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Writer's pictureLIU Honors Journal

Is Race Based on Physical Characteristics or Currency?

Jessica Dean explores the implications of race in America and its influence on economics

and politics.

Jessica Dean




Race in America today is a heavy subject and it's the origin of too many national disputes, acts of violence, and dilemmas. "Race is a social construct and fiction, but it's real and it matters" (Ali, 2022).

The color of one’s skin could have substantial implications that give certain populations automatic privileges while others must face discrimination and atrocious acts of violence just because of the way they look. There has always been a history of racial hierarchy in America, but the boundaries and the definitions of ethnicity and race have been created and then recreated for economic advantages and political purposes.


Joane Nagel’s constructionist view is critical to analyze and include when the subject of race in America arises. “Ethnicity is created and recreated … over which rewards or sanctions should be attached to which ethnicities' ' (Nagel, 1994, p. 153). Nagel explains that ethnicity is a group identity but has no conclusive markers. Humanity has a tendency to categorize and set borders, to make clean definitive classifications, and to navigate through all diversity our world holds. Ethnicity and race are not straightforward. They encompass more than what one looks like or where an individual or their ancestors are from. Identity has been made to be a product of self-definition and definitions by others, which has been consistently affected by resource competition. Nagel also proves from historical evidence time and time again that race has been a means to an end for mercantilism and economic gains. Mercantilism in simple terms was an economic theory to gain the most exports as possible while reducing their state’s imports. To take as much as possible from the conquered lands and to be bound by trade as little as possible. This has been seen when English colonists first went to India and officers were known to be immersed in Indian culture by intermarrying and living the Indian way of life. Differences in skin color and ways of life did not seem to automatically create these social rifts between different races. Once certain men of power obtained the knowledge of the possible wealth to be made from India’s resources for English success, the common narrative for Indian people shifted drastically. Indian people and their way of life were deemed to be uncivilized and barbaric. The British used this as the justification to steal, terrorize, and control Indian civilians and resources.


America’s foundation was built on a very similar story. This nation is about money. If you can make your culture commodifiable, then your ethnic group is relevant. Ethnicity has always been more of a means to an end for economic successes and to maintain the power of white western European descendants. “The world got along without race for the overwhelming majority of its history. The U.S. has never been without it” (Roediger, 2003). The term race was rarely even used before the 1500s, people during that time referred to family ties or group connections as identifiers. During the European Enlightenment period, European white male academics began to promote their ideas of scientific study, secularism, and rationality rather than solely relying on religion for the truths of the world (Encyclopædia Britannica, 1998). Some of these “innovative ideas” argued notions that people with white skin were inherently smarter, more skilled, and overall, more of a human being compared to people of color. These dehumanizing theories became the justification for European powers to conquer, colonize, and enslave other societies. This tactic was later used for the foundation and advancement of the New World.

The word “white” did not always correlate with automatic eliteness. The National Museum of African American History and Culture has published that the word “white” originally was a way to describe high class women to show that they were rich enough to not work outside and tan their skin. This could not be used to describe European elite men because for them to be white it meant that they were sick, lazy, or unproductive. To be “white” has turned into a concept that has direct implications for billions rather than a simple word of description. Activist Paul Kivel (1995) says, whiteness is constantly shifting boundaries separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white. In the 1600s, the notion of enslavement was constantly being altered to the advantage of colonizers to gain more free labor. Initially, enslavement was not an automatic condition and not all African Americans were sentenced to a lifetime of bondage. It was not until the December 1662-ACT XII law was passed that slavery became hereditary. This law was originally codified by the Romans called Partus Sequitur Ventrem. The literal translation was offspring follows the belly and was rarely used as a means for slaves until 1662. The law authorized the status of a child to be determined by the mother. This meant that if the mother was black, the baby would be automatically sentenced to a life as a slave. Shortly after the 1662 law, there was another doctrine passed that disregarded religion and kept people in bondage even after they converted to Christianity. Before this, when a person of a color converted to Christianity they became a child of God and therefore were more human and were protected under religion. Other Christians had to respect that, regardless of race. “With this decree, the justification for black servitude changed from a religious status to a designation based on race” (Roediger, 2003). After this doctrine was passed, there was a heavy influx in slaves and labor which benefited both the North and South colonies greatly economically.


Due to many decades of horrendous violence against African Americans, a sense of ownership, hatred, and prejudices have grown and festered throughout the country. Race was no longer a means to an end to make slavery justifiable but a living evil that affected millions of African Americans. Just a few days after the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865, white supremacy groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the United Daughters of the Confederacy , arose “to implement frameworks across the South to maintain white eliteness and keep African Americans chained in other ways” (Jackson, 2020). These groups are known for erecting confederate statues and monuments, Jim Crow laws, and the normalization of hate crimes against black people. “There are many accounts of the horrors of the more than 4,000 recorded lynchings in the United States” (Jackson, 2020). During the time of Reconstruction, elected officials promoted a period to build a biracial democracy from the atrocities of slavery while simultaneously allowing white supremacist organizations to sabotage any progression to be made. Slavery was abolished in 1865, but African Americans were still stuck in impoverished lifestyles. They barely had any way to move up the ranks in America in order to keep the racial hierarchy of wealth.


Although societal conditions improved for people of color in America by no longer being slaves and classified as fully human, little changed regarding economic opportunities in the South. African Americans typically remained in cotton fields and did grueling, exhausting, outdoor labor. Schools, housing, and public facilities were segregated and unequal. African Americans were typically confined to the South, “at the bottom of a feudal social order, at the mercy of slaveholders and their descendants and often-violent vigilantes' ' (Wilkerson, 2016). It was not until the Great Migration (1910-1970) that opportunities for black people began to grow exponentially. When boll weevils, a beetle that devastates cotton fields, disrupted plantations and caused agriculture failures along with the Great Depression, jobs started being lost and left an opening for African Americans to look for opportunities in the North. When WWI began there was a great demand at industrial factories up North because of labor shortages from native white men being drafted to war and the complete halt of European immigrants. Job postings with much better pay, types of labor, and benefits were desirable enough to take the risk by moving up North into the unknown. Merely by leaving, black people were finally given the true ability to participate in democracy and influence people in the North to make civil and economical changes in the South. Many migrants from the Great Migration were known to go back to the South and pick up their remaining family members and help them move up North as well. Middlemen during this time were also important to mention because they bridged the gap between Northern industrial job postings and recruiting African Americans from the South. They made the migration much easier and gave the newcomers a guaranteed position. Many of the black migrants during this time would raise their children to be great pioneers that made drastic changes for African Americans and contributed economically, culturally, and academically for all of America.


Unfortunately, the North was not a perfect haven for people of color, it was an improvement, but racism persisted in many ways, especially in the workplace, just more discreetly. While job opportunities and quality education became readily available for African Americans, “white families in northern former-industrial enclaves were losing work … believed that black families were doing better and resented them” (Mock, 2018). Many white Americans at the time began to feel threatened by the new competition from the black migrants in the South. To cease African Americans economic growth, white people of power came up with ways to secure the social scale in their favor. Beginning in the 1930s, a government sponsored initiative called “redlining” began. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board circled black or ethnic neighborhoods in red and then denied lending and investment services to those residents. This ultimately made it very hard for people of color who resided in these neighborhoods to buy a mortgage and move into a safer and “whiter” neighborhood. These residents ended up paying more than the average because they were prohibited from many neighborhoods and did not have the liberty to choose where they were allowed to live. Not having the ability to get granted loans left many families at a major disadvantage for rent, school districts, and getting hired for jobs. This began a cycle, and many African Americans were penned into inadequate neighborhoods. Ghettos began to be prominent by the 1950s while white suburbs began to flourish. This was another boundary made to create economic advantages and disadvantages.


Initially, these disadvantaged neighborhoods did not only consist of Blacks and Latinos but Italian (Sicilians), Polish, and Jewish Immigrants as well. During the late 19th century, many eastern Europeans who had darker skin colors were deemed second-class citizens. As a result, they also fell under racial prejudice and poor treatment in America. Many were denied from schools, movie theaters, and labor unions. Darker-skin Italians were not exempt from lynchings until Italians were re-categorized as white in 1892. This change of race occurred after the news of 11 lynchings of Italian immigrants in New Orleans outraged the Italian government. To keep the peace, President Harrison proclaimed a national holiday, Columbus Day, to honor the journey from Europe to the New World. This was the President’s “attempt to quiet outrage among Italian-Americans, and a diplomatic blow up over the murders that brought Italy and the United States to the brink of war” (Staples, 2019). After that address, the narrative and treatment towards Italians changed for the better as their ethnic group was now considered white. The Polish community was not granted white privilege until 1919 when Irishmen were looking to gain members in the fight against the Blacks. White groups who felt threatened by the successes of the black communities decided “it would be politically advantageous if the Poles were considered white as well” (Kendzior, 2016). Races, who were formerly categorized with African Americans embraced their new white identity and were more than willing to practice the discrimination and injustices they once endured. This is still prominent today in the United States.


The story of race in America is complex and a historical journey, filled with many complications. Ethnicity and race are not straightforward and do not have a simple answer just based on what one looks like and where they or their ancestors have come from. Ethnicity was never just about boundaries of populations. Through time, ethnicity and race has been established then changed based on economic advantages and political needs. The European Enlightenment period paved the way to racial superiority and the ostracization of entire populations. Slavery in America was monumental and grew racial hierarchies that greatly benefited white colonizers. When the time came to make amends for the injustices of bondage, people blamed race to keep them financially successful. After the Great Migration, opportunities for African Americans and other European ethnicities grew. Whites felt threatened and to keep the status quo they granted certain ethnicities white privilege to keep African Americans at a disadvantage. All these events from the last few hundred years have shaped the meaning of race as what we understand it as today.


References


1. Ali, S. (2022). Introduction to Race and Ethnicity. Brooklyn, NY. Lecture 1.

2. Berlin, I. (2011). The Making of African American: The Four Great Migrations. Penguin Books.

Confederacy: Last week tonight with John Oliver (HBO). (2017, October 8). Retrieved 25 October 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5b_-TZwQ0I

3. Desmond-Harris, J. (2014, October 10). 11 ways race isn’t real. Retrieved 25 January 2023, from Vox website: https://www.vox.com/2014/10/10/6943461/race-social-construct-origins-census

Duignan, B. (1998, July 20). Enlightenment. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-European-history

4. Jackson, J. M. (2020, July 1). Women have always been a part of white supremacy. Teen Vogue. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/women-white-supremacy-history-america

5. Kendzior, S. (2016, September 1). How do you become “white” in America? Retrieved 25 September 2022, from The Correspondent website: https://thecorrespondent.com/5185/how-do-you-become-white-in-america/1466577856645-8260d4a7.

6. Mock, B. (2018, January 25). What happened when blacks moved north during the Great Migration. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-25/what-happened-when-blacks-moved-north-during-the-great-migration

7. Nagel, J. (1994). Constructing ethnicity: Creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture. Social Problems, 41(1), 152–176. doi:10.1525/sp.1994.41.1.03x0430n

8. Rodiger, D. R. (2003, December 16). Historical Foundations of Race. National Museum of African American History and Culture. Retrieved September 18, 2022, from https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/historical-foundations-race

9. Staples, B. (2019, October 12). How Italians became 'white'. The New York Times. Retrieved October 17, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/opinion/columbus-day-italian-american-racism.html

10. Wilkerson, I. (2016, August 31). The long-lasting legacy of the great migration. Retrieved 19 October 2023, from Smithsonian Magazine website: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/long-lasting-legacy-great-migration-180960118/.




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