Doug wrote:
Or, as Barbara Fields said, slavery wasn't meant to produce white supremacy, it was meant to produce profits.
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It was, but more people were involved than slaves and slave owners. There was also the majority of whites, who didn't own slaves. The ideology of white supremacy was a way of binding poorer whites to the slave owners. This was an important element in making the southern profit-extraction system work. The southern bourbons didn't oppose New Deal legislation only because they wanted to maintain a cheap
agricultural workforce; it was also extremely important that blacks and whites not be perceived as equals in any walk of life.
Most whites outside the south today don't adhere to a white supremacist ideology, but many are keenly aware that there is a black (and sometimes Latino) underclass, to which they consider themselves socially superior, if not racially so.This is one reason why white people think of themselves as middle class. Rich white people are on top, blacks/Latinos are on the bottom, and they're in the middle. This makes sense on a certain level. There is a bigger black middle class than before, and greater integration
on the professional level (and among college students, hipsters and leftists). But, apart from that, black and white people have little contact with one another outside the job, and most whites are distinctly better off. The term, "white supremacy" no longer describes this situation, but racial divisions, and the social psychology arising from them, still play a big part..
Jim