As a country founded on the violence of racial slavery and genocide, the United States has yet to overcome its historical dependence on the ideology of white supremacy. In his new memoir, Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness, author Baynard Woods reflects on the influence of racism and the meaning of ‘whiteness’ through the lens of his own life. Born and raised in post-Jim Crow South Carolina, Woods assumed he had left the prejudices of his home behind when he left the South—until he was accused of discriminating against a Black student at the university he taught at. The experience propelled Woods on a journey to investigate his own roots, leading to the revelation that his own family had claimed ownership of more than 700 human beings in the 19th century. On this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Woods discusses his new memoir and the ways white supremacy survives intergenerationally, often hiding in plain sight from those who benefit from it most.
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Ideology is buried within us. Much of the present day ideology effect how we see and judge the stories we have been told of the past. Most of us never become aware of our own present day prejudices nor reach its foundations even if we are digging deep. I am not sure why the actions of people many generations ago is necessarily important to us today just because they were biologically related to us. I think we can see here and now that violence and oppression is still happening to most people on this planet regardless of our skin color. Most of it is accepted as normal and not even recognized as violence. It is done by white skinned people to other white skinned people, Indians to other Indians, Arabs to other Arabs, Chinese to Chinese and Africans to other africans as well as between all of us not in history but now. History tells us that the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol, Persian, Greek, Mali, Inca, Aztec, Egyptian, and Americans etc etc all had caste systems of violence, oppression, slavery, and openly practiced or practice now what is suddenly considered "war crimes". In some cases skin color is the excuse, in others, religion, tribe, or access to wealth. If we have to blow up our workers in order to build a railroad, we will do it to irishmen, chinese, or african, doesnt matter.
Most of us know nothing of the lives of those of our ancestors which go back beyond 2 generations and what pressures and oppression they had to face. Its a bit to simple to me to babble on about whiteness. I already find it difficult to communicate with or understand the ideologies adopted by people just 15 to 20 years younger than me, nonetheless with those who lived 200 years ago in Northern Europe, Southern U.S. or Sri Lanka. Am I repeating the patterns of people I have never met and know nothing about who experienced another time and place?`What color would I be considered 200 years ago and would it matter? Whatever this man's personal history would be, he is giving it his own meaning. 500 years ago in Europe almost everyone lived under feudalism, with no property, no freedom of movement, no civil rights, owned by their lords and repeatedly invaded from all sides…..but ok whiteness.
Slavery has changed, it's know employees. But other contributing factors has made it more comfortable. Like choosing who enslaves you.
Well my family didn't participate. And I don't either. And I don't feel the need to apologize for my whiteness . Or how my. white privilege allowed me to break my ass on a construction site. I'm not complaining the money is. fair but we don't have slavery anymore So get over it
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Great Interview…Thank You for your life/legacy exploration!
As a descendent of nazi war criminals I think I can relate to his story . It's not just the heinous acts that for instance my granduncle did in the east (Barbarossa. So everything they did was war crimes ) it's the silencing of his acts and the accompanying mythology that my mother's generation created about him (my granny god bless her soul was pretty open about his political affiliation so I know about it but my family nether talked about him ) . And that's the situation for basically every person in germany . And the worst part is that the nazis are still in power in germany ( not in Parlament (well the conservatives are pretty much the nazi party but not with the swastika ect obviously ) but socioeconomical power is in the hands of the nazi aristocrats still to this day ) and for the last twenty years we have seen a lot of effort to sanitize WW2 and tell this idiot myth about how Hitler seduced us . By the way modern germany created the Apartheid school system in south Africa and we still got this system . And are the most racist culture in Europe . I know that Germany even teaching about WW2 is already seen as a "progressive " act in comparison with the other white cultures in Europe but usually once I explain the school system to anyone not from Germany they are all baffled that we have this fucked up system .
Referring to the german post war experience. Every single generation has to come to terms with it, on its own terms. A young german guy, on a work/study program in the German firm that I work for, from '89 to '14, had a real hard time with being actively reminded of the concentration/extermination camps and german culpability. It rubbed him completely the wrong way. When I told him that it was NOT about distributed blaming, but about recognizing when it starts getting easy to slide back into, so as to avoid that pitfall. He came back to me on the following day, thanking me for the change of perspective.
Just treat everybody with decency and respect unless they wrong you. You start by controlling what you can control and don't lose sleep over that which you cannot control
This is some of the lowest resolution garbage political logic I've ever seen. These idiots conflate a lot of overarching concepts that anyone with a room temp or higher IQ can discern have no intrinsic correlation.
What we're actually talking about is basal behavioral norms and how different societal paradigms parameterize their adherents to function in a large, interrelated human model (i.e.- a society). Behavioral norms that produce better aggregate outcomes are you be lauded while those that do not are admonished. Normal stuff. That doesn't equate to oppression or "hUwYtE sUprEmAcY". Morons.
total Crap.
Yeah there's so much Racism in America you have to make it up when 97% of Racist attacks are proved to be fraught
Whiteness exists because it was how modern systemic racism was rolled out. It should be unravelled as whites in general, have hidden behind their 'whiteness' without doing any souk searching or rigorous examination of what exactly it stands for. A system that posits at its core, a spectacularly false notion of white superiority and an aggressive set of behaviour both institutionally and social to upkeep this myth.
For too long, in racist discourse, negative focus has been put on 'blackness' and all the imagined and invented negativity that goes with 'being black'. 'Black' exists only because 'whiteness' does. It's a polar opposite of 'whiteness' and is imbued with layers and layers of negative and false assumptions and outright lies. A big, fat, lie about some imagined white superiority that is false.
Turning our attention to the invention of whiteness means a different discussion can take place. The inadequacies and evil underpinning of what 'whiteness' is… It's that simple. Whiteness needs to be discussed in white America. African Americans or the 1st Nation peopleor people of odour in general, know and live the challenges of what ' 'whiteness' symbolises. They lived it and still live it. It is white people that need to learn and understand their history of inhumanity. Not us. We lived it…and still do.
I'd love to watch B W and Patina Miller discuss "whiteness" , this book on your program M S.
I wish Woods luck at triggering wokeness in Tucker Carlson's kids.
Truth will always win!!
As a black elderly woman! I could scream FINALLY from the top of my voice THIS man gets living the Jim Crow life especially back then!!. But only TO A CERTAIN DEGREE what it’s like in the skin we’re in!! Love his book!
YaY! Finally. The beginning signs of evolution in the American psyche.
I have to read this book.
Turns out it wasn’t really the KKK, it was me the whole time
If you replace whiteness with literally any word it still works
Sir, you are one of the most important person in America today . Your book is a necessity.
Baynard Woods isnt an author or a journalist, hes a propagandist. I think he accurately describes the atrocities of slavery and how the written history of those times was far from the truth. He spent a lot of time reflecting and thinking about how white people, and in particular his family were responsible for the enslavement of black people. Just like so many other Americans, this guy has been manipulated into believing things that facts do not support. He also conveniently leaves out parts of history that should be relevant to his "whiteness" theory. Firstly, before Trump became president everyone loved him. There were around 52 rap songs written (mostly by black rappers) that mentioned Trump in a positive way. Trump was respected my many black celebrities including Oprah who wanted Trump to run for president back in the 90s. There wasnt any mainstream talk Trump being racist until he became president. Trump did more for the black community than any president in recent years. He passed The First step Act that released hundreds of thousands of black Americans that were in prison for non-violent crimes. He created opportunity zones which incentivized developing in low income areas. He was an advocate for school choice to give kids in neighborhoods with terrible school systems to go elsewhere. Trump restored hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to HBCUs. Trumps policies led to record low unemployment for black Americans. Many president have campaigned on helping out the black community but Trumps actions far exceeded those of many before him, including Obama who did nothing to help out the black community. We could make a gaffe reel of all the racist things Biden has said during his 47 year career. Racist shit still comes out of his mouth. He has spear-headed policies that put hundreds of thousands of black Americans in prison. To say Trump is racist while ignoring the facts about Bidens racism in America proves this guys clueless or a propagandists, and a partisan hack. Failing to mention eugenics and planned parenthoods mission to exterminate black people is also pretty telling. He cant mention that because of democrats close ties to PP. Hillary even received the Margaret Sanger Award. The inequities will continue until bullshit artists like this guy step out of their bubbles and stop with the narratives that reality doesnt support. I do believe we have modern day slave plantations in some of our biggest cities that have been run by democrats for decades. DECADES! Democrats want black people dependent on the government so theyre easier to control. They fight against school choice to keep the communities uneducated so theyre easier to control. Also the democrats receive tens of millions of dollars every election cycle from teachers unions. Democrat leaders of the big cities dont want to clean up the streets and rid it of crime. Its control by chaos. And its guys like woods that contribute to the inequality black people still face today. Woods is no better than his family was back in the 1800s
39:33 Yes, this is exactly what I have been saying for a few years.
Ordinary family structure in America has elements of slavery-think.
This is what is called "white ignorance." White ignorance is when ignorant white people feel guilty over imaginary things. No American today has been a slave nor have they owned a slave. I do not and will not feel bad about something that I had nothing to do with.
The real problem is classism. The only Privelage that exists in American is if your born into money or not. That is what determines who has Privelage or not.
You can't end racism with ignorance. SMH
27:02 "People still go to these places to get married" – Baynard Woods
Exhibit A: Jennifer Lopez & Ben Affleck
I appreciate the author's personal honesty.
It's pretty rare when someone selling a book impresses me. This is the person that Alexandra and, to a lesser degree, Paul Pelosi, want people to believe they are.
I haven't yet read the book, but the parallels between his family's history and mine are personally striking. I'm another generation removed and the details are quite different, but the similarities are impossible to ignore.
The big thing that comes out this, for me, isn't racism as much as that class underlies all of it.
ETA: I wrote that 30 minutes before he got tot he part about how the Democrats would rather have Trump than Sanders. I think that's the key we need to understand. Individual people hate other people for all kinds of reasons. It isn't good and it's somethign we all need to work on, but beyond that we need to understand that the hatred is the tool that the powerful use against us. It's how they get us to vote against our own interests. It's how they convince us to go kill, and be killed by, other people we should be standing together with.
It can hardly be a coincidence that the part of the country that retains the most passionate attachment to "whiteness" is also the part of it where the "white" (ie, low melanin) population endures the worst average social statistics (whether one considers income, educational attainment, health outcomes, etc).
But of course they suffer all those deficits right alongside the "non-white" population (who have it even worse).
The nature of privilege is that it is invisible to those who possess it.
The only people who can see it clearly are those whom it is used upon as a weapon.
HEY REAL NEWS Maybe host a truth and reconcilliation comission online. Where people can come clean on how their families were involved and/or victimized in/by these systems of oppression? Online forum or perhaps something like story core. Like get all that "dirty layndry" laid out in the bright sunlight. I think this country needs something like that, but if we wait fir government to do it, it could be another 100 years.
I’d like a discussion on race in America absent the inclusion of unsubstantiated, hyperbolic, feminist ideas.
if youre worried about your ancesters slavery how about the genocide of native people or all soldiers contributing to millions of murders of general populations
Gary Chambers
SCREWED Out Of Louisiana
Democrat Party E…
By: Roland S. Martin
Confederates were Democrats..
Party of Confederacy were the
Democrat Party..
Jim Crow were Democrat Policies..
Ku Klux Klan were Democrats..
Founder of the Ku Klux Klan were a Democrat..
Slave Owners were Democrats..