Drawing the color line

For this chapter the thesis seems to be the question that Zinn asks in the first paragraph, “How did it [racism] start?” This seems to be the guiding question that dictates the rest of the chapter. Throughout the chapter Zinn tells of how the slaves were imported and how the white slave owners used rewards and different punishment for the white servants to differ the blacks from the whites. Zinn’s argument seems that racism is manufactured and that it was brought about to control the slaves and the indentured servants.
Zinn’s chapter is well organized and used the source material well. Throughout the peace Zinn explained how “the color line was drawn” and uses documents from the period to back up his claims. Zinn shows how that when Africans were imported to be slaves there was not such racism as there is today but because the wealthy white land owners feared an upraise from all of the workers (black slaves and as well as white servant) that they manufactured differences in what privileges the whites got and the types of punishments the blacks received.
I believe that Zinn’s argument is very interesting and well put together. Before reading this chapter I never really thought about how the world became raciest. Before reading this selection I just had a belief that the original blacks were discriminated against because they looked different, but after reading this it seems more that they were treated poorly so that they would work for the land owners with little resistance.