Socrates: What’s up y’all?
Barbershop: I know you’re not due for a cut, but we’re glad to see you, musta talked you up.
Socrates: You usually do! I think I know what’s on your mind, but tell me anyway.
Barbershop: St. Louis American columnist Mike Jones’ Race and Caste column, we were in here speculating on where he was heading
Socrates: There’s knowing and then there’s understanding, you have to know some things before you can understand anything
Barbershop: The way that Brother normally works, he wants us to know something specifically about the past, so we’ll have a better understanding of the present, in order to deal with what’s coming
Socrates: You got it!
Barbershop: Let’s get to it then!
Socrates: In 1800, 14 years after the United States was founded, there were 5.3 million people in the country and 900,000 were enslaved Black folk. The number of “free” Black people, people classified neither Black nor white were statistically irrelevant, so let’s call it 17% Black, 80% white.
Now let’s look at 1860, 31 million population, including 4million enslaved Black people (13%), 27 million white people (87%). In 1960, 100 years later, there are179 million people, 158 million white (88.6%) and18 million Black (10%).
So, from the founding of the United States through 1960, this country has always had a white majority that made up more than 80% of the total population.
The Barbershop: That explains a whole lot!
Socrates: For instance?
Barbershop: It explains why white people today think they own the country and us too, because for most of that time they had an overwhelming majority and they actually classified us as their property.
Now this caste thing Mike was talking about is starting to make sense. White folks may have created a democracy, but that democracy created a caste system, with us as the permanent Untouchables of India.
Barbershop (younger brother): I took a course last semester and learned about the Other and Scapegoats. Don’t wanna speak for the Brother, but I think he’s going in that direction.
Socrates: He and I are pups from the same litter, I can say without fear of contradiction, he’d want you to speak for him. So, I’m gonna yield the floor so you can explain to the brothers what you’re talking about.
Barbershop (younger brother): It deals with human nature and group dynamics. People are social, meaning we live in groups, from tribes to nations. Whatever the social group, it has a core identity. That core identity defines who’s in it and who’s not. It’s like everybody who’s not us is them, and them is always the Other. By definition the Other is intrinsically different and alien, from the dominant group. Take Black people in America for instance. The way white folks defined American, you had to be white, and we by, their definition can never be white, so we can never be American.
Socrates: You not only took the course, you read the book too! So go ahead my young brother, and tell ’em the rest of it
Barbershop (young brother): The rest of it? Oh, you mean Rene Girard and the scapegoating thing?
Socrates: I most certainly do!
Barbershop (young brother): The Other plays another vital role, the Other is always the scapegoat. The scapegoat is who the dominant group blames for the mistakes and unsolved problems. This is necessary because the dominant group couldn’t stay together if they started blaming each other for their problems. By blaming the scapegoat the dominant group maintains its unity.
Barbershop (older brother): Hold up? Socrates, is this young brother saying that even if they no longer needed the free labor, white America continued to demonize and marginalize us so they would always have a scapegoat for their problems?
Socrates: That’s exactly what he’s saying, and I’m saying he’s correct.
Barbershop (older brother): So, the double cross on Reconstruction was about throwing us under the bus so white America could get on the same page! That’s pretty damn lousy!
Socrates: You’re speaking the Black truth.
Barbershop: But Mike has implied something happened?
Socrates: You know about 1960, but that’s look at 2020. There are 332 million people in America, 195 million are white (59%), 63 million are Hispanic(19%), 40 million are Black(12%) and 20 million are Asian(6%). By 2050 the white population of America will be less than 50%. White nationalists want America to be white again. But this will never happen. America is on its way to becoming predominantly nonwhite. And White Americans know and understand this.
The Barbershop: This explains why white folks bout to lose their minds up in here!
Barbershop: So, what’s gonna happen?
Socrates: That’s not only the unanswered question, it’s also the unasked question.
It’s clear that one group of white Americans have asked and answered that question, that’s MAGA America. Their solution is how quickly can you turn America into Nazi Germany.
I have no insight on the intellectual and emotional state of white Americans, I confess to being clueless. But for the purposes of our discussion I’ll take a stab at answering. It would appear that a majority of white Americans, perhaps a substantial majority, either have no clue the question exists or they are in denial about the question’s existence.
But how they answer the question or not, will be pivotal in November 2024.
