At the turn of the last century, WEB DuBois wrote, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,--the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.”  Today, we can write, “The problem of the twenty-first century remains the problem of race—racism, race relations, and racial exploitation—in virtually every corner of the globe.”

 The history of the West – of Europe and the Americas – is a history of racial and ethnic exploitation.  It is history of murder, rape, mutilation, enslavement and human and environmental degradation.  The great accumulation of wealth in Europe and the Americas (especially in North America) was fueled by the unrestrained killing of indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the stealing of land and resources, and the subjugation of women.

 It is a great paradox that, today, ethnic minority groups are urged to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” when virtually the entirety of the world’s resources has been eaten by the capitalist expansion of the West.  Multi-national corporations, the product of 400 years of exploitation, have deeded the world to themselves.  In a vain attempt at self-congratulation, the winners of the war for land and resources have created an ideology of “meritocracy”; the idea that “merit” is properly rewarded.  But on closer inspection, we should recognize that the true definition of “merit” is best contained within the phrase, “might makes right.”

 For three hundred years, and continuing in the present, indigenous lands in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the South Pacific, were stolen at the point of the gun.  The people were hunted, killed and/or enslaved.  Their uncompensated labor –and their stolen land and the resources therein -- provided the vast accumulation of wealth that the West prides itself on.

 It takes a certain “economic amnesia” (to use a term of Manning Marable) to now assert that we live in a society characterized by a “level playing field,” or that the status and class inequalities that are so manifestly evident in the world are due to individual differences in native intellectual capacities.

 If we do not properly understand the nature of the problem, we can have no hope for solving it.

 A proper view of history is one that recognizes the terrible peril that Native Peoples (in Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific) have faced.  This historical view, then, provides an understanding of the current crisis confronting all societies that truly cherish human rights and humane relations among the peoples of the world.

 We live in a world that is marked by extreme racial segregation.  Fair Housing laws notwithstanding, the majority of African Americans live in homogeneous communities.  Efforts to desegregate predominantly White communities continue to be met with violence.  The majority of Latinos, similarly, live in communities that are homogeneous.  In certain cities (such as Los Angeles), Latinos and African Americans share common spaces in an uneasy alliance of have-nots.  Native Americans, today and into the foreseeable future, remain out-of-sight and out-of-mind on Indian “reservations.”

 This geographic segmentation, then, is translated into a whole host of institutionalized inequalities.  Once a people are spatially isolated, formal and public institutions may discriminate against them not by targeting them as people (of color), but by targeting their living spaces.  Thus, schools in the predominantly Black and Latino inner cities are typically over-crowded and underfunded.  Social services, including health services, are slow or non-existent.  Political power is gerrymandered in ways that serve the interests of those who are already at the helm of political and economic power.  Economic opportunities are moved to the suburbs or to foreign countries, leaving those in ghettos impoverished and with limited economic alternatives.

 One-third of African American men between the ages of 18 and 30 are under the jurisdiction of law enforcement -- they are either in jail or prison, on probation or on parole.  And in areas where they live (for example, the Southwest U.S., California or Florida), Latinos outnumber Blacks in jails and prisons.

 The wages of segregation and discrimination are death.  Many hundreds of thousands of African Americans and Latinos die every year in this country for one reason:  their ethnicity.  These deaths occur through homicidal violence (8,000 Black men are murdered every year in the U.S.), drugs, accidents, or preventable diseases.  Infant mortality, alone, claims an “excess” of nearly 10,000 children every year in the African American community.

 The economic exploitation of “people of color” continues unabated in the U.S. and in the global context.  From farm workers in Conejo Valley to factory workers in Taiwan or Tijuana, hundreds of millions of workers continue to be exploited in systems of “wage slavery.”  In Haiti, for example (and this example is repeated in hundreds of locales worldwide), a full day’s pay in an American multi-national corporation’s factory is about two dollars.

 Four hundred years ago, African men and women were brought, in chains, to the Caribbean islands to work on the plantations.  Today, the descendants of those enslaved men, women and children are still on those islands; they are still working the plantations.

 What are the solutions to these problems?

 First, we must rid ourselves of the “economic amnesia” that has forgotten the ways in which the West was won.

 Second, we must puncture the ideological myths of White supremacy.

 Finally, we must undo the multiplicity of practices – institutionalized segregation, the exploitation of workers, the unequal allocation of wealth and resources – that deny true equal opportunities to the majority of the world’s peoples.

 These changes--these solutions--are necessary if we are to be able to say, one day, “The problem of the color line has been solved.”

Halford H. Fairchild is a Professor of Psychology at Pitzer College.