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FREEDOMWAYS FOURTH QUARTER 1966

repeal of the Southern Homestead Act. For example, one Philadelphia syndicate bought up 4 million acres of Florida land at 25¢ an acre. These economic royalists designed their own "white settler" policy to consolidate the new era of exploitation. Many of the immigrants, newly arriving from Europe, were given free railroad transportation as encouragement to settle in the Mississippi Delta and other areas of the South, especially where there was a sizeable black majority population. Of course, these immigrants too were later betrayed by the same corporate interests as the Populist Movement reveals. Nevertheless the position of the poor white in the colonial relationship which made the black population the colonized, took basically the same form that it has in other parts of the world. As a most revealing description is given by Albert Memmi who draws upon the experience of French colonialism in the Tunisia and Algeria.*

"...If the small colonizer defends the colonial system so vigorously, it is because he benefits from it to some extent. His gullibility lies in the fact that to protect his very limited interests, he protects other infinitely more important ones, of which he is, incidentally, the victim. But though dupe and victim, he also gets his share. 

"...If the privileges of the masters of colonization are striking, the lesser privileges of the small colonizer, even the smallest, are very numerous. Every act of his daily life places him in a relationship with the colonized, and with each act his fundamental advantage is demonstrated. If he is in trouble with the law, the police and even justice will be more lenient toward him. If he needs assistance from the government, it will not be difficult; red tape will be cut; a window will be reserved for him where there is a shorter line so he will have a shorter wait. Does he need a job? Must he take an examination for it? Jobs and positions will be reserved for him in advance; the tests will be given in his language, causing disqualifying difficulties for the colonized.**

"...Lastly, should he ask for or have need of anything, he need only show his face to be prejudged favorably by those in the colony who count. He enjoys the preference and respect of the colonized themselves, who grant him more than those who are the best of their own people; who, for example, have more faith in his word than in that part of their own population. From the time of his birth, he possesses 

*The Colonizer and the Colonized, pages 11 and 12.
**This reference to language is comparable to the middle-class oriented Educational Tests given ghetto youth in our country, with the same results. (J.H.O.)

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