Journal 4: The "Giddy Multitude"

I think that the authors thesis here is that although there were white slaves, African American slaves were being forced into a lifetime of servitude and were even degrated to the status of property. Takaki summarizes pretty much what the English thought of blacks on the bottom of page 51 and continued to 52. This essentially is the problem, that African Americans were thought of as "deeply stained with dirt" and brought "negative images" to the English mind. Somehow though the color white came to signify "purity, innocence and goodness". How can "innocence" be a word to describe someone who owns other people and makes them do their work for them, while they feed them little food and making them feel that they are animals and don't belong in regular society? The "Giddy Multitude", which is described on page 63, is defined as "a discontented class of indentured servents, slaves and landless freemen, both white and black." To me the "Giddy Multitude" is a good example of unity, both white and blacks together, continuing on page 63 it is said that many times a group of servents would ban together in hopes of being heard and recieving rights as other nonservents did. Maybe if the whites who owned slaves or servents never were given that power and were forced into servitude themselves, would understand and be more willing to live amungst people of different backgrounds peacefully and more accepting to difference and less hungry for power. Even after so many years I think that today we have a type of "Giddy Multitude", think of the illegal immigrants that come to this country every day, yes they are illegal and should be sent back until they can legally naturalize, but company owners still take advantage of the fact they are unknowing. For example, think of the last time (maybe summer) when you saw a mexican doing labor work that really no one would want to do otherwise, like mowing someones lawn or picking the weeds from other peoples gardens when it is about 95 degress outside and cloudless. I know that you have seen someone like that and wondered what they are working for (wage wise), it is completely apparent they are being taken advantage of for not understanding the concept better. Today I think that we view people from other countries, who come to this one to make a better life for their family as Jefferson viewed different races (page 71), "He publically stated his 'opinion' that blacks were 'inferior' in the faculty of reason. I found three more things to be interesting points in the article, one, that The Naturalization Act excluded citizenship from the Indians, who really founded this country before we knew the world was round (page 80). Second being that by increasing the black population would ultimately mean creating a biracial society but for white servents decrease their need for servitude and eventually eliminate it (page 65). And lastly that religion served to identify racial groups where the whites were christians and the blacks heathens? (page 59). First off I am catholic not christian and my grandparents have only lived in this country for maybe 60 years, so am I a heathen? Naturally they have darker skin and dark eyes with dark hair, I do wonder what it was like for them to come to this country wanting better for themselves but most likely experiencing discrimination. Yet, we wonder why groups such as the mob were formed. Also, I have never heard of the religion heathen?, but I am pretty sure that just proves the ignorance of the English.