Whenever discussing important historical and social events in American history, one must be prepared to address the devastating impact of white supremacy, a term defined as the belief that whites are superior to non-racist-white racial groups. As is evident, white supremacy served as a catapult for white Americans to place themselves at the forefront of all major sectors of society, and then maintain this power by limiting the rights of minorities so that these minorities were sufficiently hindered in their ability to achieve the gains that would put them on equal footing with whites. Countless historians, theorists, sociologists, and other academics have written extensively about the harm created by white supremacy, but too many textbooks still overlook white racism and teach erroneous beliefs that minorities are as much to blame for their low socioeconomic position as whites. This couldn't be further from the truth, but textbooks tend to limit the effects of white supremacy and blame minorities for their conditions, leading them to think that if only they worked harder, they wouldn't be where they are. Whites also adopt similar attitudes and begin to see minorities as lazy and not eager to improve themselves or their communities. Holding white people accountable for racism and historical injustice will help minority students understand the reasons behind their socioeconomic conditions and will help white students realize that, despite the injustice of white supremacy, this injustice need not continue indefinitely. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay​White racism is not a topic that many textbooks are willing to address, perhaps because it is a topic that most Americans, who happen to be white, are deeply uncomfortable with. “Textbooks have difficulty acknowledging that there might be something wrong with white Americans, or with the United States as a whole,” argues author James Loewen, continuing his analysis with the poignant comment that what Americans have learned since slavery has been “the idea that it is appropriate, even 'natural,' for whites to be above, blacks to be below.” Not many people who understand how racism and history intersect would argue that slavery, as the greatest representation of racism, led to racial injustice for African-Americans and other minority groups, but people who understand this intersection probably they don't learn it from textbooks. That's because textbooks don't "connect history and racism," leaving teachers to fill in the gaps; and when teachers hesitate and the connection is never made, students are left to make the connections on their own instead of analyzing the connections that are clear, obvious, and stated in all history textbooks. Rather than dealing with white racism, textbook authors believe their energies are better spent trying to avoid making white people uncomfortable, thus preventing all students from “analyzing racism intelligently” (Loewen 163) and bridge divides rather than let old ones fester. and possibly even create new ones. If textbooks don't make the change so that students can analyze racism intelligently, racism can never truly be addressed and old problems are bound to resurface. History weighs on the present and therefore historically contextualizing white racism isnecessary to understand what minority groups are like. he is affected by it today. In Kate Masur's essay, "Civil War and Reconstruction, 1860-1877," Masur writes of the carnage resulting from the Civil War and how, despite great efforts, Reconstruction failed to lift the black community from the servitude into which it had been placed . When President Johnson took office after Lincoln's assassination, he helped ratify the 13th Amendment, but he also allowed state governments to pass "black codes" which "were efforts by the Southern elite to restore control over a plantation labor force previously restrained by whips, chains, and slave patrols” (Globalyceum, Section 2). These black codes kept intact the rigid racial hierarchy that separated blacks and whites, so that blacks could only go as far as whites would let them—that is, not far. The repercussions of slavery, the Black Codes, and failed Reconstructionist efforts all worked against the advancement of Black people, and the repercussions of these historical events are still felt today. Loewen demonstrates this when he writes how “on average, African Americans have worse housing, lower IQ test scores, and higher percentages of youth in prison. The sneaking suspicion [is] that African Americans might be inferior.” This sneaky suspicion goes unchallenged in part because textbooks have failed to teach students how white racism keeps blacks in an inferior position. It's not just white students who harbor these sneaky suspicions, as black students have come to believe that their problems are their own fault, leading them to self-absorb and fulfill the cycle of low expectations. When African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and other groups sought equal rights, they were often alienated from white social movements like those that took shape during the Progressive Era. According to Professor Charles Postel of San Francisco State University, “white reformers too often rejected the equal rights claims of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and other groups, who faced new waves of segregation, deprivation, of civil rights, expropriation and exclusion” (Globalyceum, Introduction). Because whites controlled social institutions at the time – and still do to a large extent – ​​it was impossible for minority groups to overcome this segregation, disenfranchisement, dispossession, and exclusion, except in the rarest cases. Therefore, minority groups did not see the social progress that whites were advocating for at the time, leading to another generation of oppressed men and women. Postel makes the connection between white supremacy and the lower socioeconomic classes of many minorities, especially African Americans, when he writes how, in the late 20th century, “Democrats had launched a violent 'white supremacy campaign' demanding an end to black supremacy. by voting…most populists have bowed to Democratic legislation for poll taxes, literacy tests, and black disenfranchisement.” Without the political rights necessary for self-determination and deprived of the monetary benefits of unionizing and fighting for fair wages, black Americans and others inevitably found themselves confined to a lower socioeconomic position than whites. Textbooks do not make this connection, and students who see the realities of the society in which they live but do not understand how these realities came to be rarely do. The United States is characterized by socioeconomic inequality, but this inequality does not come from nowhere. Instead, it was the result of a clear policy and,.