The Giddy Multitude

The author Takaki takes us on another adventure as we discover the basis of slavery and the many fears of “The Giddy Multitude.”

First, I’ll explain what Giddy Multitude is and then I will guide you to how it started through Takaki’s eyes. “GM is a discontented class of indentured servants, slaves, and landless freemen, both white and black, the Stehpanos and Trinculos as well as the Calibans of Virginia” (pg. 63). Basically all the white landowning men were scared of the growing population of the GM. So they classified them in a category that if spoken of would bring fear to other landowners.

As we all know Americans brought slaves over from Africa and other regions. Some blacks and some indentured servants captured in their sleep and brought against their will. At first, these black and white people didn’t know much about each other, therefore, led to minimal or no racism. But, soon that would all change. Black and White slaves sometimes escaped together. The landowners did not like this congregation. They eventually split up the workers so this wouldn’t happen again. They did this by separating their break times so they would have less contact. They also did so by punishing the black slaves more harshly than whites for the same crime. This led to some segregation. Black slaves would serve life time enslavement for the same crime whereas whites would only serve a few extra years of labor. This in-turn led to the desire to have mostly or all black slaves because they could stay on the plantation for a longer period of time. Whites saw this as an opportunity. They would come to America hoping to serve their few years of labor than they would start their own plantations. Unfortunately that’s not how things turned out. Whites already in America did not like this idea because that would bring down their sales, so they made a law to extend white punishment to serve a much longer sentence. To no surprise this angered the whites coming to America and they started a huge rebellion. Their motto, “either be free or die for it” (pg. 63). With Nathaniel Bacon as their leader the GM grew to a large number of 500 men as they raided threw the towns and streets. This rebellion not only struck fear to many social classes it brought racism more into the seen. The option society chose was to let the free, landless, white men have more powers. In-turn the segregation of blacks now was apparent that they were only here for one purpose, slavery.

This is a very logical explanation of how slavery began and spread in a very short amount of time. Spread to a number that was not wanted, a number that caused panic and fear in white landowner’s hearts. Was the use of slaves a wise decision? Was the segregation of whites and black indentured slaves good in the long-run? The answer seems obvious, NO! This not only caused more problems than to begin with, it started an endless battle of freedom, racism, and segregation.

I believe that the panicked white, landowning, men took action before thought. I’m sure other alternatives could have been provided or seen given time, but waiting for those answers was not an option as the overwhelming increase of the population of slaves was at hand.

Getting Off the Hook: Denial and Resistance

“You barely just got off the hook!” Does this sound familiar? Some may hear it quite often some only occasionally. The theme of this chapter suggests that even though you may or may not have heard this sometime in your life you have done something that led to this conclusion.

This chapter primarily connects “getting off the hook” in a privileged way. You can get off the hook because you are more privileged than someone else or you merely can get off the hook by a comment or illusion that makes you seem innocent in a situation where you might not be. Denial is a key trait in a person who has done this. “There are no people with disabilities where I work, so that isn’t an issue here.” This quote along with others suggests that people are in denial with their surroundings to try to fit in with the norm. Of course someone is not going to say disability is an issue if they are confronted by it on a daily basis, this may not be the truth but this is the denial we are trying to prove. There are many acts of denial that people do intern to explain situations. Like in this quote a parent says to their kid, “Now, now, stop crying, it doesn’t hurt that much,” when in fact the adult doesn’t know just how much it hurts. Or like in this situation people but the blame on other people, “If blacks were smarter or worked harder or got an education, they’d be okay.” Both of these situations show how privileged people deny other people because of their incapability do something just so they could get off the hook and look better.

Why? Why all this resistance to the truth? You can’t ask everyone their opinion; you would have to interview everyone in the world, because everyone tries to get off the hook. If you did record most people in the act they might say the words, “I didn’t mean it.” This statement helps anyone get out of a sticky situation. Even if you mean it or not you’re already off the hook because the opposing person doesn’t question you any further, they just assume you’re telling the truth and are completely innocent.

I can’t lie I’ve found myself using this statement numerous times. Whether I meant it or not no one will ever actually know and that’s the beauty of it. No one likes to take the blame for a bad situation. No one likes to be out of the “social norm”. Everyone wants to fit in somehow in life. That’s why I think there will never be an end to “getting off the hook,” so just go with it and accept it!

What It All Has To Do With Us

What it all has to do with us is a great title to this next chapter. The author discusses the “trouble” surrounding privilege, power, and difference for individuals. People fell awkward and discomforted to talk about these topics because they commonly mistake individuals as to having set privileges. They don’t want to offend others and put others down because they feel more privileged in a certain topic. That is where this all goes wrong.

People aren’t individually privileged or better than others. Groups are viewed as having privileges and groups contain the vast of the population. “Individualistic thinking, however, assumes that everything has only to do with individuals and nothing to do with social categories, leaving no room to see, much less consider, the role of privilege.” Everyone is on an individual judging basis. They don’t realize these social categories are way larger. The actual name for this is a social system. An example of a social system would be a university and the author states, “the people aren’t the university, and the university isn’t the people.”

This quote sums up what this all has to do with us. A university is nothing without faculty and students. And the students and teachers will get no where without a university. They both need each other and that’s how it has to be. The university can’t function with just and individual teacher or an individual student. Universities need groups and groups need universities. If only individuals can understand this. If they could realize this concept that privilege and power is assigned to groups than the world would be a better place. But they don’t they take the “path of least resistance” as Allan states. This is the option to judge people or act in a certain way that is accepted by most. When all males are talking about women in a sexist fashion an individual male in that group is not going to speak up for women because he would get too much “resistance” from the other guys. This all sums up the hardship people have talking about privileges amongst individuals or groups.

This chapter helped me to realize what everyone does. We judge people as if they have the upper-hand in things or the lower-hand. No one person has these individualistic powers or privileges or lack there of. People try to get by, by taking the “path of least resistance.” I am personally guilty of this charge. The path of least resistance gets us out of awkward situations and helps us to fit in the “norm”. Who knows if one day this will change and society will be less judgmental towards particular individuals.

Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination

“If race is socially constructed and doesn’t exist otherwise, and if human beings don’t have to be afraid of one another, then where does racism come from?...Why would people make it up this way in the first place?” The author poses a very mind boggling question. The history of racism is somewhat of a mystery. We have an understanding of how it became but why it did we are still determining.

Racism appeared with the expansion of capitalism. Capitalism is basically all about money and profit. This money hunger leads to small percentages of individuals that are extremely wealthier than the rest of the population. This, in turn developed different wealth classes. With wealth in some classes comes discrimination amongst the high and low classes. The higher classes mainly consisted of white people and the lower classes were blacks and other immigrant workers, therefore, Whites would discriminate against the other “races”. “Capitalism’s direct connection to white racism has also operated in the acquisition of land and raw materials, which, like cheap labor, play a key role in the rapid growth of industry and wealth.” It was cheaper to make slaves do all the labor because the land owner wouldn’t have to pay them as much or any at all compared to a low paid white person. Even though, they had the same jobs as some immigrants white people always could look in the mirror and say, “hey I’m white, that’s better than any other “race’”. This went on until we had a civil war and slavery in the south was being banned.

Has capitalism taken racism to far into our hearts to the point where there is no ending it? Will wealth prevent the peace the long yearned peace amongst races? Only time will tell. The civil war was the beginning of the end of racism, but like everything there has been people have different views certain topics and there is no changing there mind. You can’t win everyone’s side.

This chapter has given me some insight on how racism started. I knew that wealth had a certain power, but the power to completely start “racism” is beyond belief. Without racism the constitution would be correct in saying that all people are equal, but as long as racism is around there can’t be total equality. Jobs will be given to white males over anyone else. Salaries will be higher for white males. Right now that’s the way life is but maybe in the future incomes will be equal amongst all men, women, and all “races”.

Race: The Power of Illusions

During this short episode the director tries to show that race is not biological and that it is only a myth. There is a belief that there are certain scientific reasons behind races. There have been numerous studies trying and multiple recordings trying to prove this. But all studies led to one output; there is absolutely no difference between an American and an African American. As a matter-of-fact there is more genetic difference amongst races than amongst different ones.

Most human beings believe that there is a genetic marker that defines race. People believe that certain humans are automatically born with different genes that separate them into different races. For example there is a myth that African Americans have an extra muscle in their leg. This is not true, but what is true is the fact that there is not one physical difference between people besides their skin color. From this movie you can find that people only have different skin color because of the amount of light needed to take in to produce vitamin d. People in Africa have darker skin to reflect the sun because they get too much of it. Americans have a paler skin tone because they need more sun.

People have been born and raised to quickly distinguish people into groups by their physical features. This is a quick and easy process and you don’t even have to know the persons name and you could place them into a distinguished race. That is why it is hard for many people to believe that there is no biological difference between races. There is no person that could say they haven’t looked at someone and said/thought are you Irish or aren’t you African American. Can this stereotype be changed in the future? I think that the population has been too used to grouping people by race in a biological sense. Even though, there is probably not a likely chance this vision will change the only thing we can do in this case is recognize that there is more that meets the eye.

I found some of this episode quite shocking. I have heard all the extra muscle rumors and thought they were true. I had no idea that there was more of a genetic difference between me and my roommate than say me and someone from an Asian society. It is natural for me to categorize people by different races and to place them in different social groups. It will always be that way, but now I have a better understanding of people in general and won’t jump to conclusions about their ethnicity right away.