Jim Crow

Trump’s “Day One” DEI Dismantling: A Return to Jim Crow?

Donald Trump’s proposed ban on DEI initiatives represents a calculated effort to dismantle decades of progress toward racial equity, echoing the tactics of the Jim Crow era by framing such initiatives as unfair to white Americans. This “colorblind” approach ignores systemic racism and the persistent racial wealth gap, falsely portraying DEI as preferential treatment rather than a necessary tool to address historical and ongoing inequities. The policy, spearheaded by figures like Stephen Miller, would severely limit workplace protections for Black Americans and further marginalize underrepresented groups. This action is not simply a policy shift but a direct assault on the principles of equity and justice, mirroring historical attempts to maintain white dominance under the guise of neutrality.

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Southern slave owners remained politically powerful after the Civil War. In Texas, former slave owners made up more than half of all state legislators until the late 1890s. Counties that elected more slave owners had substantially worse outcomes for blacks until the early 20th century.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/long-shadow-of-slavery-the-persistence-of-slave-owners-in-southern-lawmaking/98B62393860C0F1B5A6E3A9F870F8C61

Cotton was still an important crop, even if they couldn’t produce at the same ridiculously high margins as when they had slaves working the fields. If you still had the cotton fields then you still had a means of accumulating wealth (and thus power). They also had the wealth accumulated during legal slavery, wealth creates more wealth. They had wealth to buy slaves and farmlands before ie they were wealthy to begin with. The georgia colony trustees didnt give out 5000 acre plots of land on the savannah river to colonists from english debtors prisons.

Here, the settlers would have to conform to Oglethorpe’s plan, in which there was no elected assembly.… Continue reading