Lecture 3 week 2 Understanding Class

Analysis
Tuesday, October 10, 2017 3:29 PM
System of white supremacy
• System that tries to program you to avoid any solidarity with
people of color
• System in which the colonial ruling class realized it faced
rebellion
○ English workers and african slaves
• Set up a system of law which stigmatized and punished people
of color
• Parallel- nationalism
○ People thinking they are the best
• System evolves
○ Rulers have to keep modifying the system

Class modifying model

• Upper class is ruling class
○ Ruling class because it dominates
§ Economy
□ Goods and services necessary for life
® Food clothes shelter
□ Modern economy things needed are privately
held by few families
® We Go work for factories and
companies to be able to have money to
buy resources to have your own stuff
you just made for the companies
® Owners= power (job creators)
□ People are desperate for the companies to go
their area to create jobs
□ Control people through means of production
□ Minimum wage
§ Ideological apparatus
□ Every society must socialize the next
generation
® Must provide values and knowledge of
the world
□ Political education
 □ Minimum wage
§ Ideological apparatus
□ Every society must socialize the next
generation
® Must provide values and knowledge of
the world
□ Political education
□ Consists of
® Schools
® Church / religion
® Media
□ Mind is shaped to fit the needs of the ruling
class
□ Shape your mind politically to fit the needs of
ruling class
§ State (government)
□ Difference between concept of state and
government
□ State = the institution that makes rules of
behavior (laws) and enforce those laws
through violence (armed police force/ army)
® State can take different forms
□ Government= form the state takes
® Here in america: democratic republic
® You could have monarchy, dictatorship

Reconstruction 1865-1877
• Reconstruct southern society through democratic nonracist
laws
• People became active
• Racialized class struggle
○ Freed men vs planter class
§ Freed= emancipated americans
§ To be truly emancipated they needed economic
independence
§ Goal was to be self sufficient farmers
§ Problem they faced= former slave masters still
owned the land and tools
§ Freed man agitated for land reform
§ The planter class knew that the planter class would
lose land and no one would work for them because
labor force was now working for themselves
§ Emancipation in civil war involved the laborers not
the means of production
 ® Preventing people from attending elections
® Voting fraud
□ White supremacy ideology
□ Made a deal with federal government
® If you take your troops out of the south we will let
northern capitalists have land for cheap
® Planter class was fighting for its economic existence
® Planter class could use its terrorism unchecked
® Planter class won