White Awake: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be White

by Daniel Hill

they were mistreated, oppressed, and seen as inferior to other European ethnic groups.

unique bond with African Americans:

mulatto

a powerful white republic was emerging.

the system of race in America has consistently treated white people as a superior race and has consistently treated nonwhites as inferior.

“The Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.”3

this point, because it stresses the belief (or doctrine) not only that white people are inherently superior but also that they are rightfully the dominant group.

Not only did they anoint us with a power that was not ours, they also used it to name other human beings.

they chose to found our country on a dehumanizing picture of an entire group of people being fundamentally “merciless” and “savage.”

The act of encoding white supremacy into foundational documents did not end with the Declaration.

When they referred to African Americans as three-fifths human in this Constitutional provision, they literally dehumanized a group of people in the fullest sense of the word.

the doctrine of white supremacy has undercut our aspiration of being a nation of equality.

Because our culture asserts that white people are superior,

The] melting pot never included people of color. Blacks, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, etcetera, could not melt into the pot. They could be used as wood to produce the fire for the pot, but they could not be used as material to be melted into the pot.”11