The Wages Of Whiteness By David Roediger

As horrifying as it is to think about, comparisons can be made between the situations of current workers in third-world countries and the plight of the African slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In many of the current poverty-stricken places seen around the globe, sweatshops are developed in order to employ laborers. Sweatshops are described as places of abysmal working conditions with low pay and tedious hours. In the article, "Black People in a White People's Country," Gary Nash notes that the African slave trade was originally developed to "fill labor shortages in the economies of its European initiators and their commercial partners." This description is similar to the motive behind the employment of third-world sweatshop workers. Both systems, ancient and modern, include the need for more laborers and disregard the vital needs of their employees/slaves as long as the work is getting done. Workers are harmfully exploited in both

The book has as its principal thesis the consideration of race as “a folk classification, a product of popular beliefs about human differences that evolved from 16th to 19th centuries” (Smedley, 2007, pag.24). The book also specifies three characteristics that distinguish the racial ideology in America: the absence of a category for biracial people, the homogenization of the black or African American Americans, and the impossibility to change a person’s race. (Smedley, 2007, pag.7)

“Race”, groups of people sharing similar somatic characteristics. Race is often mistaken as a biological concept, when it’s actually an ideology that was brought to categorize different groups in history. In Order to understand race, we have to understand what is an ideology. Ideology is a shared belief conserved in an observance delineation. Field argues that race was born during the birth of the new nation, America. Field begins her essay discussing how many parts of America was yet to be discovered. In the 17th century, tobacco was discovered in Virginia, and became its main source of wealth. Instead of using Afro Americans, Indentured Servitude was the main form of labor. Servants were treated mostly the same way as African Americans.

In the world of sociology, the theory of racialization is a widely known and occasionally frustrating topic. However, two sociologists have successfully been able to define and break down the essential information behind this theory. Within their own writing, Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1986) define racial formation as,” the process by which social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories” (Omi and Winant 16). In essence, this theory frames the very meaning of “race” itself. The stereotypes of race are rooted deep within the contexts of history, allowing these concepts to be subject to gradual change over time. In addition to the original standards of racial formations, there have been other writings that parallel very closely to the ideas set forth by Omi and Winant. Richard Wright, Pem D. Buck, and Karen Brodkin are three notable authors that have excellently highlighted the concepts set forth by Omi and Winant.

In the book Color of Water a Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother James McBride, the author, (who is also the author) had a significant shift in opinions and personality. When James was young, he was absolutely mortified when a black man mugged his mother. But as he grew older, he found himself becoming just like that black man. James was always terrified of his white mother living amongst so many blacks when he was a child. If Ruth, (James mother,) came home late from work he would stay up late waiting for her to make sure she got home safe and wasn’t bothered by anybody (McBride 33). As Ruth and James were walking home from a bus stop, a black man ran up from behind them and knocked all their belongings to the ground and wrestled Ruth for her

“The History of White People”, is a book written by Nell Irvin Painter. My first impression was very wrong. From the title, I expected a documentary type video about white culture; honestly, I expected the video to concentrate mostly on the historical time period when slavery existed. However, the video is Nell Irvin Painter reading from the beginning, and ends of her book. Rather than the video being about a certain historical time period, it is a literal adaptation of the title. The book is about how the “white race” came about; it discusses how certain ethnicities, and races came to be considered white, or Caucasian. I believe the book probably contains a lot more history, however she skipped over most of that and touched on the main points.

Racism is dislike a person, or it is a fast judgment for the way that person 's looks, and without known anything about the person, indeed, the main reason behind racism is the lack of education. Racism is a true problem, existed hundred years ago in America, in fact, Americans showed hatred against other people especially immigrants. Some citizens of the United States of America believe the racism’s issue is resolved and it is over, also they think we all live in an equal rights era, while others believe the opposite, they believe the racism is still exists but in different forms and ways. In the book “The Heart of Whiteness”, published in 2005, by Robert Jensen, who was raised in a privileged community, he expressed himself as a white person, and the feeling of living in white supremacy. In all honesty, Jensen’s book is the most honest book I had ever read, it brought up the race problem genuinely, and the difference in treatment between the white people and the African-American people, also Jensen included some of his personal stories and experience. In the book “ The Heart of Whiteness”, Jensen aimed at white people, also he cited many points on how it is like to live in white supremacy, and the feeling of mixed emotions about the past, then what is the action white people should make. Me personally thinks the main three points that i experienced with my white friends are: White privilege. Second point is the guilt feeling towards the racism, and finally, the feeling of

In The White Scourge, Neil Foley gives detailed facts about the construction and reconstruction of whiteness and the connection of this whiteness to power, mainly on cotton culture in central Texas. Foley 's book analyzes “whiteness” through detailed analysis of race, class, and gender. What was most intriguing about this book is its comparison of whiteness on various racial groups and classes, for and how each struggled in comparison to the other in order to thrive and exist with one another. In this book, Foley shows a racial system that continues to produce both poverty material wise and poverty of where you stand racially. It is also very interesting that the system exploits not only Mexicans and Blacks, but also the poor whites who competed with them for work.

John Foster 's book, White Race Discourse, scrutinizes and deconstructs the manner in which many American Caucasians go about discussing, or rather, avoid discussing race relations in the United States. Through the means of face-to-face interviews, Foster gets insight into the minds of a sample of college students in a way that cannot be accomplished through a written survey. Recording inflections, pauses, and by guiding the interview, Foster catches many contradictions and discovers patterns seen through every interviewee. Analyzing the interviews, Foster develops a cohesive image of the White Race Discourse, and how it is affecting the country.

The other two readings were very similar because they expressed even after the 14th amendment and the Jim Crow Laws Blacks were under surveillance by the police. Starting with “Who Looks Suspicious? Racialized Surveillance in a Predominantly White Neighborhood” by Maria R. Lowe. Overtime Whites have gained this belief that Blacks are threatening and violent criminals. With that being said this drew more attention toward Blacks because even after slavery police were looking for any small reason to throw them back in jail. Their fear comes from generations of stereotypes of Black people allowed Whites to be able to carry guns to secure their safety. This ties back to watch system organized by Whites allowed predominantly white neighborhoods to

David R. Roediger displays the history of how the theory of “whiteness” has evolved throughout the years in America in his book, The Wages of Whiteness. According to Roediger, “whiteness” is much a constructed identity as “blackness” or any other. He argues that this idea of “whiteness” has absolutely nothing to do with the advantage of the economy, but that it is a psychological racial stereotype that was created by white men themselves. He claims that it is definitely true that racism should be set in class and economic contexts, also stating that “this book will argue that working class formation and the systematic development of a sense of whiteness, went hand in hand for the U.S white working class.” Roediger basically lays out the fact that “working class ‘whiteness’ and “white supremacy” are ideological and psychological creations of the white working class itself.

Most people today might assume that our society’s concept of race—as a system of white supremacy—formed as an inevitable conclusion of the idea of white superiority. However, while the two concepts are indeed intrinsically linked, the order of the relationship is often misunderstood. One did not beget the other; in fact, the two concepts arose simultaneously in the late 1600s, following Bacon’s Rebellion. If one examines the history of race in America, one will find that our idea of race has its roots in the ruthless capitalist pragmatism of the elite, with white supremacy simply serving as an effective means to an end.

The “challenge” of living in simulated poverty is only half of what the Two Dollar Challenge is really about. The other side is doing the fourteen readings, short stories, and blog posts and five films. These readings focused on topics surrounding the “white-savior industrial complex” and how local people are working to solve their communities’ problems. The conversations that took place surrounding these readings and films were also helpful when analyzing some of the more controversial articles.

Robert Zieger’s For Jobs and Freedom Race and Labor In America Since 1865 is laid out as a scholarly historical look at how race has effected freedom and the labor market for blacks in America since the late 19th century. While Zieger presents the material in a scholarly manner and is careful to look at issues from more than one paradigm; I feel that his voice is often lost in this careful presentation of both sides of the coin. Aside from obviously being pro-union Robert Zieger only takes a personal stand a once in his book For Jobs and Freedom; the onetime Zieger’s voice is heard he speaks in opposition to the Accomodationists ideals of Booker T and Villard who urged young blacks to accept their station and apply themselves diligently to become the best farmer, domestic servant, or ditch digger that they could possibly be. Another critic of the book raised in class by Professor Bloom was that Zieger only focuses on one form of racism, white supremacy. In my paper I will briefly discuss some of the social and economic changes that forced the rearticulation of the relationship between black workers and white capital near the turn of the century. I will also highlight Zieger’s argument that organized labor near the turn of the century failed black workers with their actions while maintaining a rhetoric of egalitarian principles towards black workers. Zieger’s practical agenda is to shine a light on racism and help facilitate its end by educating through a lens of

Historic and contemporary examples indicate a global capitalist system that exploits workers on the basis of color and where workers of favored racialized labor groups receive privileges which the colored segregated racial groups are denied. As global economic boundaries widen, the concept of capitalism continues to spread the ideals of exploitation and oppression on which it thrives and represent the interest of the superior racial group while partial discrimination works against the colored race. Capitalism is a colorblind system that has not just spread globally but also influenced racial lines that favor white supremacy to the detriment of the colored groups.