Black History - Overcoming the Racism Game
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- Category: Blogs
- Published: Saturday, 01 March 2014 01:06
- Written by Greg Dean
by Gregory Dean
Students of American History learned that over 450 years ago, Native and African Indigenous Peoples became the victims of European expansionism in the New World. The British colonists, after gaining independence from the Crown, needed cheap labor to develop the vast lands and natural resources they'd stolen.
Their solution was to establish African Slavery, an innovative labor system engineered and powered by the "Racism Game".
This is the fantasy of European self-attribution of racial superiority over Africans and other
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peoples of color.
When combined with the Euro-inspired ISM Games of Capitalism, Religionism, and Militarism, the Racism Game served to justify European enslavement of millions of Africans in the name of building a secure and profitable American empire.
Though the shackles of physical slavery have all but disappeared, the Racism Game endures as a psychological ball and chain on black dignity, aspirations, and power.
Will African Americans ever win?
After a great Civil War abolished Slavery and freed Africans from the horrors of physical bondage, Euro-Americans rebelled in full force. They initiated new campaigns of terror against blacks, including: the Black Codes, Peonage, Jim Crow, the Negro Holocaust, School to Prison Pipeline, and Domestic Wars on Drugs and Crime. Blacks suffered underdevelopment, underachievement, and unfulfillment.
To understand "racism as a game", let's consider Bernard Suits' definition of game as ". . . an activity directed toward bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by specific rules. . ." I, along with others, add that a game is played by opponents on a field of play with rules, a challenge, interaction, and a prize for the winner. According to D.K. Levine, "game theory" is what "psychologists call the theory of social situations, focusing on how groups of people interact."
This backdrop explains the Racism Game as the ongoing contest to determine whether (1) whites will maintain America's racist status quo, or (2) blacks will disrupt or defeat the status quo in order to achieve full citizenship and respect.
How should African Americans respond to the game?