The Rise of White Supremacy and Race Relations in Our Nation

Steve Adubato is joined by John Johnson, Jr., PhD,  Assistant Professor of History at Saint Peter's University, to discuss white supremacy and race relations in our nation today.  

3/28/2020 #208

Excerpt:

"Hi I'm Steve Adubato this is Think Tank, we are honored to be once again joined by Dr. John Johnson who's Assistant Professor of History at St. Peter's University, good to see you doctor. Nice to meet you. We spent a fair amount of time thinking about writing about researching and a book coming up dealing with racism particularly in the city of Newark New Jersey but the larger question of dare I say white supremacy how bad is the problem in our nation and are we dealing with it directly enough? In recent years it has escalated significantly it's safe to say that I would say I’ll put it out there the current administration in a lot of ways has--the Trump administration? The Trump administration has fomented and really use a lot of these long-standing racialist ideas that have been around for a while but have really been the centerpiece of their administration. Mm...it didn't necessarily begin with Trump I mean these ideas have been around for a very long time--What are they? I mean if you if we can just step back real quick another thing just define what white Supremacy is I think that's a great place to start it is the ideas the beliefs but also the Policies and the procedures that are reflective of and reinforce ideas that suggests that non-white people are inferior to white people whether we're talking about Jim Crow segregation in the South whether we're talking about the institution of slavery whether we're talking about the border policies using camps or prisons to keep people who are seeking freedom fleeing for their lives and seeking freedom and safety in the United States--those people coming from certain kind of countries as Whole countries. Mm hm. Was that racist at the core? I think it's important to note that when we talk about those folks and where they're coming from these s whole countries let's look at say parts of Central America number of these people the estimates I believe are 85 to 90 percent of them are Catholic yet we don't think about them as Christians who are fleeing to seek freedom in the United States we call them or we refer to them in any number of ways except for their identity that as people in the United States we often hold Christianity in high regard right as a matter of fact we believe in religious freedoms we support Christian peoples in their efforts to seek freedom and to practice their religion yet still you have these people that are coming to the country who are dealing with trying circumstances folks from El Salvador, Mexico all these countries in Central America who are seeking freedoms and being denied because of their race. But because of the race respectfully help me understand this do..."