While reading this chapter, I kept thinking about the world today, and the similarities between completely different ages. The divide between the colonists, and the blacks, and the Indians was great, and although most of it may be for different reasons, the United States today is often very divided. In the 1600s and 1700s there was a major gap between the rich and poor whites and “by 1770, the top 1 percent of property owners owned 44% of the wealth”, now it’s around 38%. The difference is close to nothing. Zinn mentions how there was this wealth disparity, which created a lot of violent conflicts, riots, and rebellions.
Along with this wealth gap, there was a major gap between races, and although today the gap is shown in a different way, it is still there. The divide between people in the Americas in the early 1700s came from the system of servant/slave and master relationships, and it was kept that way because of the wealthy classes’ fear of the servant/slave revolts. Today, a lot of the divide in the nation is not only the wealth gap, but political, and we still see riots, for example in the BLM movement. While the way things are handled and the extent to which the divide shows are very different than they were 300 years ago, the basic roots of this division within the country remains in some ways the same.
I totally agree with you that it is almost startling to see the similarities between today and three hundred years ago. I think it just shows that we are due for some changes and that political unrest is not a thing of the past. I read a funny tweet the other day about how the wealth gap now is larger than it was in France right before the French Revolution where the third estate rose up and beheaded much of the ruling class. I am not saying that will be happening any time soon in the US but I do think change is coming.
I completely agree with your sense of urgency in addressing current economic and racial disparities. It’s interesting to analyze resistance to the Black Lives Matter movement as it might relate to resistance toward movements for economic equality in colonial America. This was something that came strongly to mind while I was reading the passage, just as people in power during the early stages of revolution discouraged rioting from the poor, so too are people today denouncing BLM protests as well as instances of rioting and looting as societally destructive, but I think in many ways opposition to the movement boils down much more to the incentive privileged communities have in maintaining power.
I agree especially with the emphasis on how racism is still present in our everyday lives. The crazy stats such as the top 1% own 44% of the wealth and now it’s around 38% shows how little the country has changed. Although there is no slavery anymore, racism and classism are still very present. It has been way too long.
I think it is also super interesting to look at our problems today and see what similar things happened in the past. Clearly the idea of history repeating itself is very relevant.
It is interesting to me to analyze the histroy of the past and look at the relevance of today’s same problems because from a young age, we are taught to learn histroy so it doenst repeat itslef. History is clealry acting in the same way and often times repeating itself.