Textbook: Mba Mbulu's Introduction to White History: The History of White America. Click here for purchase information.

Click Here and read the extract from Mba Mbulu's Introduction to White History: The History of White Americafor this class. Also read pages 94 through 97 of the textbook, Mba Mbulu's An Introduction to White History. Think about what you read and be able to respond to the following questions.

(1) What is a peer? What is a peon? What is the relevance of the belief in peers and peons to the development of the United States?
(2) What does the term "legitimacy" imply to the peons who believe in an elitist system?
(3) "Europeans can be taken out of Europe, but Europe can't be taken out of Europeans." What does that statement mean?
(4) What is "the law"?
(5) How did disconnecting or failing to disconnect impact on the development of the United States of America?

European society has never been a society of equals. The royal families and merchants who were interested in the settling of the new land had convinced themselves that they were better than most other human beings, and they acted accordingly. Most of the laborers who were to actually travel to the new land, settle there and help establish the colonies had been convinced that some persons were better than they were, and they acted accordingly. Thus, a tradition and mindset of peers (upper class humans) and peons (lower class humans) arrived in the new land with the settlers and the merchants' wares. As soon as the settlers proved themselves incapable of breaking with that tradition and mindset, the new land was doomed to become a social replica of the old world (Europe).

It is important to recognize that this tradition of peers and peons was believed in by both those who benefitted from it ("peers") and those who were victimized by it ("peons"). This is indicative of the paradoxes and seeming contradictions that have historically rendered Europe's white masses incapable of effectively rebelling against the white elites who abuse them. Even as they knew they were being abused, Europe's white masses believed in the legitimacy of the system that abused them, and looked up to most of the individuals who were the architects of their abuse. Even as they knew "the law" was corrupt and unjust, Europe's masses believed in the legitimacy of "the law" and the authority of those individuals who enacted or proclaimed unjust laws. And even as they knew they were being robbed of the fruit of their labor, Europe's masses believed in the legitimacy of the economic/political system that facilitated their robbery, and admired those individuals who accumulated wealth as a result of their robbery. In order to make the new land a different world, the settlers of the colonies would have to effectively disconnect from Europe's tradition of peers and peons. Since the mindset and self-defeating quality that hindered Europe's masses was passed on to the white Europeans who crossed the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the new world, the settlers would prove themselves incapable of disconnecting to the necessary degree.

The settling of the new land proved that Europeans can be taken out of Europe, but Europe can't be taken out of Europeans. The disconnections the colonial settlers needed to make in order to disable the allegiances they held for Europe's traditions were of a too fundamental nature. Europe's traditions were so dear to the settlers of the new land that they were incapable of objectively characterizing or assessing many of them, much less disavowing their legitimacy. America was a new land to Europeans, but the differences between the European colonies and Europe were to be kept to the most functional minimum.