Racism as a Construct

Through the close examination of historical events and the incorporation of ancillary voices and accounts throughout the text, Tisby illustrates how racism is a manmade construct. By asserting in his early chapters that there is "no biological basis for the superiority or inferiority of any human being based on the amount of melanin in her or his skin," Tisby establishes the foundation for his coming arguments (27). If racism was indeed designed by the social structures of white colonizing European men, then it must be possible to deconstruct the same toxic systems and sentiments. Tisby looks to history over the course of The Color of Compromise, beginning with Columbus' invasion of the Americas and ending in the Trump era, in order to compile his wealth of evidence.

Beginning at the start of European colonization, Tisby shows the ways in which the church and its followers, used...