Zinn chapter 2

In Zinn’s chapter about the color line his thesis reads, “In the English colonies, slavery developed quickly into a regular institution, into the normal labor relation of blacks and whites. With it developed that special racial feeling—whether hatred, or contempt, or pity, or patronization—that accompanied the inferior position of blacks in America for the next 350 years: that combination of inferior status and derogatory thought we call racism.” What he is saying is that in England during these times slavery turned into a common theme, a lot of people had slaves and it was not out of the ordinary to see them. And that they are the ones who developed racism because of the slave associations between blacks and whites.
The author truly has no argument in this chapter. He is just stating facts about how slavery began and why it began. He tells about how the blacks were the Englishmen’s second option as slaves, because the Indians were too dangerous to them. The Indians had the English out numbered and with the English having to come to the forests to try and find Indians, the Native Americans were better equipped and more experienced in fighting in the forests. So, the Englishmen knew all of this and did not mess with the Indians, instead they went to plan B which was the blacks. Shortly thereafter began slave trade. Countries shipped blacks who were shackled and chained to one another in a dark boat deck, many of the slaves who were being transported like this often died. Some died of suffocation, some killed others to try and stay alive, and some jumped off the boat and drown. In the later years of slavery the slaves became smarter. They began to team up against the slave owners and run away. The planters were intimidated by the slaves who rebelled against them and rarely would personally chase after them. Plantation owners tried to figure out a way to stop the slaves from happening mainly by sending each other letters warning them. If the slaves were caught they were either burnt, hanged, or executed.
The author says that in some cases white indentured servants were treated just as poorly as the black slaves were. Well, for some reason that is hard to believe. Mainly it is hard to believe because the planters saw black and white, not everyone is a slave. They would not treat a person of the same color as them the same way they did a person of different skin color. They knew they were different from the black slaves and the planters would treat them like they were.
I felt that this reading was nothing new to me. It was nothing that I haven’t heard before; I knew before that the slaves were badly mistreated and that they became slaves just because of the color of their skin. Slavery was a horrible thing and unfortunately it is the reason that racism still exists today. And in answering the question the author posed which was will racism ever end? I see the answer as being no because people treat others who don’t look like them differently.