Howard Zinn in Chapter 2 of the Drawing the Color Line posits that racism in America was mainly fueled by the human decision as well as historical forces. Historical forces involved the formulation of an ideology premised on the conventional and traditional way of thought while human decision involves undertaking actions beneficial to an individual rather than to all the humanity. Zinn samples lots of epitomes of slavery that was predominantly in the United States during the early 17th century. The United States actively participated in slave trade while racism was widespread across states. According to Zinn, racism in America was as a result of political, economic and social systems established by the elite’ colonizers ( ). Zinn gives a narration of the horrible truths of slavery, racism as well as origins of the ancient America. It details on the slave trade, how it occurred as well as the numerous conflicts that resulted from the slave trade. A starving nation as well as low labor to work on the fields in the 17th century created room for slavery. However, the fact that they had no guns gave the whites an upper hand, and they made the blacks fight against themselves. To grow food, corn, and tobacco, the Virginians enslaved the blacks as African slavery was an ongoing and booming business.
According to Zinn, American slavery was among one of the worst forms of slavery of the century. About 50 million Africans perished out of death and cruel slavery. However, where the whites and blacks interlocked with unified problems, standard work, a common enemy in their master, they would tend to work as equals. The fear that the discontented whites would team up with black slaves and overhaul the existing order was indeed a nightmare to the colonizers. The sense of white superiority was engraved in the society. The blacks were brain washed, stripped off their culture, land, dress, customs as well as family relations. It thus became essential to establish a system of equality where the black would be considered equal to the whites.