”The two platforms” From a series of racist posters attacking Radical Republican exponents of black suffrage, issued during the 1866 Pennsylvania gubernatorial race. Democratic candidate Hiester Clymer’s platform as “for the White Man,” represented here by the idealized head of a young man. (Clymer ran on a white-supremacy platform.) In contrast a stereotyped black head represents Clymer’s opponent James White Geary’s platform, “for the Negro.”*

Pious White America created a racist environment—with its ongoing consequences—at the nation’s inception, and it has steadfastly maintained it since. Barack Obama, as the first black president, could do nothing to change those two facts. Nor will Donald Trump, as the first authoritarian president, be able to do so—should he even care.

In the country’s early days, the small ruling class had three big forces of opposition: natives, poor whites, and blacks (free and slave). The threat of overthrow was a constant worry. If any two of these groups banded together in opposition, the party was over. The prevailing strategy of control was to keep the three groups at odds with one another.**

Genocide, over time, took care of the Native Americans, rendering those who survived toothless. But the black-white problem persists through its deliberate nurturing. Trump’s promise of “law and order” will not solve anything other than maintaining the violent tension and keeping private prisons profitable.

If the racial divide never existed, ours would be a much different country. If you tell me it would be worse, then you have reason to support the divide with all its negative consequences. If you say it would be better, then what part will you play in breaking down the barriers?

*Image and description of poster from Wikimedia Commons.
** See The People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn.