> First there was no such thing as race, then suddenly everyone was using race for everything, and now only white people can't use racial terms. WTF? I don’t f

> First there was no such thing as race, then suddenly everyone was using race for everything, and now only white people can't use racial terms. WTF? I don’t follow your first assertion. Pretty sure that an “Act concerning Servants and Slaves” aka the original Virginia slave codes first introduced “race” by way of limiting length and terms of indentured servitude for “white Christian” indentured servants. Under these terms, the acts then categorized “servants important and brought… who were not Christians in their native land” as slaves unless they converted to Christianity. If that’s not explicit enough, the acts pretty distinctly name conditions for “negroes”, “Jews”, “Moors”, “mulattoes”, “Mahometans” and “Christian whites”. Technically you are right that there was no such thing as race in American politics. But it was literally created by elites to divide working class former indentured servants, natives and Black freedman, ostensibly in response to Bacon’s rebellion where these groups found their common enemy in elites. So really it’s not that weird that things are as they are today in our political system.