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ronbronson.com · @ronbronson.com@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation 8/10

Bind Us Apart has a lot of primary source information and quotes about the confusion many founding fathers of this country had with race, slavery and how to end it. I found it fascinating to learn how conflicted the landscape was politically in those days and how slow information moved relative to today. In many ways, little has changed despite our access to a bounty of data.

Fascinating to think of all of the alternate history scenarios that would have happened in the U.S., if different proposals would've gained more traction. Everything from a black settlement in the US West to a different one that considered annexing parts of South Carolina and Florida for a black colony. And of course, the money spent to annex Liberia, which enjoyed support from more than one sector of the population.

I think the premise that enlightened Americans invented racial segregation through their insistence on separating both First Nations Americans and Black Americans almost from the start. Attempts at assimilation weren't invested in any kind of belief of agency (at least it related to blacks) but were really married to notions of inferiority. Had the culture focused more on integration and collaboration, we'd be in a different place today.

Worth a read, it'll leave you wanting to read more about other aspects of history and figuring out who said what, why & better insight into how we ended up here.

#book

Published 2026-02-11 06:27 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere