Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Oliver Cox s Views On Racism And Race Prejudice - 1804 Words

Oliver Cox theorizes, â€Å"But modern society--Western Civilization-- began to take on its characteristic attributes when Columbus turned the eyes and interests of the world away from the Mediterranean, toward the Atlantic.† This is the basic, underlying argument that both Oliver Cox, and Michael Goldfield have in their writings; racism and white superiority ideals were derived from the creation of capitalism. Both Oliver Cox and Michael Goldfield argue that racism was caused by capitalism, and the impact of this ideal was seen for centuries in the United States. One of the earliest and rare social theorists to pose the idea that capitalism was the root of racism was Oliver Cox. Cox theorizes that racial exploitation and race prejudice†¦show more content†¦The Roman and Greek cultures were not racist, but both of their societies were oppressive. The Romans had a system of cultural-based oppression (8/25). When capitalistic ideas start to emerge is when racism devel oped. Before capitalism developed, the white man had no conception of himself as the superior culture (327). Cox pinpoints 1492 to be roughly the time when racist ideology is starting to form in Europe (8/25). Cox states that the intense competition among Western European businessmen for the capitalist exploitation of the resources in the Americas, the development of nationalism in the European nations, and the decline of the Roman Catholic Church’s influence is what led to the development of racial antagonism (330). White racism started to develop while the European nations were exploring and colonizing the Western world. The people that went out to explore and colonize were mainly capitalists, urban dwellers, and business people (336). Their way of life was extremely different to the natives they encountered and the people of color would be suppressed if the white colonizers did not receive their way (337). This is when White racism and the idea of â€Å"superior† an d â€Å"inferior† races came to develop. Once the Americas were colonized, the Europeans needed a work force to exploit and use the lands mass resource pool. It was an idea that some class of people should

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