By Kevin Palmer
As the plain truth about slavery is revealed, the whitewashed version of American history is being exposed. One such revelation is an August 2019 Vox.com article by P.R. Lockhart, how slavery became America’s first big business. The article introduces a book by historian and author Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism.
The article challenges the mainstream narrative that slavery was insignificant to America’s economic success and the vast wealth disparity between Whites and Blacks.
Lockhart explains, “The bodies of the enslaved served as America’s largest financial asset, and they were forced to maintain America’s most exported commodity.
The profits from cotton propelled the U.S. into a position as one of the leading economies in the world and made the South its most prosperous region.” However, this plain fact contradicts the narrative of how exceptional White Americans built America’s economic foundation.
Baptist wrote, “A huge component of White American identity is a quest for historical innocence and historical exceptionalism. And this depends on having White voices telling the story.” Hence, Conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Austin Rhodes have built lucrative careers using their voice to coddle White listeners by promoting the narrative of innocence and exceptionalism.
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