Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

by Ibram X. Kendi

“whoever is born anywhere as a human being, that is, as a rational mortal creature, however strange he may appear to our senses in bodily form or colour or motion or utterance, or in any faculty, part or quality of his nature whatsoever, let no true believer have any doubt that such an individual is descended from the one man who was first created.”

Since the Devil represented criminality, and since criminals in New England were said to be the Devil’s operatives, the Salem witch hunt ascribed a Black face to criminality—an ascription that remains to this day.7

though they were low on funds, they were not low as people.

first should be the last and the last should be the first.”

Racist ideas, clearly, did not generate these slave codes. Enslaving interests generated these slave codes. Racist ideas were produced to preserve the enslaving interests.

But it is also true that a society of equal opportunity, without a top 1 percent hoarding the wealth and power, would actually benefit the vast majority of White people