|
It was never about skin color, Karby. It was about your status in society. If your skin color could help determine that, it was used. But African people weren't used as slaves because of their skin color. The color of their skin became a status symbol because they were used as slaves. For a long time, many white people couldn't call themselves American either, so to say "whites were the only ones" is somewhat ignorant. Perhaps if you say "only the white people of British/French/Spanish (from Spain) descent"....but when the Irish (who were also white) came to America, they weren't considered real Americans either. They were never slaves but they worked for next to nothing and weren't allowed into many establishments. There were considered no better than the African-Americans of the time.
What about asians? When the Chinese first started immigrating here, there were laws made against them and they were widely hated because of their strange looks and quick success in the gold rush and railroad business. Even more recently,the Japanese were shunned and not considered Americans because we were in a war against them.....but asians have paler skin than some white people I know. I'm sorry - I just get sick of hearing people tell me that everything is about how light or dark your skin is when history shows it's not about skin - it's about where your ancestors rank on the social ladder. This does, in some cases, reflect in skin color. But not in all cases.
|