An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

CHAPTER TWO
ANTIBLACKNESS, SETTLER
COLONIALISM, AND THE US
DEMOCRATIC PROJECT
I REMEMBER READING Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America,
published in 1835, and the Federalist Papers, published in 1787, in the
introductory course at James Madison College. JMC is a residential college
at Michigan State University for students of liberal arts and public policy.
Students and faculty consider it an elite institution on campus, where the
nerdiest of nerds choose to subjugate themselves to (initially) low grades on
the first quiz and paper, as well as the possibility of having a lower GPA.
The Madison students were, at least when I went there, the “Madison All
Stars,” so named because of all of the activities they participated in, and
how actively they worked in politics. I (still) love and hate the college.
Every first-year student is required to take the dreaded two-course
sequence, MC 201 and 202 (Introduction to Public Affairs I and II). When I
saw the syllabus, I wasn’t nervous—I was terrified. It included Democracy
in America and the Federalist Papers. I had vaguely read Federalist No. 10
in my AP US History course, but I didn’t understand it. And now, being on
the big stage of a university made me anxious, but I was determined to do
well. To my surprise, the majority of the other students had read it. I was
shocked. I was the only person of color in the class. Reflecting on where
these students had come from, I should not have been surprised.
We first read the Federalist Papers, and I got off to a rocky start—
earning the fantastic grade of 1.8 (out of 4.0) on the first quiz. Older
students had told me that a low grade was normal, so I wasn’t trippin’.
Then, after reading the Federalists, we began reading Democracy in