Wages of Whiteness

How and Why White American Workers Shifted from Anti-Slavery to Anti-Slave.

In reaction to this slavery, virtual and otherwise, the founders of the fledgling nation incorporated the values of their Protestant work ethic into the ideal new American society. The Republican philosophy held that men should own their own chunk of land, and produce their own goods, and that by working hard for themselves, they would produce a morally fit society for everyone else. All motivated, of course, by the glory of God, and the knowledge the new Americans were living a life without good sex, good fun, or good food, and therefore were pleasing to Him and assuring their place in heaven.

The Black American however, was seen as the anti-American. Blacks were considered weak and servile, and thus dependant, and more likely to be the “pawns of powerful and designing men (Roediger 35).” The white policy makers were able to begin the process of objectifying the Black race, and trying to push the blame of slavery onto some inherent characteristic of the Blacks, instead of accepting their own ignorance and truly holding to the pre-Revolutionary thoughts of Thomas Paine, and abolish all “species of slavery (Roediger 31). Instead, they kept the slavery that was convenient to support their pocketbooks.

Wage laborers under the Republican ideal were little more than slaves. They were considered dependant, childish, and lazy. However, the reality of an emerging industry sector forced many into servitude. This new class of free, white, wage earners diligently worked to create for themselves a vocabulary that separated them from the Black slaves. They worked for a ‘boss’ not a ‘master’, and eschewed all references to servitude. Roediger quotes Richard Parkinson as attributing this attitude to the “boast of American liberty and equality” and from “the servant’s think[ing] himself more on an equality with the master than the negro” and from the servant’s desire to “be not a slave (54).” White wage slaves had to rationalize their situation and position in a way that left them feeling good about themselves. In order to do that, white Americans, out earning their daily bread, needed someone to be the bad guy - the anti-American, lazy, troublemaking schmuck - to show just how hard working they were. The American Black was cast in the role.

As industrialization crossed the Atlantic, capitalistic ideals came with it. With increased manufacturing, came increased factories, and the need for more (cheap) bodies to work the machines of innovation. The flood of immigrants to the American shores provide the cheap labor needed for industry to provide the largest amount of return for the owners of the means of production. However, immigrants like the Irish, came to America with empathy for the American Black and the oppression of their race. While in Ireland, the Irish were subjected to similar subjugation by the British. Their land was stolen, they couldn’t practice their religion, and they were starving because they no longer had access to the land. The Catholic Church in Ireland helped spread sympathy and support for American slaves. Yet once the immigrants got off the boat, they quickly figured out which side of the bread was buttered, and jumped on the “I’m a white guy!” bandwagon. So instead of banding with the people they had the most in common with and working together to make a change in the political and economic situation, the immigrants set out to prove they were white and practiced good protestant work ethics too. The Catholic Church in America even encouraged this behavior in order to help cement the process of racism in the minds of immigrants.

To encourage the development of compliant factory workers, various institutions helped further immigrant assimilation into American culture. ‘Freeman’ guilds and the Masons helped encourage brotherhood and fidelity among white laborers. More importantly, recreation began to include presentations of those who “studied” Black culture, and preformed sarcastic portrayals of Black life. Blacks were portrayed as fried chicken eating, watermelon stealing, having loose morals, lazy children who had to be watched because they sure couldn’t be trusted. Black men were portrayed as lazy thieves, who would engage in sexual intercourse with anything that resembled a woman, and they desperately wanted white women. Black women were represented as hyper-sexual, with no ability to discern between sexual partners, and therefore were willing to take any male who happened along. Because the black-faced minstrels were making up the culture of the Blacks as they went along, they helped to define white culture by what it was not. Good whites, with well reinforced Protestant work ethics, would never enjoy sex; much less use it for anything other than procreation. Good whites were hard working, six days a week, and spent Sunday in the House of God. Good whites would never spend a day lazing by a fishing hole while there was work to do. At least in theory, good whites would never do those things.

The longing for that sort of life never really left the immigrants, or who are we kidding – the descendants of those immigrants – who longed for the very things being repressed from their lives. Whites had to further justify to themselves why working their ass off for a corporate executive is a good idea, especially with the Republican ideal of becoming an independent producers staring them in the face. The increasing resentment of care-free black life, at least as portrayed by the “students of the nigger” lead to further racial hatred and separation.

The long term consequences of this hatred has lead to the stereotype of the Black American as being lazy, incompetent, stupid, slow, and ignorant. Blacks today are categorized with a heavy hand that labels them as thieves, out to suck the Welfare system dry. Black men are still treated with suspicion with their interactions with white women, and Black women are still being used as pieces of meat. This has imposed a black ceiling that is difficult at best to overcome. Black wage laborers typically earn less than their white counterparts. Black students have to overcome the preconceived notions of educators and work harder to receive their education than white students. Black children born into poverty have a harder time escaping poverty because of the glass ceiling through which they can see the privilege of the wages of whiteness.

Reference:

• Roediger, David R. 1991. The Wages of Whiteness. San Francisco: Verso.

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