CSU-Pueblo professor proposes plan to end racism in new book

PUEBLO - Given the ongoing racial and ethnic upheaval occurring in parts of the country, a new book by a Colorado State University-Pueblo sociology professor is particularly timely.

In a new book, A Formula for Eradicating Racism, published by Palgrave Macmillan last month, CSU-Pueblo Professor Tim McGettigan and Wake Forest Professor Earl Smith detail a practical plan to end racism. The authors argue that racism is a remediable form of suggestion-induced sadism, meaning that racism is a type of "social architecture" that people can construct and dismantle by design.

McGettigan and Smith argue that, early in its history, the United States intentionally dehumanized people of color so that white invaders could plunder the western hemisphere without moral qualms. Technically speaking, it's not murder if those being slaughtered are defined as sub-humans.

The most glaring example of democratic dehumanization is the 3/5 Compromise which literally fractionates the value of African Americans. In addition, the U.S. "denaturalized" Indigenous Peoples, Hispanics, Asians, and every other person of color via the Naturalization Act of 1790 -- which established that only free whites could be U.S. citizens. Subsequently, this country has treated people of color like wartime enemies. The U.S. still enthusiastically celebrates continent-wide genocide of Native Americans under the sacred banner of Manifest Destiny.

McGettigan and Smith maintain that the nation can still dismantle America's architecture of racism. Eradicating American-style racism will require the country to cease hostilities against people of color in much the same fashion as the U.S. terminated hostilities against the Germans and Japanese at the conclusion of World War II. The nation could re-humanize people of color by erasing the 3/5 Compromise and rescinding every other law, policy, superstition, and practice that characterizes people of color as anything but 100 percent bona fide human beings.

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