 10 years Right now border crossings And actual in-migration At the lowest level They've been since the 1970s So anybody who believes That is a damn fool or Somebody who does not Understand how to do research On the internet or someone Who doesn't care Right? But he says it He says the reason you Don't have a job is those brown folks took them