From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media.

Bob Garfield is away this week. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

News consumers, constantly pelted with red alerts and shiny objects minted mostly in Washington,

still may be puzzled by how we arrived at this place.

That's because no tweet or talking head,

pundit, or policy report can clarify the present. That requires a time-consuming examination

of the past. Consider recent research suggesting that many white citizens fear losing status more than losing health insurance

or even economic security. It's likely that fear was inflamed by Obama's presidency,

Trump's campaign, changing demographics, Fox News, all that and more. But it's not new.

As James Baldwin noted in a famous 1965 Cambridge debate, that fixation was spawned in Europe and brought to these shores before

our nation was even born. It was the belief that Europe had the right to subjugate and

destroy inferior civilizations.

He called it white supremacy.

When I was growing up, I was taught in American history books

that Africa had no history, and neither did I,

that I was a savage about whom the less said the better,

who had been saved by Europe and brought to America.

And, of course, I believed it.

I didn't have much choice.

Those are the only books there were.

And he warned of the grave risk we all face in failing to confront that history. It is a terrible thing for an entire people to surrender to the notion that one ninth of

its population is beneath them.

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