The word "white", in a racial sense is a social construction. By studying history, the word "white" had never been applied so that it is use as a racial term. Shakespeare himself did not even the word "white" the way we do now. When Shakespeare applied "white" to a person, it never means anything racial. When people from Africa was enslave in the United States, "white" was still not used in the racial sense.
If "white" was not used racially in history, then how was it used? The way Shakespeare used or when calling a person "white" was not used in a racial sense but in the context of gender. In the 1700's, calling a woman "white" is saying that she is feminine."To call a man "white" was to impugn his masculinity." If you call a man "white", you would mean that that man is feminine or lady-like. Even thought Shakespeare called people "white", there was no white person. In the same respect, there were also no black people as well. Many of Shakespeare's works display "white" as a gender issue and not a racial issue.
Those that agree to the idea that tension between the color classes will always continue because it was always there, you are wrong.
When people from Africa was brought to the United States to be enslave, we had yet to even used "white" in the modern context. White people and black people still did not exist when the United States started to enslave people from Africa. A reason why people from Africa were enslaved is that the United States had the power to, so they did. It's as simple as that. In facts, I would also argue that it could have been any other group of people that could had been enslave. It just happens to be people from Africa. I would also add that if it was not the people from Africa that was enslave, but instead some light skin people, our modern system of being "white" or "black" would never exist. We may still refer to people as "white" in the gender sense.
Again, the word "white", in a racial sense is a social construction. "White" is just a word some idiot came up with. In my opinion, these sorts of word are just tool use to divide people and create conflict.
Reference:
Taylor, Gary. "How did the English become white?" .
Although I agree that dividing people up and characterizing them by the color of their skin is pointless, I think one could argue that the broad ethnic terms that are used in the United States are an improvement over many in the world. In Europe, people consider themselves Ukrainian or German or Serbian. But in America, all of these people are simply white. Same goes for Africans: in Africa, each person comes from a distinct tribe or nation. But in America, all of these people are simply black. The same applies to Asians in America as well. Ethnicity matters little in America- it's the much broader categorizations that we focus on: those of race.
Africans were enslaved because Europe's old source of slaves, the Slavs (it is not a coincidence that the two words are so closely related) was blocked off by the Ottoman Turks starting in the 1300s. Also, Africans were immune to Old World diseases like small pox, which decimated Native populations. So, blacks came to totally replace the original slave labor force of the Americas, the Native Americans.
Your last point is most interesting of all. What if Slavs were used as slaves in the US? Would "black" and "white" divisions still exist? Perhaps not- but wouldn't that be because no blacks would be living in the US?
About the last point, I agree that "black" and "white" division may not exist because as you stated that there may not be black living in the U.S. However, this is just speculation.
Thank you for your insights.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin