Whitlock: The American Racism Rush and the San Francisco 49ers are trampling traditional values and the new indigenous people

If an accurate history is ever written, we will remember this time of racial upheaval as an aftershock of the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Let me explain.

Gold is not scarce. Its high value is derived from the difficulty of finding it and the costly process to refine the metal. Racial bias is not scarce. We all produce it. Progress and enlightenment have helped us combat and conceal our biases, making racism far more difficult to find, and it's even harder to find or produce the systemic racism that once plagued our laws and American customs.

Racism is now a form of gold, a high-value precious element desperately hunted by race miners, sometimes called "race-baiters." The discovery of racism greatly enriches the miner.

Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors turned Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and other dead black men into a pot of gold that allowed her to purchase four luxury homes across America. Shaun King, the internet social justice activist known as Martin Luther Cream, tricked Oprah Winfrey into paying for him to attend a historically black university and has spent the past decade raising millions of dollars as a racism speculator.

Lawyer Ben Crump is arguably America's richest race miner. He negotiated multimillion-dollar settlements for the families of Saint George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many other families whose relatives have been killed while resisting arrest. Yesterday, Crump celebrated the fact that Minnesota real estate listings won't be using the phrase "master bedroom" because it painfully reminds black people of slavery. I'm not joking. Crump tweeted:

"Words MATTER! Good to see Minnesota phasing out the use of "master bedroom" in real estate listings. Many associate it with slavery, a repetitive reminder of plantation life. Together, we can create more inclusive, aware communities!"

The allure of mining for racism is that it requires no intelligence or integrity. An idiot can do it and make a fortune. Crump is exhibit A.

But it's not just individuals who pan for racism. Major corporations prospect for it, too. On Sunday, the Colorado Rockies released a statement accusing one of their fans of shouting "n*****" at a Florida Marlins player standing in the batter's box.

The Colorado Rockies are disgusted at the racial slur by a fan directed at the Marlins' Lewis Brinson during the ninth inning of today's game. Although the subject was not identified prior to the end of the game, the Rockies are still investigating this incident. The Rockies have zero tolerance for any form of racism or discrimination, and any fan using derogatory language of any kind will be ejected and banned from Coors Field.

Turns out the fan was shouting for the attention of Colorado's mascot, whose name is "Dinger." There's video and audio proof of the accused fan waving and shouting at Dinger. Brinson never heard or reacted to the alleged racial slur. The Rockies issued a new statement on Monday admitting the fan did nothing wrong. As of Monday evening, the Rockies had not issued an apology.

We are living in the American Racism Rush, in which citizens-turned-prospectors are getting rich mining for racism. It is analogous to and connected with the California Gold Rush.

In January 1848, a sawmill operator, James Marshall, discovered gold 35 miles east of Sacramento. Marshall's discovery ignited a gold rush and a transformational migration to the Golden State. In 1849, approximately 90,000 men descended on Northern California in search of riches. The migration turned California from an ignored, sleepy territory to a boom state almost overnight. Two years after Marshall's discovery, California was admitted into the Union.

The 49ers, the nickname for the men who rushed to California, were lawless, greedy, and uncivilized. They overwhelmed Native Americans, running the indigenous people out of their hunting and fishing grounds. The Indians starved. Or they were massacred by the guns used by the 49ers.

The influx of men seeking gold created another California complication — a shortage of women. Boatloads of men docked in the Bay Area and settled in San Francisco. With few women in town, cross-dressing and gay sex became quite popular in San Francisco. Thus began the rule of greed and sexual deviancy in Northern California, 170 years ago.

The people who acquired the most wealth and power during the gold rush weren't the miners. The men who built businesses to exploit the miners amassed generational wealth. A man named Sam Brannan became California's first millionaire. At an exorbitant markup, he sold prospectors the equipment they needed to mine gold. Levi Strauss moved to San Francisco to sell dry goods to miners and later sold them work pants and overalls. George Hearst, the father of publishing kingpin William Randolph Hearst, got rich during the gold rush.

Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are the modern-day Sam Brannan and Levi Strauss. The Silicon Valley tech titans own the platforms that promote, traffic, and sell racism gold. They've become powerful billionaires because of the American Racism Rush.

Their platforms celebrate, advocate for, and spread the values established in Northern California in 1849.

We, those of us who believe in God, traditional values, and this country's founding documents, are the indigenous people being starved, pushed aside, and massacred.