Over the last decade or so, the study of whiteness in the US has grown in both cultural and academic significance, attracting hostility from neo-conservative commentators. But there is also a critique to be had from the Left. For while the study of whiteness as a social construction - which takes its starting point from Du Bois - has demonstrated more clearly than ever how racism is at the core of US history and society, it has, for the most part, failed to take the issue of class into account. How and why this is is closely analysed here, in an examination of the work, in particular, of Ignatiev, Hale, Roediger and Saxton.
1 Darryl Fears , ‘Hue and cry on ‘‘whiteness studies’’: an academic field’s take on race stirs interest and anger’ , Washington Post (20 June 2003), p. A01 .
2.
2 Peter Kolchin, ‘Whiteness studies: the new history of race in America’ , Journal of American History (Vol. 89, 2002), pp. 154-173 .
3.
Also, for a description of a panel on whiteness studies that included Eric Arneson, see Michael Spear , ‘Scholarly controversy: whiteness and the historians’ imagination’ , International Labor and Working Class History (Vol. 62, 2002), pp. 189-193 .
4.
3 Alexander Saxton , The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: class politics and mass culture in nineteenth-century America ( Londo, Verso , 1990).
5.
4 David R. Roediger , The Wages of Whiteness: race and the making of the American working class ( London, Verso , 1991).
6.
5 Nelson M. Rodriguez , ‘Emptying the content of whiteness: toward an understanding of the relation of whiteness and pedagogy’, in Joe L. Kincheloe (ed.) et al. , White Reign: deploying whiteness in America ( New York , 1998), p. 33.
7.
6 For a great example of work in this area prior to whiteness studies, see Barbara J. Fields , ‘Ideology and race in American history’, in J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (eds), Region, Race, and Reconstruction: essays in honor of C. Vann Woodward ( New York , 1982).
8.
7 Stephen Jay Gould , The Mismeasure of Man ( New York, W.W. Norton , 1996).
9.
8 Kolchin, ‘Whiteness studies’, op. cit.
10.
9 For more on the rise of the Reagan Democrats and neo-conservative intellectuals, see William C. Berman , America’s Right Turn: from Nixon toClinton (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press , 1998),
11.
and E. J. Dionne, Jr , Why Americans Hate Politics ( New York, Simon and Schuster , 1991), pp. 55-76.
12.
See also Werner Sombart , Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?, trans. Patricia M. Hocking and C. T. Husbands (1906, White Plains , 1976),
13.
as cited by Kolchin, ‘Whiteness studies’, op. cit.
14.
10 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: an introduction, volume 1, trans. Robert Hurley (New York, Vintage, 1978), pp. 11, 94.
15.
11 Grace Elizabeth Hale , Making Whiteness: the culture of segregation in the South, 1890-1940 ( New York, Pantheon Books , 1998).
16.
12 Ibid., p. xi.
17.
13 Ibid., pp. 54-55.
18.
14 Kolchin, ‘Whiteness studies’, op. cit.
19.
15 For more on Phillips, see: John David Smith and John Inscoe , Ulrich Bonnell Phillips: a Southern historian and his critics ( Westport, CT, Greenwood Press , 1990).
20.
16 Ibid., pp. 61-66.
21.
17 W. E. B. Du Bois , ‘To the Reader’ in Black Reconstruction in America: an essay toward a history of the part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860-1880 ( New York, Russell & Russell , 1935).
22.
18 Ibid., pp. 81-82.
23.
19 James S. Pike , The Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro government ( New York, D. Appleton & Co , 1874).
24.
20 Foucault, The History of Sexuality, op. cit., p. 141.
25.
21 Hale, Making Whiteness, op. cit., p. 282.
26.
22 Ibid., p. 52.
27.
23 Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic, op. cit., p. 1.
28.
24 Ibid., p.17.
29.
25 Ibid., pp. 23-76.
30.
26 Ibid., pp. 127-64.
31.
27 Ibid., p. 40.
32.
28 Ibid., p. 66.
33.
29 Ibid., pp. 71-2.
34.
30 Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, op. cit.; Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York, Routledge, 1995).
35.
31 Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, op. cit., p. 49.
36.
32 Ibid., p.134.
37.
33 Ignatiev , How the Irish Became White, pp. 6-33.
38.
34 For more on Know Nothing anti-slavery, see Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: the northern Know-Nothings and the politics of the 1850s ( New York, Oxford University Press , 1992).
39.
35 Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, op. cit., p. 76.
40.
36 Roediger, ‘Foreword’, op. cit.; Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic, op. cit., p. xiii; Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness, pp. 11-13; W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, op. cit.
41.
37 Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, op. cit., p. 12; Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, op. cit., pp. 710-11.
42.
38 Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, op. cit., p. 116.
43.
39 Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic, op. cit., p. 180.
