Systematic Racism

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The authors argue that slavery was not solely a southern institution.This is a very true statement. The north was very much so a part of slavery. One of the major ways that the north was complicit in this system is the fact that when the cotton gin was invented, the north relied on the south to have slaves use it so that the now seedless cotton could be sent to the textile factories back up north. These factories were mostly in New York City and clothes were manufactured and shipped from here. New York became one of the most popular cities at the time because of this, because of the work of the slaves providing the material necessary. Economic motives had a huge part in this because the profits of Americas system was based on this at the time. The need for labor grew and slavery was cheap and reliable. Systematic racism played a role in this also…show more content…
People learn that the south was the only part of the United States that had slaves and were slaveholders, this may be true about the 90’s part of slavery, but no one is told about how horribly involved the north was! Even when I told my grandma what the book I was reading was about she stopped me and said “are you sure you aren’t talking about the south?” Even someone who lived closer to the time of slavery was not exposed to this. I also think it is like this because teachers and writers always need to find a way to simplify something for students. The main thing most people focus on is having a good side and bad side, and when we are taught that the north didn’t work their slaves as hard as the south because they didn’t work on plantations we tend to think that slavery was not an issue there or even a thing. Also we learn that some African Americans were free in the north and we tend to process this as all the slaves were free in the north. When in fact this was not the case at
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