By Martin Gelin (Proetheus Books, 2025)
An insightful book filled with historical facts used to make the case that regardless of any racial progress in our country, there is always a reversion back to racism and xenophobia. “To deny that these crimes took place at all [referring to violence against Blacks], to insist on American innocence, to pretend that racism is a thing of the past, is the most American thing, according to Baldwin,” referring to author and activist James Baldwin.
And even though this point is reinforced throughout, the author provides hope that this can change, using California as an example of a place that went from genocidal fervor to an acceptance of diversity, even if it took nearly 150 years. In terms of Whites becoming a minority in this country, California is more than fifty years ahead of the country as a whole. And in some ways having to do with the current White backlash to changing demographics, electing Reagan as governor in 1966 (California went majority minority 14 years later in 1980) can be seen as comparable to Trump being elected in 2016 and 2024 (the United States is projected to go majority minority sometime in the next 20 to 25 years). Whether Whites will assimilate, as Gelin claims happened in California, remains to be seen.
Reading through his book, though, gives one pause. He devotes an entire chapter, This is America, to making the case of who we are as a nation. It reminded me of a recent essay I wrote in response to the same commentators and pundits who claim that Donald Trump and all he stands for, including the January 6th insurrection and insurrectionists, are not representative of our nation and not what our country is about. You can hear them now, “This is not the country I know!” My response: “Donald Trump is no exception. He is not an aberration. He is nothing less than the explicit manifestation of what lay beneath the surface of our country since its inception.”
To make his case about lingering and pervasive racism, Gelin starts with the founders of this country, with particular focus on Thomas Jefferson, who voiced his opposition to slavery, but was never able to give up the luxuries slave-owning afforded him. He referred to slavery as an “abominable crime,” while personally authorizing “the torture of underage slave boys.” He contrasts Jefferson to Washington who not only voiced his objection to slavery, admitting it was the biggest mistake of his life, but freed all his slaves before he died. Jefferson only freed the children of Sally Henning (his children), and seemed to take a more hardened, inhumane view of the institution after the Haitian Revolution. To bring this full circle, Gelin writes about a family reunion in 1999, when for the first time the descendants of Henning were invited to attend. That was the first and last time for this inclusive family gathering because, according to Gelin, it did not work out. The Henning descendants were subsequently excluded, with one family member stating the exclusion was not because the White family members were racists, just snobs. Gelin concludes they are racist and snobs.
The book goes through slave rebellions, massacres, indigenous genocide, segregation, convict leasing, mass incarceration, comparisons of Andrew Jackson to Donald Trump, and more. To provide a bookend for where he starts with the founders, he spends a lot of time towards the end of the book on current racist leaders on the alt-right. What follows are some of the interesting points raised in the book. Along with these, are some of the topics I thought were either dealt with inadequately or presented in a way that is less than satisfactory.
Some of his stories should have a lasting impact on any feeling individual. A few years ago, for personal and family reasons, I moved from the Bronx to Georgia. Living here is interesting. It is like living more in what I would consider the mainstream of this country. Of course, New York City has its own history of racial segregation, discrimination, violence and periodic riots, such as the Draft Riots of 1863. But when I moved, I was interested in some local racial history here in Georgia. Much of it was beyond disturbing. Reading this book, I now have another impressed vision of brutality that occurred in Georgia, to go along with existing horrific visions of Mary Turner’s and Sam Hose’s lynching. Lillie and Emma Mike were two young Black girls, ages 9 and 11, when they were lynched in Calhoun County, Ga. They did nothing wrong. They were lynched because their father, Calvin Mike attempted to vote in 1884. The two girls were burned alive. And I know that many will say, that was so long ago and not something that could happen now. But that would be a mistake. All we need to do is look at the January 6th insurrection. In that riot we experienced nothing short of zombie-like mob violence. I believe in my heart that if the insurrectionists had gotten their hands on Nancy Pelosi, they would have torn her to pieces. What we were capable of in the past we are capable of now, given the right circumstances.
Others will say it is wrong to teach such history because it will make Whites, and especially White children, feel guilty about events in which they had no part. These and other historic scenes weigh heavily on me, but do not result in any feeling of personal guilt. What such knowledge does is demand personal responsibility. That responsibility is to understand our history and the legacy of that history, which we continue to live with today. Through such understanding, we are able to better relate to attitudes and perspectives I would be totally incompetent to otherwise appreciate and act upon. It also assists in making sure such history is not repeated. This is necessary if we are to co-exist in a diverse demographic democracy. This is what is being denied to our youth with all the anti-woke, anti-DEI, snowflake conservatism we are experiencing today. But of course, that is the point.
Some interesting facts:
I knew that Abel Meeropol was from New York City, was Jewish, and that he wrote the lyrics to Strange Fruit. I did not realize that he was James Baldwin’s English teacher at DeWitt Clinton High School.
I knew that convict leasing was lucrative for states and for those who owned plantations, mines and factories. I never knew at the turn of the century, 73% of Alabama’s state budget was covered by convict leasing payments.
It was a surprise to learn that when “after two months of bloody fighting, the American military defeated Japan in the battle of Okinawa in the summer of 1945, the first flag the military raised…was the Confederate flag.”
In terms of some minor problems I had with the book:
The author makes reference to a “new system of convict leasing,” which he states is prevalent today. He justifies this conclusion with reference to Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow. Supposedly convict leasing ended in the 1930s but it still occurs to this day in different forms. There are more safety protections that were not available in the past, but convict leasing is still a thing. Regardless, I think Gelin misreads Alexander’s work. I think her main point was the continuous segregation of non-Whites, by any means. I think this quote is representative of her main thesis: “Hundreds of years ago, our nation put those considered less than human in shackles; less that one hundred years ago, we relegated them to the other side of town; today we put them in cages.”
In his treatment of housing discrimination, the author jumps from the 1917 Supreme Court outlawing racial zoning directly into redlining. He gives the impression that the ruling immediately prompted the practice of redlining. This is too big a leap for me. Much transpired between that decision and the start of redlining in the early 1930s. I would speculate that this period marked the beginning of more creative zoning, or exclusionary zoning, intended to guarantee segregation, yet not run afoul of any recognized civil rights. This is similar to how voting restrictions were instituted during this period based upon criteria other than race to get around the post war amendments. Of course, in both cases, when creative discriminatory processes failed, violence was usually the outcome.
An example of treatment that I think runs a bit short of the mark, there is nothing technically wrong with the author writing, “The White suburbs wanted nothing to do with Black people in the city center, socially, culturally, politically, or economically.” This is true to a certain extent as regards direct interaction. And yet, suburban White (mostly) males still made livings off of work in urban areas – building public housing and highways that cut through entire neighborhoods, engaging in public works projects, including urban renewal projects such as Lincoln Center, and of course providing goods and services, the income and profits from which all traveled back to the suburbs.
At one point, Gelin states that “Institutionalized residential segregation is a major reason Black Americans live an average of six years less than White Americans in the 2020s.” This may be true to some extent, but this is not backed-up with any references. It is dropped as a fact and then the reasons for segregation are further explored. I would have liked a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.
It is not entirely incorrect to say that “President Eisenhower eventually had to send the National Guard to Arkansas to force the state to accept Black schoolchildren…” Yet this provides a simplistic and unsatisfactory understanding of the situation. The National Guard was already there. In fact, the Governor of Arkansas deployed them, and then withdrew them, having lied to or misled Eisenhower about his intentions. I believe, and I could be wrong, that Eisenhower distrusted not only the Governor but also the loyalties of the Arkansas National Guard members. He did federalize them, but he also sent the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army to ensure the safety of the Black students while upholding court-ordered integration. Why do both if, on paper, federalizing the Guard should have been enough.
As mentioned above, the author obviously did a lot of research into far right, reactionary movements, and their leaders. Jared Taylor is one of those movement leaders that he refers to frequently. In his treatment of Taylor and others, Gelin drives home the point that for a substantial minority in this country, “democracy has outlived its usefulness.”
He goes into the reasoning behind this sentiment. He makes it clear that those of us – and I am one – who have followed the Bernie Sanders rationale that MAGA is composed of mostly politically and economically disenfranchised Americans are wrong. He demonstrates how more poor people voted for Clinton and Biden than for Trump, whereas Trump carried middle class voters by a margin of 15%. Of those who rioted on January 6th, only 7% were unemployed, and half were made up of solidly middle class professionals and small business owners. This makes his case that the MAGA insurgency is about a perceived sense of lost preference or dominance, more so than loss of economic opportunity.
And just when I think Gelin is going to make a major statement about immigration, in my opinion he falls short and misses an opportunity to make a stronger point. He quotes Taylor again. “Europe gets it. Europeans see the world changing around them. They never asked for this change. Their neighborhoods don’t look like they used to, and they don’t recognize themselves anymore. So what we are seeing now is a reaction against this.”
We hear this kind of sentiment all the time here as well. But to make such a bald statement devoid of background is disappointing. It is true that White Europeans, along with their American and other Western counterparts, never asked for the changes in demographics they currently experience. But they also never questioned the benefits derived from colonial, neo-colonial, imperialistic adventurism that has impacted countries in the Southern Hemisphere for centuries and are a primary cause for out migration from those countries to Europe and North America. It seems almost implied in the book that we have no need to connect our quality of life to causes of global migration, but should simply have compassionate feelings for the migrants who are poor. We need a public recognition that migration patterns are as much about people being pushed out of their homes (for which we have some culpability), as it is a pull to a potentially better life (or simply the ability to stay alive). Later, Taylor refers to Whites as “the only group in the history of the world that voluntarily tries to dig its own grave…” What he is saying is that intolerance of immigration, effectively viewed as “replacement theory,” is stupid and will be our own undoing. I would counter by saying we are one of the most successful groups in the history of the world at building gilded homes on the graves of “others.”
All in all this is a very well written book and a worthwhile read. I highly recommend it.