The Making, and Unmaking, of a Racist

CHARLES DEW is a professor of American History at prestigious Williams college, who grew up in the deep south, and has written several incisive histories of the American south, and its history of slavery and racism. His latest book, "The Making of a Racist", is different from the others. It is an autobiographical personal account of how his upbringing, including his family and community environment combined to influence him into spending the first twenty five years of his life as an inveterate, unrepentant, unapologetic racist. Until rather recently the United States of America was an authoritarian, totalitarian society with a racial caste system that was unassailable. So great was the anger and resentment of white southerners after the Civil War that they immediately set about installing this system, which persisted into the nineteen sixties, vestiges of which linger today. Isabel Wilkerson, award winning journalist, provides the rest of the story, the other side of the coin, in her book "The Warmth of Other Sons". Sometimes, one book leads to another, two books somehow seem to go together, to compliment each other. Mr. dew's book tells the story of growing up rich, white, and privileged in the pre World War Two segregated south, in which white racism was taken for granted, as an article of faith, and from the time they could walk and talk children were indoctrinated by their daily environment and interactions to be nothing but a complete racist, believing that whites are superior to blacks, and as such are duty bound to rule over them, for their own good, and the natural and best order for society was complete segregation of the races. Wilkerson's book tells the other side, what it is like to grow up in a world in which you and others like you are relegated to second class status, living in constant fear and dread of unjust treatment from the ruling class. In Charles Dew's world, to even question the validity of racism was heresy. The idea of racial equality was seen as evil, unthinkable. Isabel Wilkerson live in a world of forced submissiveness, fear, and stifled resentment. the contrast between these two views of life makes them perfect compliments, each completing the story begun by the other. When the 1954 supreme court decision ended legal segregation in the United states, Charles Dew's friends and family were outraged. But the landmark decision got the young scholar to thinking. By the time he had graduated from college, he was a reformed man, able to see the world with fresh eyes, dedicated to racial equality. He says his students find his description of his own childhood in racist America and his personal journey from indoctrinated racist to advocate of racial equality more interesting than any other part of his class. Professor Dew is always willing to accommodate their interest, because he realizes that his own personal journey from ignorance to acceptance parallels, in many ways, our national journey.------------CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS MUST BE PUBLICLY DISCUSSED. PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH OTHERS, TO FACILITATE THE CONVERSATION.THANKS!