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Notes -
My initial comment did not describe my full thoughts correctly. Yes, you are absolutely correct - racialism was historically a significant part of America's worldview, and it was accepted by the great majority of the public. My argument is that racialism existed in tension with egalitarianism/universalism, but egalitarianism was bound to prevail because it was in more in line with our nation's optimistic mindset. For example, regarding the Negro Question:
Public opinion (in the North) in the early 1800s: blacks and whites can not coexist as equal citizens; slavery is distasteful but not out of the ordinary.
in the mid 1800s: people still believe that equality is not possible, but slavery is now seen as unethical rather than natural, and it should be contained.
mid 1800s to 1930s: a shift from opposition to any kind of equality, to support for legal, but not social equality (i.e. fair trials in courtrooms, but no integration of schools).
1940s to 1960s: a shift towards supporting legal and social equality.
So yes, racialism has been accepted by the public for much of America's history. But a clear trajectory can be seen, in which racialism recedes and society becomes more egalitarian.
A similar tension existed for immigration, and feminism, and more recently, LGBT acceptance. Yet in all of these cases, the racialists/the right lost, despite many of their arguments being factually correct, and obviously true, because the idealistic side of the American character won out.
True, but that does not disprove my point. Both elite opinion and public opinion have shifted leftwards over time; the elites have been a decade or three ahead of the public in this regard, and have used force to expedite liberalization. For both elites and the public, the cause of the leftward shift has been the same: the idealistic, optimistic mindset of the American people.
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