The Delusional Policies of Racial Supremacy
by Dr. Frank Garcia Berumen
We are witnessing an authoritarian and economic chaos being brought about by Trump, Musk, and their MAGA minions.
We are witnessing an authoritarian and economic chaos being brought about by Trump, Musk, and their MAGA minions, upon the most vulnerable and marginalized communities of the nation. One of the key targets are ethnic minorities, manifested by the gutting of the safety nets of the elderly and poor Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare; the firing of thousands of federal government workers from federal social agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), USAID and others; and forced removals of non-white immigrants and permanent residents. A central objective is the eradication of ethnic, gender, and gender preference diversity in the federal government, corporations, and academia. It is essentially, a delusional policy of racial supremacy.
However, policies of marginalization have taken place numerous times before in the nation’s history.
The first victims of European and Euro-American supremacy policies were American Indians. The Doctrine of Discovery, a papal bull passed in the 1400s called for the subjugation and appropriation of all lands and peoples who were not Christian, namely, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. [1]
At the time of the European invasion in 1492, It is estimated that some 100 million indigenous people lived in the Americas, and some 80 million of those were located in Mexico. [2] Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch conquistadores carried out the largest genocide (i.e. massacres, diseases, slavery, hangings, rapes, the destruction of foodstuffs, etc.) in history during the period of the 1400s to 1800s. [3] Every single indigenous tribe were victims of forced removals. In the process, Europeans robbed indigenous people of the entire American continent, the only people to ever suffered such an extreme policy. Native survivors of this onslaught were forced into concentration camps, euphemistically named reservations. Native children were removed from their parents and sent to Indian Schools, where the motto was “kill the savage and save the child.” Thousands of these children died of European diseases. The latter justified their crimes based on their conviction that native people were inferior, barbarous, and savage. [4]
in the aftermath of the Mexican American War (1846-48), Mexicans in the United States thereafter, became marginalized manual workers in agriculture, railroads, mining, and service labor.
During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish began the forced removal of thousands of Mexican native people to Arizona and New Mexico, as part of their brutal colonization efforts. [5] The independence of the newly established United States in 1776, saw the birth of the malignant tumor of Manifest Destiny, which declared that they were destined by God to appropriate all lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. [6] Subsequently, in the aftermath of the Mexican American War (1846-48), the United States appropriated more than half of the national territory of its southern neighbor. [7] Mexicans in the United States thereafter, became marginalized manual workers in agriculture, railroads, mining, and service labor.
In the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression, more than one million and a half Mexicans (most of them U.S. citizens) were rounded up and repatriated to Mexico between 1929 and 1939. A common justification was that Mexicans were “stealing the jobs of {Euro} Americans.” [8] However, the shifting fortunes of war and peace, compelled the United States to recruit five million Mexican braceros (manual workers), to work in 24 states between 1942 to 1964, with the advent of World War II. [9]
Hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcefully brought to the United States in the 1600s, and to other parts of the Americas as slaves. Some argued that slave slavery was necessary to replace the millions of indigenous peoples who were decimated by genocide and European diseases. Other proponents simply saw the institution of slavery as a means to develop white-owned plantations of cotton, sugar, and tobacco. The institution of slavery in the United States was abolished in 1865 with the 13th Amendment; citizenship was granted to African-Americans with the 14th Amendment (1868); and the right to elected office was provided by the 15th Amendment (1870).
Nevertheless, for almost another century, African Americans were shacked by Jim Crow and segregation laws that consigned them to poverty, racism, limited educational opportunities, and the inability to exercise their right to vote.
Some 120,000 Japanese (many of them U.S. citizens) were rounded up beginning on February 19, 1942 and put in camps until 1945.
In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, some 120,000 Japanese (many of them U.S. citizens) were rounded up beginning on February 19, 1942 by President Franklin Roosevelt and put in camps until 1945, far from the Pacific Coast. Most of them lost their homes, businesses, and well-being. [10]
In 1954, another forced removal of Mexican called Operation Wetback rounded up thousands of Mexicans for deportations, many of them U.S. citizens. The operation used military-style tactics. The U.S. government estimated some 1.3 million Mexicans were removed. [11]
These force removals and mass deportations have been fueled by deep-rooted desire by some, to perpetuate and maintain a white supremacy, despite the shifting and irreversible demographics. The 2020 U.S. Census indicated that whites numbered 191 million (a decline of 3% between 2010 and 2020). Their common age was 58 years of age. By contrast, the common age of Hispanic was 11 years of age, 29 for Asians, and 27 for African Americans.
The 2020 U.S. Census noted that the Hispanic population was 67 million, increased by both native birth and immigration. The Asian population numbered 20 million, much of it due to immigration. The African American population was 48 million, some 5% which identified as Hispanic and/or biracial. The Native American population numbered 5 million, some 78% which lived outside reservations. There are currently some 574 federally recognized Native American tribes. [12] In 2022, some 634,503 indigenous people living in the United States identified with native tribes located in Central America; 875,183 identified with the indigenous tribes of Mexico; and 47,518 identified with the Canadian First Nations. [13]
The recent U.S. Supreme Court case Students for Fair Admission, Inc. v. Harvard, in 2023, by a 6-2 majority argued that affirmative action in college admissions was unconstitutional. The majority opinion stated that it violated the 14th Amendment’s “Equal Protection Clause.”
Affirmative action was created to “to level the playing field” for minorities and women.
In a dissenting opinion by Justice Sotomayor (joined by Kagan and Jackson) wrote, “Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal. What is true in the 1860s, and in 1954, is true today: Equality requires an acknowledgment of inequality.” She further indicated that the majority opinion’s “interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is not only contrary to precedent and to the entire teachings of our history…but also grounded in the illusion of that racial inequality was a problem of a different generation.” [14]
Affirmative action was created to “to level the playing field” for minorities and women, in employment in private enterprise and government, and in college admissions, in order to make up for centuries of discrimination and exclusion.
However, the current Trump administration is committed to an aggressive policy of eradicating all diversity initiatives in private and government employment, and academia. These wrong-headed policies are contrary to the irreversible demographic changes taking place across the nation.
The fact is, that the aging white population is dependent and will be increasingly dependent, on the monetary contributions that people of color are making into Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The doctors and nurses, [15] social workers and other health personnel, who will care for this aging white population are increasingly people of color. For example, in 2022 some 31.5% of RNs identified as Hispanic, Asian, and African American. [16] The present policies that are excluding diversity, both ethnic, gender, and gender preference are both counter-productive and delusional. They contradict the irreversible demographics that are changing the make-up of this nation.
Ethnic and gender diversity enriches all societies around the world. It provides different perspectives and social capital; ways of learning and creating; fields of study and backgrounds; and contributes to world peace and respect, for the common humanity of all peoples.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Copyrighted by Frank Garcia Berumen. All rights reserved. Posted on Latinopia with permission. All photos i the public domain or copyrighted by Barrio Dog Productions, Inc.
The author’s books include: American Indian Image Makers of Hollywood (2020). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc.; Latino Image Makers of Hollywood (2014). Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., Inc.; and Edward R. Roybal: The Mexican American Struggle for Political Empowerment (2015). Bilingual Educational Services.
[1] McLaren, John; Buck, A.R.; Wright, Nancy E. (eds.). (2005). Despotic Dominion, property rights in British Settler
Societies. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, p. 55.
[2] Josephy, Jr., Alvin (1994). 500 Nations. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 64.
[3] Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, p.
[4] Deloria, Jr., Vine (1988). Custer Died for Your Sins. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, p. 6.
[5] See: Stannard, David (1992). American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
[6] Acuna, Rodolfo (1998). Occupied America: A History of Chicanos. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, p. 13.
[7] Merk, Frederick (1963). Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, pp. 144-147.
[8] See: Balderrama, Francisco; Rodríguez, Raymond (2006). Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s.
University of New Mexico Press.
[9] See: Calavita, Kitty (1992). Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. New York, NY: Quid
Pro, LLC, p. 1.
[10] See: Kashima, Tetsuden (2003). Judgment Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II.
Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
[11] Blakemore, Erin (March 23, 2018)). “The Largest Mass Deportation in American History.” History. Retrieved on
March 28, 2025.
[12] 2020 U.S. Census.
[13] Grid View: Table B02017 – Census Reporter. Censusreporter.org. Retrieved March 28, 2025.
[14] “Supreme Court bans colleges from considering races in admissions.” The Independent. June 29, 2023.
[15]. Munday, Rebecca (November 27, 2023). Nurse Journal.