Dear friends,
Initially, the term white was only used to distinguish the colors of captive workers (that is, European servants from their African or Early American Native counterparts.) Therefore, during the colonial period about which Bennett earlier, to be called "white" was belittling. Only in the past 200 years or roughly four grandmothers ago with the founding of the new nation, particularly because of the U.S.A.'s primary ideologue, slaveholder Thomas Jefferson, did the notion of a superior "white" race acquire legitimacy.
Specifically, in remarks made during the debates of the now famous Constitutional Convention period, regarding whether or not AfricanAmerican captive workers should be emancipated from the political economy of slavery, Jefferson, a future president, declared: "To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind." - Jefferson's Works, vol. viii (see Negroes as Slaves, Citizens, and Soldiers by George Livermore)
Apparently, Jefferson was a hypocrite, if not an outright fraud, since the most famous phrase attributed to him, "All men are created equal," did not reflect either his true sentiments as evidenced by both the above passage and his large ownership of Black captive workers.
In any case, on this final day of Women's History Month, specifically European American women may consider stripping away the phony moniker of being "white", and, instead, stand with all other women as Sisters of Humanity.
G. Djata Bumpus
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