The Wages Of Whiteness : Race And The Making Of The American Working Class

“Racism was used aggressively to divide poor white southerners from slaves. The relationship between the wealthy and the poor was aggressively exploited by the rich white slave holder to ensure the poor whites non-slave holder that they had a similar cause” (Shaping America: Lesson 16). This caused non-slave holding whites to have a similar view as latter. Non-slave holding whites were in direct competition with slaves and more often than not were forced out of work due to the free labor slavery had offered.

Cultural Marxist George Lipsitz in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics consolidates both the structural theory of institutional racism and the political cultural ideology and conception of racism history in the context of political changes in the Untied States. Lipsitz is not the first historian to analyze critical racism theory, but he is the first to extend the analysis into the late twentieth century.

While the first two sections of the book provide the historical context of the settling of the Virginia colony, the last two demonstrate Morgan’s theory of how racism was developed to ensure a sustainable workforce. The rise of the labor theory demonstrates how slavery itself became a necessary business venture in Virginia while at the same time justified the Revolutionary concepts of liberty and equality for all white men. The belief that only the men, or white Englishmen

The article “The Great White Way” by Debra J. Dickerson attempts to show her readers that “Race is an arbitrary system for establishing hierarchy and privilege” (68) in America. In her article, Dickerson questions how “whiteness” leads America in our culture and society and how all the other races are defined in America. She also explains how history has divided whites from non-whites in America. The intended audience that Dickerson’s essay gravitated towards are political or liberal Americans. In her article “The Great White Way”. Debra J. Dickerson powerfully argues that race is an overall way to establish social classes and who and what get special privileges because of their certain race or skin color. Dickerson argues that “Race is

Phillips writes that the defining characteristic of a ‘Southerner’ is a feeling of white racial solidarity which casts all other social considerations in the shade; it is the “cardinal test of a Southerner.” When Phillips touches upon the subject of non-slaveholding whites, he emphasizes their zeal for the primacy of white civilization as an end unto itself. He relates two contemporary accounts of non-slaveholders, one a tinner and the other an overseer, to demonstrate this fervor but pointedly devalues their economic attachments to slavery, writing, “Both of them, and a million of their non-slaveholding like, had a still stronger social prompting: the white men’s ways must prevail; the Negroes must be kept innocuous.” Phillips rejects out of hand the sway of overt pecuniary motives against the weight of racial ones and this rejection is so absolute in part because “it is otherwise impossible to account

Nicholas Lemann’s book helps us to heed to the lessons and experiences of the slaves in the golden age, from the 1930s to the 1970s. America’s working class was comprised heavily of racial and ethnic minorities, who often stood in problematic relation to political and civil societies. When they tried flexing their political muscle, either through in their workplace, or electoral means, they were often provoked by the hard fist of authority. African Americans who prearranged the Republican Party in Grant Parish, Louisiana, elected officials who represented their views. Later on, in 1873, the representatives were murdered by the white vigilantes in Colfax on Easter Sunday. This indicates how the American politics were encompassed by an explosive mix of democracy and terror.

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.

In analyzing the problem Du Bois maintains a scientific outlook, free from emotional content and favoritism. To this degree, he demonstrates that Black people in America play a minor role in their own exploitation by their attempts to join in the game of capitalism. Yet, for the most part, they are limited in their efforts and consigned even then to a lesser petty bourgeois status. This, again, is due to the racial aspect of class that has been introduced and become a fixed part the game of capitalism. As such Du Bois concludes that the interests of the Black proletarian class and the Black petite bourgeoisie are aligned due to the commonality of racist subjugation and oppression at the hands of the White labor aristocracy, whose interests are aligned with capitalism. In addition, he concludes that since this is the case, there can be no Marxian revolution based upon the principle of a united class-conscious proletariat, and that in fact, if there is to be one, it will be the Black laborers who will be the vanguard of it. In coming to this conclusion, Du Bois is making a radical adaptation to accepted Marxist philosophy, yet

In the Wages of Whiteness (an edition revision) by David Roediger, an American labor historian, he examines the growth and social construction of race during the 1800s and its relations to white workers. Roediger states by labeling race based on its skin color and social status, white folks were“...seen as ‘naturally’ white, and Black workers become ‘intruders’ who are strongly suspected of being ‘loafers’ as well” (Roediger 19). The production of race formed once white workers accepted their class positions by accepting their identities as ‘not slaves’ and as ‘not Blacks’. In this case, there was a necessity for white workers to have its own sense of class and gender identity to determine who has power and who does not.

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.

Thus, slavery pulled white workers down in two ways: one, by direct competition with slave labor in the South, and two, by associating all the industrious efforts of workers with those of the degraded slaves.”

Working Towards Whiteness is about immigrants who are coming to the United States during the twentieth century and struggling to become white. This is because America has this identity of being white and the new immigrants are facing the problem of fitting in based on their race and class. The states have applied restriction so that they can preserve the population to be more white. In Roediger historical studies he brings these practices to light and his goals to draw attention to the biased white supremacist policy of the government in the regulations of immigration. Roediger most evident strength would be that he has the adaptation of the “in-between” status of the new immigrants coming in, which they are neither accepted as white neither can they be able to identify themselves as their pre-existing background.

One common theme throughout the reading is that “…systemic racist attitudes and negative depictions of people of colour by whites persist” (Feagin & Elias, 2013, p. 937). The historical trajectory of research methods are deeply rooted with systemic forms of racism, which is reflected in literature that was published centuries ago and can still be found in current literature today. Some of the articles that were assigned reference opinions and other forms of literature that state that white Americans believe that race and racism are a thing of the past, while others continue

Bell argues that civil rights laws such as Brown have been ineffective in this era of race-neutrality because they are based on a law enforcement model and moral imperatives. He proposes that we “get real about race” and accept the “permanence of racism” due to white racial consciousness, white nepotism, and white racial bonding.  Similarly Roediger discusses aspects of the permanence of racism in his Wages of Whiteness. First define these four concepts: white racial consciousness, white nepotism, white racial bonding, and wages of whiteness. Then use them to engage the following:  Is racism permanent? How does Bell legitimize his arguments? Why have the law enforcement model and moral imperative been ineffective? Finally, use the chapters

As we already noted – in the 1800s expediency of slavery was disputed. While industrial North almost abandoned bondage, by the early 19th century, slavery was almost exclusively confined to the South, home to more than 90 percent of American blacks (Barney W., p. 61). Agrarian South needed free labor force in order to stimulate economic growth. In particular, whites exploited blacks in textile production. This conditioned the differences in economic and social development of the North and South, and opposing viewpoints on the social structure. “Northerners now saw slavery as a barbaric relic from the past, a barrier to secular and Christian progress that contradicted the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and degraded the free-labor aspirations of Northern society” (Barney W., p. 63).