White fear of black people originated in reconciling democracy with slavery

Evidence

White people aren’t fearful of black people simply because they’re white. That fear has a history. It has shadowed American life ever since we reconciled our commitment to democratic principles with the institution of slavery. That reconciliation required, among other things, white people to believe that their lives mattered more than others—that the benefits and burdens of democracy did not extend to black people. They were slaves or, at best, interlopers in this grand experiment in democracy. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 227

Categorization

• DEFINE: Anchors the historical origin of the value gap — white lives mattering more — in the reconciliation of democratic principle with slavery.
• XREF: connects to: Orientalism operates like the creation of Blackness as projected white-American fear — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 217; Columbians framed desegregation as a communist threat to white existence — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 119