Wages of Whiteness & Racist Symbolic Capital (ed. Wulf D. Hund, Jeremy Krikler, David Roediger)

Wulf D. Hund, Jeremy Krikler,David Roediger (Eds.)

Wages of Whiteness&

Racist Symbolic Capital

RACISM ANALYSISedited by Wulf D. Hund

Series B: Yearbook

Volume 1

LIT

Wages of Whiteness&

Racist Symbolic Capitaledited by

Wulf D. Hund, Jeremy Krikler,David Roediger

LIT

Cover: Wulf D. Hund and Stefanie Affeldtusing a collage of a trimmed photograph by Margaret Bourke-White

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche NationalbibliothekThe Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the DeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet athttp://dnb.d-nb.de.

ISBN 978-3-643-10949-1

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

©LIT VERLAG Dr. W. Hopf Berlin 2010Fresnostr. 2 D-48159 MünsterTel. +49 (0) 2 51-620 320 Fax +49 (0) 2 51-922 60 99e-Mail: [email protected] http://www.lit-verlag.de

Distribution:

In Germany: LIT Verlag Fresnostr. 2, D-48159 MünsterTel. +49 (0) 2 51-620 32 22, Fax +49 (0) 2 51-922 60 99, e-mail: [email protected]

In Austria: Medienlogistik Pichler-ÖBZ, e-mail: [email protected]

In Switzerland: B + M Buch- und Medienvertrieb, e-mail: [email protected]

In the UK: Global Book Marketing, e-mail: [email protected]

In North America by:

Transaction PublishersRutgers University35 Berrue CirclePiscataway, NJ 08854

Phone: +1 (732) 445 - 2280Fax: + 1 (732) 445 - 3138for orders (U. S. only):toll free (888) 999 - 6778e-mail: [email protected]

Contents

Editorial 1

EXPOSÉS

Accounting for the Wages of Whiteness 9U.S. Marxism and the Critical History of RaceDavid Roediger

Racist Symbolic Capital 37A Bourdieuian Approach to the Analysis of RacismAnja Weiß

Negative Societalisation 57Racism and the Constitution of RaceWulf D. Hund

STUDIES

A Paroxysm of Whiteness 99›White‹ Labour, ›White‹ Nation and ›White‹ Sugar in AustraliaStefanie Affeldt

Re-thinking Race and Class in South Africa 133Some Ways ForwardJeremy Krikler

›A White Man’s Country‹? 161The Chinese Labour Controversy in the TransvaalDagmar Engelken

Racializing Transnationalism 195The Ford Motor Company and White Supremacyfrom Detroit to South AfricaElizabeth Esch

Editorial

When in 1937 the Ohio River burst its banks, it wrought havoc, claimedalmost four hundred lives, and rendered about a million people home-less. Like Hurricane Katrina more recently, the disaster exposed acuteracial and class divisions. They were captured in one of the most famousphotographs of Margaret Bourke-White, ›At the Time of the LouisvilleFlood‹. Reproduced on the cover of this Yearbook, it shows victims ofthe catastrophe awaiting the distribution of relief supplies. The people inneed queuing up with their empty buckets, baskets and bags in front of thehuge billboard advertising the American way of life have been describedmany times, and the contrasts of the picture have been emphasised.1 Cen-tral to them is the hierarchical arrangement of needy blacks and wealthywhites.

It is obvious that the impoverished black victims of the flood couldnot have identified with the prosperous, white middle-class family por-trayed on the billboard. But how would that family have been viewed bya white worker from Louisville who had lost his job in the Depression,sold his car, and then suffered the catastrophe of the flood? For him, thebillboard might have appeared to mock his position: jobless, carless, con-sumed by worry for his family. But it still held out a promise. If only thatworker had the money, he could join those portrayed on the poster. Theywere, after all, like himself, white. The ›American Way‹, the ›AmericanDream‹ seems open to one like himself who is counted as part of a whitecommunity that allows its marginalised members what William EdwardBurghardt Du Bois, two years before the flooding of the Ohio, called »asort of public and psychological wage«.2

1 Many of these contrasts are enumerated in John A. Walker, Sarah Chaplin: VisualCulture: an Introduction. Manchester etc.: Manchester University Press 1997, p. 124:»blacks / whites, individuals / family, poor / affluent, passive / active, careworn / care-free, pedestrians / car owners, facing to the side / facing to the front, below / above,documentary-genre photo / advertising genre photo«.

2 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois: Black Reconstruction. An Essay Toward a His-tory of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy inAmerica, 1860-1880. New York: World Publishing 1964 (1. ed. New York: Harcourt,Brace and Co. 1935), p. 700.

2 Editorial

Such gratification is identified (by David Roediger) as an element ofthe ›wages of whiteness‹, that »could be used to make up for alienat-ing and exploitative class relationships«. It would in this way contributeto the »construction of identity through otherness«. According to it, anegative element would be adopted in the formation of the identity of›white‹ lower classes that was conceived (by Jeremy Krikler) as a para-dox: »What made the white proletarians what they were was that whichthey were not«. The associated »inclusion by exclusion« is characterized(by Wulf D. Hund) as »negative societalisation«. »Societies shaped bydominance« do »not solely cohere by their own culture and tradition«,but also by depreciating the culture and tradition of the others.3

At the time of the Louisville flood, such ideas were already beinggiven theoretical voice. Max Weber conceptualised it through his notionof »ethnic honour« and pointed to the poor whites in the South of theUnited States as exemplifying it. Their »social ›honour‹« was called a»purely negative« relation, because it was »fully dependent on the socialdegradation of blacks«. Sigmund Freud, meanwhile, spoke of an »autho-risation to despise outsiders«. He reckoned that it was indispensable forclass societies, because it »recompensed« the »oppressed« for »restric-tions in their own circle«.4

For Du Bois, this dimension of racism was only one element of white-ness as a whole social complex. Most of all, whiteness for him was linkedto the chance of material gratification. He answered the question »whaton earth is whiteness that one should so desire it« by referring to the »ex-ploitation of darker peoples«, which had diverse beneficiaries – »not only[. . . ] the very rich, but [. . . ] the middle class and [. . . ] the laborers«.5

Because of this, the compensation granted by the wages of white-ness is not merely a sedative; it is accompanied by the right of ac-

3 Cf. David Roediger: Wages of Whiteness. Race and the Making of the American Work-ing Class. Rev. ed. London etc.: Verso 1999, p. 13 f.; Jeremy Krikler: White Rising. The1922 Insurrection and Racial Killing in South Africa. Manchester: Manchester Univer-sity Press 2005, p. 149; Wulf D. Hund: Negative Vergesellschaftung. Dimensionen derRassismusanalyse. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot 2006, p. 123 (quotation trans-lated).

4 Max Weber: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie, ed. byJohannes Winckelmann. Köln etc.: Kiepenheuer und Witsch 1964, pp. 303, 309; Sig-mund Freud: Die Zukunft einer Illusion. In: id., Fragen der Gesellschaft. Ursprüngeder Religion. Sigmund Freud Studienausgabe, ed. by Alexander Mitscherlich, AngelaRichards, James Strachey, vol. 9. Frankfurt: Fischer 1974, pp. 135-189, p. 147 (quota-tions translated).

5 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois: The Souls of White Folk. In: id., Darkwater.Voices from Within the Veil. New York: Schocken 1969 (1. ed. New York: Harcourt,Brace and Howe 1920), pp. 29-52, pp. 30, 43.

Editorial 3

cess to the benefits of white supremacy. Using the USA as an example,Charles W. Mills explained its complex structure, referring to somatic,metaphysical, epistemological, cultural, political and economic factors.Economically, white wealth had been extracted from red soil by blacklabour through »racial exploitation«. Politically, this had welded the dif-ferent social groups of ›whites‹ to one »ruling race«. Culturally, all ele-ments of civilisation had undergone systematic »bleaching«. Epistemo-logically, a »white normativity« had thus established itself. Metaphysi-cally, this made possible the separation of »white Herrenvolk« and »non-white, particularly black, Untermenschen«. Somatically, nonwhite bodieswere thereby subjected to »racial embodiment and alienation«.6

The advantages resulting from such relations benefited even poorwhites in manifold ways. They not only promised an ideological dividendfrom whiteness, but also allowed access to education, jobs, residentialproperty, health care, entertainment and, of course, politics. Of particularinterest in this regard, is Anja Weiß’s extension and adaptation of PierreBourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital so that it is applicable to racist dis-crimination in general and race societies in particular: »Racialized sym-bolic capital is an asymmetrically distributed resource with considerableinfluence on the life chances of its owners«.7 The symbolic capital con-veyed by ›whiteness‹ combines psychological with material elements. Onthe one hand, it offers an authorization to ostracize others. On the otherhand, it enables a share of societal wealth.8

Finally, somatic whiteness finds habitual expression in a normativebody consciousness. Its role models can be traced far back. They werefor centuries propagated as aesthetic norm and eventually sanctionedthrough the methods of scientific racism. The ›average American girland boy‹ were already purely white at the World’s Columbian Exposi-tion in Chicago in 1893. Shortly after the Ohio flood, when they werenamed ›Normman‹ and ›Norma‹ in 1939 at the New York World’s Fair,their statues had not in the least changed. Eventually, they were projectedby the USA into outer space. The plates mounted on the ›Pioneer‹ space-crafts ten and eleven depict as the representatives of the earth’s population

6 Charles W. Mills: White Supremacy as Sociopolitical System: A Philosophical Perspec-tive. In: White Out. The Continuing Significance of Racism, ed. by Ashley W. Doane,Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. New York etc.: Routledge 2003, pp. 35-48, pp. 40 ff.

7 Anja Weiß: The Racism of Globalization. In: The Globalization of Racism, ed. byDonaldo Macedo, Panayota Gounari. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers 2006, pp. 128-147,p. 133.

8 Cf. Charles W. Mills: Racial Exploitation and the Wages of Whiteness. In: What WhiteLooks Like. African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question, ed. by GeorgeYancy. New York etc.: Routledge 2004, pp. 25-54.

4 Editorial

a white couple conforming to traditional gender roles. To this very daythey continue to traverse the universe and we can only hope that they willnot fall into the hands of any halfway intelligent extraterrestrial species.9

The essays assembled in this volume shed light on the complexworlds of racism and whiteness with various examples from differingperspectives.

David Roediger (University of Illinois) preliminarily addresses theevolution of whiteness as a category of critical social analysis. He devel-ops a corrective to the assumption that the critical study of whiteness wasat the core a post-modern project. He does so by emphasizing the placein the 1990s of Marxist and Marxist-inspired studies in the emergenceof such scholarship in the US, especially in the field of history where aheterodox group of scholars and activists came to regard whiteness asa problem and made it an urgent object of inquiry. On this view, eventhe influence of psychoanalysis as a tool in the study of white identity,advantage and practice emerged from debates within the left.

Anja Weiß (Universität Duisburg-Essen) subsequently explains thatthe perspective of whiteness studies can be expanded by a modificationof Bourdieu’s category of symbolic capital. She starts from a distinc-tion between economic and cultural capital and adds reflections regardingsymbolic power. From there she develops an enhanced multi-dimensionalmodel of social disparity. It integrates racism as a form of symbolic dom-ination into the analysis of social structure. Racist symbolic capital is,in the course of this, understood as a collective resource which allowsprocesses of social inclusion or exclusion. Both processes are correlated.Racist symbolic capital is, therefore, not a ›property‹ but an expressionof contested social relations of inequality.

Wulf D. Hund (Universität Hamburg) pleads for the generalisation ofthis concept and for its application to an analysis of racism as negative so-cietalisation. He understands racist symbolic capital as a resource whichhas assumed historically diverse shapes. In his essay he begins by shininga light on several pre-modern patterns of racist discrimination which pro-ceeded without the category of race. Subsequently he discusses the emer-

9 Those responsible for this version of ›Normman‹ and ›Norma‹ were well aware ofthe racialized message and recorded: »it was not possible to avoid some racial stereo-types, but we hope that this man and woman will be considered representative of all ofmankind« (Carl Sagan, Linda Salzman Sagan, Frank Drake: A Message From Earth.In: Science, 175, 1972, 4024, pp. 881-884, p. 883); for the previous cf. Roberta J.Park: Physiology and Anatomy are Destiny?! Brains, Bodies and Exercise in Nine-teenth Century American Thought. In: Journal of Sport History, 18, 1991, 1, pp. 31-63,p. 57 (›1893‹) and Julian B. Carter: The Heart of Whiteness. Normal Sexuality and Racein America, 1880-1940. Durham etc.: Duke University Press 2007, p. 1 ff. (›1939‹).

Editorial 5

gence of the race stereotype and its ideological utilization in scientific asin popular pleas for the diminishing (or blanking out) of the potential forsocial conflict through outwards dissociation. The practical implementa-tion of this racist community building is explored through the examplesof the white Australia policy and German political antisemitism.

Stefanie Affeldt (Universität Hamburg) specifies the analytic dimen-sions of the categories ›racist symbolic capital‹ and ›wages of white-ness‹ using the example of the ›white sugar campaign‹ in Australia andits prologue. By analyzing the story of the physical, social and demo-graphical ›whitening‹ of the Queensland sugar industry she demonstratesthat whiteness as a social construction entailed continuous definition andredefinition. In particular in the early twentieth century the (re)drawingof boundaries of belonging alternately included and excluded groups ofimmigrants, while simultaneously the consumption of sugar became ameans of expressing loyalty to the Australian nation.

Jeremy Krikler (University of Essex) explores some missing dimen-sions in the study of race and class in South Africa. Warning of the dan-gers of too great an emphasis on class in exploring race, he neverthelessshows where socio-economic interests were vital in the development ofthe racial order in the country. He focuses particularly on master-servantrelations – which historians have tended to ignore – and reveals how theyhad the capacity to cut across classes amongst whites, since white work-ers frequently had black servants. The article is also concerned with iden-tifying how the politics of white supremacy, with its focus on racial de-mography, shaped South Africa’s economy, society and politics. Kriklercloses by proposing that much is to be gained by South African historiansadapting and utilizing Tim Mason’s famous ideas regarding the relation-ship of politics to the economy in Nazi Germany.

Dagmar Engelken (University of Essex) investigates the ChineseLabour Question in South Africa in the early-twentieth century and re-veals a most complex articulation of race and class. For the white work-ing class was far from united in its response to the recruitment of scoresof thousands of indentured Chinese workers for the South African goldmines. The trade unionists affected by the Australian experience stronglyopposed Chinese labour but they were unable to carry the rank and filemineworkers with them: a majority of those workers saw their own em-ployment opportunities dependent on the Chinese workers, the influx ofwhich they were prepared to support if these indentured workers weresegregated, prevented from competing with white workers in designatedjobs, and provided their employment was ended once sufficient African

6 Editorial

labour was forthcoming. Engelken demonstrates how attitudes to the Chi-nese shifted, how these shifts were linked to the concerns of particularclasses (or groupings within them) and yet how the Chinese Labour Ques-tion nevertheless provided a cement for the bonding of political forcesamongst whites at a crucial time.

Elizabeth Esch (Columbia University) examines the ways in whichthe workplace and corporate initiatives beyond it imagined the assemblyline worker as a white citizen/consumer in linked but very different waysin the U.S. and South Africa between World War 1 and World War 2.Making the Ford Motor Company’s auto- and race-making activities inDetroit and in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and the Carnegie Commis-sion inquiry into the ›poor white‹ problem in South Africa central to heranalysis, she shows how ideas about white supremacy, consumption andthe factory travelled. The resulting analysis suggests that whiteness wasdefined transnationally, but also emerged in ways profoundly impactedby specific national and subnational circumstances, demographics, andstructures. Thus ›Fordism‹, while seeking to reduce labor to a set of mo-tions standardizable within factories and across continents, ought alsoto be conceived of as set of distinct racial projects in which the Amer-icanized white U.S. assembly line worker came to embody possibilitiesneeding to be adapted to the rest of the world.

(Wulf D. Hund, for the editorial committee)

EXPOSÉS

Accounting for the Wages of Whiteness

U.S. Marxism and the Critical History of Race

David Roediger

Abstract: Beginning in 1990, a series of historical studies of the United Statesadopted a common focus on how and why whiteness arose and persisted as a so-cial category, inaugurating a new body of scholarship on the study of race. The au-thor’s own The Wages of Whiteness became a much-praised and sharply critiquedcontribution to this literature. That book, and the study of whiteness generally,have often been cast as indicative of trends towards postmodernism in the study ofhistory. The article argues instead that the major works launching the critical his-torical study of whiteness, especially those of Theodore Allen, Alexander Saxton,and Noel Ignatiev, represented generations of specifically Marxist thought aboutrace, hearkening back to the union struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, as wellas the acceleration Black freedom movements of the 1960s, even as they triedto make sense of working class conservatism during the later period in whichthey appeared. The Wages of Whiteness shared these Marxist origins, and joinedothers in the emerging field in being decisively influenced by Black radical schol-ars, especially C. L. R. James, James Baldwin, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Even thewidely misunderstood use of psychoanalysis by those critically studying white-ness emerged from within a Marxist tradition. Across differences in approachand in conclusions, critical white history emerged within an historical materialistmilieu.

Nell Irvin Painter’s recent and excellent The History of White Peoplemaintains, »Critical white studies began with David R. Roediger’s TheWages of Whiteness: The Making of the American Working Class in 1991and Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish Became White in 1995«.1 I have spentlots of energy over the last twenty years in order to not be the figurePainter points to, and for some very good reasons. However, in this arti-cle I want to acknowledge some kernel of truth in what she holds.

The good reasons for disavowing being a founder (or co-founder)of critical whiteness studies are several. To produce such a lineage po-tentially takes the 1990s moment of publication of works by whites on

1 Nell Irvin Painter: The History of White People, p. 388.

10 David Roediger

whiteness as the origin of a ›new‹ area of inquiry, when in fact writersand activists of color had long studied white identities and practices asproblems needing to be historicized, analyzed, theorized, and countered.The burden of my long introduction to the edited volume Black on White:Black Writers on What It Means to Be White, is precisely to insist on lo-cating the newer studies within a longer stream, on whose insights theyrely. Moreover, even in the last twenty years the most telling critiques ofwhiteness have come from such writers of color such as Toni Morrison,Cheryl Harris and now Painter.2

My desire has thus been to acknowledge the critical study of white-ness as a longstanding tradition, pursued mainly by those for whomwhiteness has been a problem, including some radical white scholarswho now join the argument that an embrace of white identity has led toabsences of humanity and of the effective pursuit of class interest amongwhites. To adopt this broader and more accurate view of the work that hadbeen done seemed to me to most effectively guard against the view thatstudying whiteness was a fad, akin to passing fancies like ›porn studies‹.Writing an early article on ›whiteness studies‹ in ›New York Times Mag-azine‹ in 1997 Margaret Talbot distilled this view with particular venomand lack of comprehension. Lamenting that the fad was part of a largertrend toward »books that seem ill-equipped to stand the test of time«,she chose to only consider white writers on whiteness, and indeed wroteunder the title »Getting Credit for Being White«.3

The particular identification of The Wages of Whiteness and How theIrish Became White as founding texts have also threatened – in the de-signs of others, not Painter – that the genealogy of the field thus cre-ated would set up attacks on it as an ultra-radical project designed to fur-ther revolutionary aims, not scholarly knowledge. That is, Ignatiev and Ihave occupied high profiles as figures whose books have circulated fairlywidely among young activists and whose desire to further the ›abolitionof whiteness‹ has been repeatedly stated. The rightwing journalist DavidHorowitz’s hysterical attacks on ›whiteness studies‹ have most insistentlyplayed on the theme that such work is not scholarship at all, but indoc-trination and propaganda. Horowitz once extravagantly and implausiblytried to locate critical studies of whiteness »in the theoretical writings andpolitics of mass murderers like Lenin and Mao, and totalitarian dictatorslike Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini«.4

2 Cf. David Roediger (ed.): Black on White, pp. 1-26; Toni Morrison: Playing in the Dark;Cheryl Harris: Whiteness as Property.

3 Margaret Talbot: Getting Credit for Being White, pp. 116-119.4 David Horowitz: Ethnic Studies or Racism; Chris Weinkopf: Whiteness Studies.

Wages of Whiteness 11

Eric Arnesen’s three ever-shriller essays on the subject warn simi-larly against ›whiteness studies‹. They score red-baiting points – argu-ing that radical politics drives the manipulated conclusions of writingson whiteness – saving the greatest contempt for my work and especiallyIgnatiev’s, as species of »sectarian moralism«. Regarding Ignatiev, Arne-sen would seem to prefer a purge to debate, writing, »that his [Ignatiev’s]political cult-like sensibility should find a respectable place in universityhistory departments is a testament to the academy’s perhaps overly gener-ous and ecumenical culture (at least toward matters considered progres-sive)«. On this view, Ignatiev’s political activism imparted an indeliblemark of »left splinter-sectarianism« to his historical accounts. My ownsin is to advance »outlandish« anti-racist politics as part of academicwriting – to go beyond the »discursive barricades« and to advocate an›assault on white supremacy‹ in the real world.5

All of this said, I would no longer fully demur from Painter’s dating ofa new early-1990s beginning for the critical studies of whiteness, as longas it is clear that we are considering the field’s specific emergence withinthe discipline of United States history and acknowledge that if Ignatievand I stood as faces most identified with the boldness and revolutionarycommitments of that beginning, we were far from alone in it, or at itsintellectual head. To include a fuller roster of those writers of the historyof whiteness from the 1990s as founders of a new phase in the evolutionof this inquiry would thus both add accuracy and lessen the vulnerabil-ity of the field to attack, though other important figures equally pursuedactivist projects and held left commitments intellectually. In particularAlexander Saxton and Theodore Allen were there at the beginning andwith weightier early books than mine and Ignatiev’s. Soon Venus Green,Michael Rogin, George Lipsitz, Bruce Nelson, and Karen Brodkin wouldbe publishing important studies.6

Ignatiev and I mainly contributed the most memorable soundbites –the idea of whiteness as a ›wage‹ and the insistence that some immigrants›become white‹, though even there the phrasings are, as we shall see, verymuch in the debt of older works by the African American socialist writersW. E. B. Du Bois and James Baldwin. The presence of this larger groupof heterodox, overwhelmingly Marxist, radical historians of whiteness in

5 Eric Arnesen: Passion and Politics, pp. 340 f.; Eric Arnesen: Paler Shade of White,pp. 33 ff.

6 Cf. Alexander Saxton: Rise and Fall of the White Republic; Theodore Allen: The In-vention of the White Race; Venus Green: Race on the Line; Michael Rogin: Blackface,White Noise; George Lipsitz: The Possessive Investment in Whiteness; Bruce Nelson:Divided We Stand; Karen Brodkin: How Jews Became White Folks.

12 David Roediger

the 1990s ensured that the slight books Ignatiev and I wrote could not beentirely marginalized and indeed soon received intense discussion acrossdisciplines.

This essay hence attempts to situate the 1990s origins of a new, dis-tinctly history-based body of critical studies of U.S. whiteness among acircle of writers with common and disparate left experiences and Marxistideas, dating back at least to the 1960s and in some cases to the 1930s.The authors of these studies often shared mentors, inspirations, and pub-lishing venues. We knew each other by the twos, threes and fours, al-though we never functioned as a group and in fact would have bridled atthe idea that a field of ›whiteness studies‹ should exist outside of radicalhistory and ethnic studies.

The article attempts then to describe a milieu, and to recall some ofits formation, suggesting the key role of a Marxism grounded in laboractivism and in the ideas of C. L. R. James, Baldwin, George Rawick,and above all Du Bois. Even the embrace by some of us of psychoanaly-sis as a way to shape inquiries emerged, this article argues, from withinthe left. The achievement of Marxists in recasting study of race throughcritical histories of whiteness deserves emphasis because the successesof historical materialism in the U.S. have been rare enough over the lasttwo decades. The field’s emergence as an historical materialist project,and partly in the specific context of the Black freedom movement, alsowarrants elaboration because there is some tendency among academiccritics to imagine that the critical study of whiteness issues from post-modernism, Freud, and identity politics, even in opposition to Marxism.At its most sloppy, or desirous of scoring supposed points for one kindof Marxism over another, such criticism descended to branding criticalwhiteness studies as a »critique of historical materialism« or as an ex-pression of »the anti-materialism so fashionable at present« or even (in acritique of Allen of all writers) as »extreme philosophical idealism«.7

Such critiques have typically credited Arnesen’s frankly empiricistand non-Marxist stance early in a review essay and then have later pro-nounced on which books under consideration are sufficiently materialistand which are not. (It might be said in mitigation that Arensen in thespace of a few lines was capable of criticizing whiteness scholars fornot making a ›cleaner‹ break from Marxism, and then to brand them as›pseudo-Marxists‹, implying perhaps that he held some unstated commit-ment to a fully unspecified ›real‹ Marxism. He likewise could deride psy-

7 Brian Kelly: Introduction, pp. xxix, x and xl (›critique‹, ›anti-materialism‹ and ›ideal-ism‹).


choanalysis and simultaneously claim a perch from which to judge othersas practicing ›pseudo-psychoanalysis‹. There was ample room for confu-sion).8 In some cases there crops up among scholars who have scarcelyacknowledged the existence of Marxism in their long careers a suddeninterest in defending Marxism against ›whiteness studies‹, one whichcomes to be directed against those you have long written as Marxists.9

A Long Left Project

Weighty books of history are often responsive to the dangers of the mo-ments in which they appear, but they cannot be called into being in thosemoments. Much, and not so much, should therefore be made of the factthat the first major studies of working class white identity and practicewere written in reaction to the 1980s regimes of Ronald Reagan and pub-lished in or just after the term of George Herbert Walker Bush in the1990s. These presidencies locate the then-new studies not only in reac-tionary times, but also in periods in which substantial numbers of whiteworkers, even union members, voted for reaction. For writers, and read-ers, of critical histories of whiteness, the moment elicited a passionateinterest in working class conservatism and its relationship to race. Think-ing and voting as whites, rather than as workers, made the white worker aproblem in the present and opened possibilities of making the emergenceof the white workers an historical problem as well.

However, the longer trajectories of figures like Saxton and Allen sug-gest more varied inspirations. Appearing in 1990, Saxton’s The Rise andFall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nine-teenth Century America predated all of the other books under consider-ation here. Rise and Fall was Saxton’s fifth book, following three prole-tarian novels from the 1940s and 50s, and the brilliant account of laborand anti-Chinese racism in California, The Indispensable Enemy: Laborand the Anti-Chinese Movement in California. Coming to the Commu-nist movement in the 1930s, after education at Harvard and Universityof Chicago, Saxton became an organizer in the railroad and constructionindustries and served as a paid publicist for the Committee on MaritimeUnity, a left effort to unite workers in unions with very different prac-tices where race was concerned. He entered graduate school in historyat University of California midlife after losing the opportunity to market

8 Andrew Hartman: Rise and Fall, pp. 23, 26 and passim; John Munro: Roots of ›White-ness‹, pp. 175-192; Eric Arnesen: A Whiter Shade of Pale, pp. 33 ff. (›pseudo‹).

9 Peter Kolchin: Whiteness Studies, pp. 156, 159, 166 and passim.

14 David Roediger

fiction, and for a time his requests for a passport, amidst early Cold Warrepression.10

Saxton’s labor activism frequently centered on race even in the un-commonly tough Jim Crow atmospheres of the railway brotherhoods andthe building trades. When he attempted to explore anti-discriminationstruggles among railroad workers in his 1948 novel The Great Midland,Saxton had to look to the mass production industries to imagine howthings might be plotted. As he wrote in reissuing the novel later, he had»never heard of any shop steward on any railroad who defended blackworkers«. At one 1940s point, Saxton agitated for fair employment in therailway crafts and ran into the argument that African Americans shouldhave no representation on fair employment practices committees becausethey would act out of racial loyalty and self-interest, as whites suppos-edly did not. »Apparently«, he bitingly observed, »white men belong tono race«.11

Saxton’s attempts to think through how to write about race and classin fiction led in similar directions. An avid student of John Steinbeck’spopular successes, he later wrote of the latter’s decision to make theworkers in Grapes of Wrath white refugees from the Oklahoma DustBowl, not »Mexican and Mexican American proletarians« as part of pat-tern in which »white racism enters [into Steinbeck’s work] not generallyas affirmation but in the form of silences and omissions«.12 His magnif-icent first academic book, The Indispensable Enemy, dissected the dis-figured labor unity eventuating from organization on as white workersand against Asian workers. Saxton’s later activism against the VietnamWar and activities in founding Asian American studies joined his labororganizing in shaping his treatment of race in Rise and Fall of the WhiteRepublic, which emphasized the connections of race to power, and to anability to create cross-class ›white‹ coalitions at every turn.13

Similarly, Theodore Allen drew on a half-century of radical organiz-ing, much of it specifically in industry, in writing his two-volume TheInvention of the White Race in the 1990s after a series of antecedent arti-cles and pamphlets, mainly with radical presses. Born into a middle-classfamily in Indianapolis and raised also in West Virginia, Allen was »pro-

10 Alexander Saxton: Rise and Fall, pp. xiii-xviii, Robert Rydell: Grand Crossings,pp. 263-285, Alexander Saxton: The Great Midland, pp. xv-xxx and Josephine Fowler:Transcribed Interview with Alexander Saxton, passim, provide the details on Saxton’slife and work.

11 Alexander Saxton: The Great Midland, pp. xvii f.12 Alexander Saxton: In Dubious Battle, p. 260, n. 20.13 Cf. Robert Rydell: Grand Crossings, p. 280 and passim; Alexander Saxton: The Indis-

pensable Enemy and Rise and Fall of the White Republic.


letarianized by the Great Depression«, as he put it. He tried college fora day, finding it uncongenial to independence of mind. By 17, he hadjoined the American Federation of Musicians and was soon a delegate tothe central labor body in Huntington, West Virginia and a member of theCommunist Party. He came into the Congress of Industrial Organizationsmining coal in West Virginia, a state where the United Mine Workerswas a racially diverse organization and where the extent of interracialunity very much shaped the prospects of unionism. After an injury tookhim from the mines, Allen worked mainly in New York City as a factoryoperative, retail clerk, draftsman, a math teacher at Grace Church School,and later a mail handler, museum worker and librarian at Brooklyn PublicLibrary. Leaving the Communist Party in the late 1950s, he was immedi-ately active in the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute theCommunist Party.14

In the 1960s Allen attempted to engage the New Left around thequestion of its ›blindspot‹ around race and particularly what he saw asthe formation of the white race as the real ›peculiar institution‹ in U.S.history. Allen’s historical work sought to provide a firm grounding forthe position that identification of some workers with the white race con-stituted the ›Achilles heel‹ of U.S. revolutionary possibilities. So muchwas this the case, and so underdeveloped was thinking on the problemfrom the left that Allen titled a late 1960s work Can White Radicals BeRadicalized? However, in sharp contrast with some others who embracedthe term ›white skin privilege‹, such as the Weatherman tendency insideStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) and then after it, the analysis re-garded white workers as capable of being drawn to revolutionary actions.As they learned not be deterred from pursuing their long-term interests bymeager and even pitiful short-term and relative advantages, such workerswould, on this view, come to see struggles for liberation of other racescentral to the movement of a class.15

As it was put in the title of a 1967 pamphlet to which Allen con-tributed, Understanding and Fighting White Supremacy, became his dualtasks, inseparable and deadly serious. The simultaneous argument forboth the overwhelming weight of race in social control throughout U.S.history, and the possibility that its weight could shift and change the mo-mentum of struggles decisively made Allen elaborate history, and espe-

14 Jeffrey Perry: In Memoriam, p. 3 (›proletarianized‹), cf. ibid., pp. 1-4; Jonathan Scott:Introductory Notes on Theodore Allen’s ›Base and Superstructure and the SocialistPerspective‹, pp. 77 ff.

15 Cf. Michael Staudenmaier: Revolutionaries Who Tried to Think, pp. 7 ff.; Jeffrey Perry:In Memoriam, pp. 4-8; Michael Staudenmaier: The White-Skin Privilege Concept.

16 David Roediger

cially the colonial histories of Ireland and Virginia, very carefully. Bythe time of his 1975 pamphlet Class Struggle and the Origin of RacialSlavery: The Invention of the White Race Allen had made the interra-cial Bacon’s Rebellion the key event in his accounting of the turn to raceas the centerpiece of class control by Virginia’s elite and in his subtitlehad set out the agenda of his research over the next two decades. In hisepic two volumes on that invention, the British development of interme-diate control strata to enforce colonialism in Ireland provides not onlya comparative case to seventeenth century Virginia but also one whoselessons were inter-imperially deployed in ruling North American places.The effect of concentrating on the two cases is to divorce racial oppres-sion from the timelessness of allegedly natural realities, to make it anhistorical phenomenon, but a very longstanding and often decisive one.

Allen’s collaborator, Noel Ignatin, would also become a leading fig-ure in writing the critical history of whiteness a quarter century later,by then writing under the name Noel Ignatiev. Ignatin, born in Philadel-phia, dropped out of University of Pennsylvania in the early 1960s andfor twenty-three years worked in Chicago and elsewhere in the steel,farm equipment, and electrical industries, gaining skills as an electricianand machinist. He met Allen around efforts to reconstitute a communistmovement in the 1960s. The two joined forces on a pamphlet addressing›white skin privilege‹ in 1967. Ignatin went from Students for a Demo-cratic Society (SDS) to become a central figure in the Sojourner TruthOrganization (STO) from its founding in 1969 through the 1970s. STOdistinctively mixed Leninism, workplace- (but not trade union-) based or-ganizing, attraction to the ideas on race, class and nation of the Trinida-dian revolutionary C. L. R. James, efforts at critical solidarity with Blackand Puerto Rican revolutionaries, and close study of both U.S. historyand of the historical materialism generally.

Active on many fronts, Ignatin particularly wrote on race and theworking class, processing experiences within plants in the 1972 speechcirculated internally as ›Black Worker, White Worker‹ and published in1974 as Black Workers, White Workers. The talk described white work-ers’ identity as the result of ›sweetheart agreement‹ between bosses andthem. That agreement left bosses still bosses and workers as workers whohad learned to »HUG THE CHAINS OF AN ACTUAL WRETCHEDNESS«.The analysis was controversial even inside STO. When ›Radical Amer-ica‹ published it, editors issued objections in a sort preamble even asthey ran the piece.16 Twenty years later Ignatiev’s How the Irish Became

16 Noel Ignatin: Black Workers, White Workers, pp. 40, 47 and 41-60; Michael Stauden-


White would wrestle with similar questions of how to balance consentand coercion as they intertwined in making some workers white in thenineteenth century U.S.

Though separated from Ignatiev in age by only a decade, my own ex-periences were those of a different political generation, joining the NewLeft late its evolution in 1969 and coming to be an SDS leader in 1970 ina vibrant chapter on the isolated Northern Illinois University campus ata time when the organization had finished its national existence, but wewere not told. My political experience in SDS, the revolutionary socialistRed Rose Bookstore Collective, and the pro-strike and anti-Nazi Chicagoorganization called Workers Defense, featured very much an orthodoxMarxist education, leavened by encounters with a declining movementfor Black Power, with a rising movement for women’s liberation, withsurrealism, and with old-time libertarian Marxists gathered in the collec-tive running the Charles H. Kerr Company, the world’s oldest socialistpublisher. I chaired Kerr’s board in parts of the 80s and 90s.

That my work is sometimes linked to the post- (and anti-) Marxism ofChantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau is thus remarkable in that I actuallyresisted even much use of Antonio Gramsci’s increasingly mainstreamedMarxist work as a concession to reformism. Similarly, the emphasis insome of my work on the coinage and usage of ›keywords‹ – for example›boss‹, ›master‹, and ›greaser‹ – for better and worse came not from deepknowledge of what Arnesen calls »the growing appeal of cultural studies,with its emphasis on [. . . ] word play«, but from the British Marxism ofRaymond Williams and the Russian Marxism of M. M. Bakhtin.17

Similarly, the attempt in Wages of Whiteness to put the choices ofantebellum white workers to define themselves as ›not slaves‹ and ›notblack‹ in the context of processing the alienation and time discipline at-tendant on proletarianization, rather than simply in the context of inter-racial labor competition, was informed decisively by consideration of thework of the British Marxist historian E. P. Thompson.18 When SouthAfrican solidarity work became the focus of my activism in the late 80sand 90s, the attendant learning was again principally from Marxists, espe-cially those attempting to open discussions of ›racial capitalism‹, so that

maier: Unorthodox Leninism, passim; id.: Revolutionaries Who Tried to Think, pp. 11-27 and 31-37.

17 Cf. David Roediger: Wages of Whiteness, p. 17, n. 34 and Eric Arnesen: WhitenessStudies and the Historians’ Imagination, p. 4; on Laclau and Mouffe, cf. Sharon Smith:Race, Class, ›Whiteness Theory‹ at http://www.isreview.org/issues/46/whiteness.shtmland Roediger: Wages of Whiteness, p. 17, n. 28.

18 David Roediger: Wages of Whiteness, pp. 9, 95.

18 David Roediger

among the most cherished responses to Wages of Whiteness became forme Jeremy Krikler’s attempt to adapt some of its ideas to South Africanhistory.19

For others too interventions in working class struggles shaped schol-arship on whiteness. The leading study of the labor process and the whiteworker came in Bruce Nelson’s 2001 volume Divided We Stand: Ameri-can Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality. Nelson dropped out ofBerkeley to become a radical labor activist for most of the 1970s, workingon a truck assembly line before pursuing a doctorate. Venus Green, whosemagnificent Race on the Line remains the most insightful account of howwhiteness functioned in a context of labor, skill and law in one industrylabored and organized in the telephone industry that she studies for a longperiod before completing a Columbia Ph.D.20 Karen Brodkin warmed upto writing her How Jews Became White Folks by completing a wonder-ful anthropological account of multiracial struggles of hospital workers,an account she cast as one of solidarity as well as scholarship. GeorgeLipsitz, whose The Possessive Investment in Whiteness stands among themost-cited of the seminal works under consideration here, »enrolled ingraduate school hoping to learn enough about labor history to understandour failure« after the rout of a radical collective he joined in the early1970s to support an oppositional rank-and-file caucus in a Teamsters Lo-cal in St. Louis.21

Confluences

Several webs drew us partly together well before the 1990s, beyond theclose collaboration of Ignatin and Allen. Lipsitz and I were in St. Louis,and around the same oppositional labor groups, at about the same timein the early 70s and came to know each other through mutual admirationfor the St. Louis-based Marxist historian George Rawick, whose 1972classic From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Communityclosed with an extended meditation on the origins and costs of whiteness.Rawick, Allen, and Ignatin all wrote widely circulated, often reprinted,and deeply provocative articles on race and class for the sometimes SDS-connected journal ›Radical America‹, also a major source of work by C.

19 Cf. Jeremy Krikler: Lessons from America; Allison Drew, David Binns: Prospects forSocialism in South Africa.

20 Cf. Bruce Nelson’s website at http://www.dartmouth.edu/ history/faculty/nelson.html;Venus Green: Race on the Line, pp. ix ff.

21 George Lipsitz: Conversations with Scholars of American Popular Culture, p. 4; KarenBrodkin: Studying Whiteness, pp. 1 ff.; Karen Brodkin Sacks: Caring by the Hour.


L. R. James, a major direct influence on Ignatin and, through Rawick, onLipsitz and myself. My most reread source on James was the 1981 specialissue of the Sojourner Truth Organization’s special issue of Urgent Tasksdevoted to him, for which Ignatin, Rawick and I all wrote.

In the late 1970s, when I met Ignatin in Chicago, it was through mu-tual friendships with members of the Chicago Surrealist Group, espe-cially Penny and Franklin Rosemont, the latter of whom eventually pro-duced a brilliant article on the history and logic of surrealism’s critiqueof whiteness, published in ›Race Traitor‹ under the co-editorship of Ig-natiev (formerly Ignatin). Although we disagreed sharply on the role oftrade unions at the time, a particular formulation in Ignatin’s ›RadicalAmerica‹ reflections on Black and white workers had very much enteredmy consciousness: »the key problem is not the racism of the employ-ing class, but the racism of the white worker (after all, the boss’s racismis natural to him because it serves his class interests)«.22 As much as Inow regard the two problems as inextricably linked, the emphasis on thewhite worker’s centrality to the racial order was a hard-won insight avail-able in few other places on the left, save those dismissing white workersaltogether.

When book-length works on whiteness and the ›white blindspot‹ inU.S. history began to appear several major works appeared in one series,with Haymarket list from Verso/New Left Books publishing the work ofSaxton, Allen and myself, under the editing of Mike Davis and MichaelSprinker. The Haymarket Series likewise published Vron Ware’s Beyondthe Pale and Fred Pfeil’s White Guys as early and important interventionsin the newly developing field. I was the press’ reader for Allen’s works,offering little to improve his force and eloquence, but some advice onhow to pare the manuscript’s daunting length and to divide it into twovolumes. When Verso later reissued Saxton’s White Republic, I wrote theforeword.23

The extent and meaning of such connections can be overstated. Forexample, Allen and I met only once, despite his staying on a first-namebasis throughout the writing of his massive critique On Roediger’s Wagesof Whiteness. Nor, of course, did a common commitment to Marxism im-ply agreement on particulars, with the tone and content of that same Allenessay providing a good example, right down to Ted’s rejection of the veryterm ›whiteness‹. (These, however, were political arguments in which it

22 Noel Ignatin: Black Workers, White Workers, p. 47; for the previous see Franklin Rose-mont: Surrealism.

23 Cf. Alexander Saxton: Rise and Fall of the White Republic.

20 David Roediger

should be said that Allen’s tone was far more balanced and comradelythan glosses on his position have been).24

The common choice by Ignatiev, Allen, and myself of the experi-ences of the Irish as keys to white racial formation makes sense in termsof Marx’s and Engels’s own emphases on the Irish as central to how theBritish working class was divided and ruled, but our various accountsof the Irish spin in very different directions, separated by centuries intime and an ocean in space.25 In the balance of this article, some ofdifferences among the early U.S. writers of critical histories of white-ness will become clear, especially concerning the use of psychoanalysis.These were, however, differences among Marxists, not, as is sometimesargued, differences between Marxism and cultural studies. As Ignatievputs it in characterizing of his work, mine, Saxton’s and Allen’s »whatthese works have in common [. . . ] is that they take class struggle as theirstarting point« – class struggle, as we shall see, as theorized especiallyin a moment of high and grounded appreciation of the work of BlackMarxists.26

In a high compliment marred only by his desire to be dismissiveand offensive, the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz has called the crit-ical study of whiteness »black nationalism by another means«.27 Someof the writers above might demur from the specific terminology, feel-ing need to distinguish between narrow and revolutionary nationalismsor even to note the narrowness in all nationalism. However termed, ina broad sense the impact of African American struggles and thought,especially in the moment of Black Power, shaped the critical study ofwhiteness decisively. Suddenly, there was a ›white left‹ named as suchand even developing self-awareness and self-critique. There was, after themid-60s articulations of Black Power, after the statements of the StudentNon-Violent Coordinating Committee on the need for white radicals toorganize among whites and against white supremacy, and above all aftertremendous motion by Black industrial workers in Detroit and elsewhere,a new possibility opened for a pamphlet like Allen’s late 60s interventionCan White Radicals Be Radicalized? to be written and read. There was,as Ignatiev memorably put it in the early 70s, a »civil war in the mind«

24 Cf. Theodore Allen: On Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness, pp. 1-27 and Gregory Meyer-son: Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Labor Competition, passim.

25 Cf. Noel Ignatin: White Blindspot, p. 9; Noel Ignatiev: How the Irish Became White,passim; David Roediger: Wages of Whiteness, pp. 133-163; Theodore Allen: Inventionof the White Race, vol. 1, pp. 152-158.

26 Noel Ignatiev: Whiteness and Class Struggle, p. 228.27 Wilentz as quoted in Margaret Talbot: Getting Credit for Being White, p. 119.


of some white workers as they reacted to the appeals of the energy andsuccess of Black workers’ struggles.28

The realization, as Ignatiev later wrote, that »[a]s a matter of survival,the direct victims of white privilege have always studied it«, became es-pecially powerful in this context of glimmers of white left self-awarenessand of a too-often ignored continuing common work among Black andwhite radicals during the Black Power period.29 The specific contribu-tion that Ignatin first, and I later, found in the example and writing ofC. L. R. James, was a longstanding insistence that struggles for AfricanAmerican liberation were not separate from or subsidiary to the ques-tion of class conflict. This became an important argument for the need toencourage white workers to support Black liberation as their struggle.30

The approach to the connection of immigration and whiteness, and to thesenses in which some despised and poor European immigrants ›becamewhite‹ in the U.S., very much grew from the essays of James Baldwin.Most of these came to be collected in his The Price of the Ticket, the ti-tle of which connects whiteness, migration and misery in the U.S. Butin terms of offering a ›plot‹ for the racialized history of immigration, itwas Baldwin’s short, direct and popular 1984 piece On Being ›White‹and Other Lies in the African American fashion magazine ›Essence‹ thatgave us the decisive formulation: »White men – from Norway, for ex-ample, where they were Norwegians, became white by slaughtering thecattle, poisoning the wells, torching the houses, massacring Native Amer-icans, raping Black women«. However much this dramatic rendering re-quired more – for example, more of the sense and practice of race ofthe Irish in Ireland and the British Empire before coming – it distilled atruth that opened tremendous intellectual space in immigration history.Ignatiev, who made me aware of the ›Essence‹ article, most ably claimedthat space in his How the Irish Became White.31

Apprehending Du Bois

Such connections among African American thought, Black Power, andthe critical history of whiteness focused especially on multiple and long-

28 Noel Ignatiev: Black Workers, White Workers, p. 42.29 Noel Ignatiev: Whiteness and Class Struggle, p. 228.30 Cf. Scott McLemee (ed.): C. L. R. James on the ›Negro Question‹, passim.31 David Roediger (ed.): Black on White, pp. 177 f. (›Norwegians‹); see James Baldwin:

The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, esp. pp. xix, 409-414, 425-433, 667-675; Noel Ignatiev: ›Whiteness‹ and American Character; Noel Ignatiev: How the IrishBecame White.

22 David Roediger

standing apprehensions of the great African-American thinker and mili-tant W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America gavesubsequent writers both the terminology and the model with which toundertake their tasks. Thus Ignatin’s and Allen’s use of the term ›whiteblindspot‹, both in their 1969 pamphlet and afterwards, modifies a linefrom that Du Bois volume; in titling his article on race and shopfloordynamics Black Worker, White Worker, Ignatin used the first two chap-ter titles from Du Bois’s masterpiece, the first work to problematize the›white worker‹. The very idea of the ›wages of whiteness‹ came fromBlack Reconstruction’s memorable phrase regarding the »public and psy-chological wage« afforded to poor white Southerners after the Civil War,wages making them privileged and keeping them poor and in line. In-deed, Ignatiev wrote in a 2003 essay in Historical Materialism: »Amongscholars it was W. E. B. Du Bois who first called attention to the problemof the white worker«.32

Within the Communist Party, and the web of relations to AfricanAmerican organizations it maintained, Saxton and Allen encountered DuBois’s ideas in a way unavailable within the white academic mainstream,especially during the post-World War 2 period in which anti-Communistrepression sought to target and marginalize Du Bois. Saxton, as it hap-pened, shared both a hometown (Great Barrington, Massachusetts), anda university (Harvard) with Du Bois. And yet as Saxton later wrote, nei-ther place taught him about Du Bois. »What I learned about Du Bois«,he wrote, »I learned from the Communist Party«, whose literature repre-sentative sold Saxton Black Reconstruction at a time when it was largelyignored.

Similarly, Theodore Allen’s long experience in the Party left himknowing enough of the work of Du Bois to make it the basis of his rewrit-ing of U.S. history from the mid-1960s onward.33 As the radical labor ac-tivist and historian Jeff Perry, Theodore Allen’s literary executor, notedin a memorial after the latter’s death, Black Reconstruction informed thedesign of Allen’s historical writings from the start, namely mid-1960sattempts to overcome »the white blindspot« in a study of the Civil War,Populism and the Great Depression. In reacting to what he rightly saw

32 Noel Ignatin: White Blindspot; Noel Ignatiev: ›The American Blindspot‹, p. 243 (onDu Bois on the American Blindspot) and passim; Jeffrey Perry: In Memoriam, p. 4;David Roediger: Wages of Whiteness, p. 12; W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Reconstruction inAmerica, pp. 3-31 and 700 f. (›public and psychological wage‹); Noel Ignatiev: White-ness and Class Struggle, p. 227 (›first called attention‹).

33 Cf. Alexander Saxton: The Great Midland, p. xxiv; Noel Ignatiev: ›The AmericanBlindspot‹, p. 250.


as unjust neglect of Invention of the White Race by scholars late in hislife Allen took comfort in the view that the dynamic called to mind »the›white-centric‹ attitude that greeted the appearance of Du Bois’s BlackReconstruction, the classic class-struggle interpretation of the history ofthe post-Civil War South«. It was Allen who introduced Black Recon-struction to Ignatin.34

My own experiences in studying with the great African American ex-pert on Du Bois, and on Black nationalism and class, Sterling Stuckey,likewise made for constant readings and re-readings of Black Reconstruc-tion. Indeed more broadly, when I collected the writings for the editedvolume Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White,fully two-thirds of the selections were from classic readings in AfricanAmerican history I had done with Stuckey. While it is most often pointedout that Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction inspired the title of Wages ofWhiteness, it structured the book multiply and even entirely.

It was the ability to be able to see profound motion and tragicallypersistent patterns regarding race – to place the self-activity of Blackworker and the whiteness of the white worker at the very center of U.S.history – that made a Du Bois so indispensable. When, for example, Ig-natiev undertook an extended comparison of Du Bois’s work on Recon-struction with the more-publicized accounts provided by Eric Foner, heinsisted that the idea of a »general strike of the slaves« – so critical inDu Bois’s view of war and emancipation and so attenuated in Foner –made the two works qualitatively different. At stake was the centrality ofself-emancipation of slaves and the knowledge that this motion createdthe possibility that white workers might seek something more than being›not slaves‹.

From the first line onward, Du Bois insisted that Black Reconstruc-tion was »drama« and later that it was »tragedy«, as well. Du Bois por-trayed Black workers as at the center of everything as »the real modernlabor problem«. Emancipation brought an »upward moving of white la-bor«, but reassertions of white supremacy followed. In one of countlessformulations that show Du Bois linking the origins of race with capital-ism, but not adopting the farfetched view that white supremacy could notin turn be itself a decisive factor in class rule, he wrote that »color castefounded and retained by capitalism« was during and after Reconstruc-tion »adopted, forwarded and approved by white labor«. In the post-Civil

34 Jeffrey Perry: In Memoriam, p. 4 (›blindspot‹); Jonathan Scott, Gregory Meyerson: AnInterview with Theodore W. Allen, pp. 1 f. (›white-centric‹); Noel Ignatiev: ›The Amer-ican Blindspot‹, p. 243, n. 1.

24 David Roediger

War South and the world, »[w]hen white laborers were convinced thatthe degradation of Negro Labor was more fundamental than the uplift ofwhite labor, the end was in sight«.35

In trying to explain why white labor acquiesced (and more) in suchtragedies, all the while able to »discern in [them] no part of our labormovement«, Du Bois produced the passage that came to give Wages ofWhiteness its title. The passage begins with an acknowledgement that thegroup under consideration, white Southern laborers during Reconstruc-tion, »received a low wage«, as they would have to in a devastated anddefeated region. However, they »were compensated in part by a sort ofpublic and psychological wage [. . . ] because they were white«. »Publicdeference and titles of courtesy« accrued to them, as did admission toparks and the best schools Police »were drawn from their ranks«, andlegal structures, »dependent on their votes«, kept them out of jail. Thefranchise had »small effect upon the economic situation«, but much onperceptions of dignity, Du Bois adds, elaborating a litany of matters goingto both policy and psychology.36

It has been objected that treating the ›the wages of whiteness‹ in sig-nificant measure as psychological seems to dismiss the material benefitsalso forthcoming, with Ignatiev allowing that I perhaps took the mate-rial dimensions for granted. This is true enough but it also applies toDu Bois’s attempts in the original to show how a system worked whenresources of rulers were so meager that little buying off of anyone waspossible. My own task was also to describe a situation – the antebellumNorth – in which the small Black population meant that a labor marketcould not be shaped wholesale by racial competition and segmentationand ideological, psychological, political and cultural appeals to whitesmattered much more than immediate economic self-interest. Ignatiev isquite right that this was not always and everywhere the case.

In any case the main criticism from outside of Marxism was of a muchdifferent order, and by its very extremity perhaps helped Ignatiev and I tosee how close our positions were on a larger political spectrum. Arnesen,after a desultory attempt to develop and contextualize Du Bois’s ideas onthe ›public and psychological wage‹ suddenly shifted gears in a featuredInternational Labor and Working Class History essay to make Du Bois

35 W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Reconstruction in America, pp. 3 and 727 (›drama‹, ›tragedy‹),16 (›modern labor problem‹), 30 (›upward moving‹, ›color caste‹), 347 (›degradation‹);cf. Noel Ignatiev: ›The American Blindspot‹, pp. 244 and passim.

36 W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Reconstruction in America, pp. 700 f.; concerning the follow-ing see Noel Ignatiev: Whiteness and Class Struggle, pp. 230 f.; David Roediger: Wagesof Whiteness: pp. 6-12; Theodore Allen: On Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness, p. 7.


the problem. At first seeming – the writing is exceptionally unclear –to accuse ›whiteness studies‹ of adopting a superficial, decontextualizedreading of Du Bois, he then focuses on accusing Du Bois himself of em-bodying a foolish »Marxism-lite«. It then turns out that the ›lite-ness‹consists of adhering to the idea that workers have interests in common,not really one of the frothier notions of Marxism.37

Whatever else divided our views, it seems certain that Saxton, Allen,Ignatiev and myself took for granted that Du Bois had made anythingbut a ›lite‹ intervention into Marxism. Indeed Paul Richards 1970 articlein ›Radical America‹, W. E. B. Du Bois and American Social History:The Evolution of a Marxist described Black Reconstruction as we allwould have, not simply as Marxist but as central to any development ofan ›American Marxism‹. So ingrained was this assumption that my ownplacement of Du Bois after a section on the deficiencies of much Marx-ist writing was undoubtedly insufficiently clear for this reason. Neverimagining that Du Bois would be seen as a ›post-Marxist‹, let alone as›Marxism-lite‹, I took for granted that Black Reconstruction developed,rather than departed from (or debased) Marxist theory. That positionmade sense among the milieu writing early critical histories of white-ness, but led regrettably to confusion among a broader audience and astime passed.38

Marxism and Psychoanalysis

Deriding any taking seriously of psychoanalytical insights has emergedas a point of overwrought unity between rightward-drifting critics likeArnesen and left ones like Gregory Meyerson.39 But even here the de-bates ought to acknowledge that the use of the ideas of Freud and otherpsychoanalytical writers in Wages of Whiteness, came out of Marxismand Black revolutionary traditions.

A story regarding the great Marxist and psychoanalytical politicalscientist Michael Rogin perhaps provides a useful point of entry. WhenWages of Whiteness appeared, even with the example of Saxton’s Riseand Fall of the White Republic at hand, I worried that my work was be-

37 Eric Arnesen: Whiteness and the Historians’ Imagination, pp. 9-11, esp. 10 (›lite‹); PaulRichards: W. E. B. Du Bois and American Social History, pp. 62 and 56-61.

38 Paul Richards: W. E. B. Du Bois and American Social History, pp. 62 and 56-61; An-drew Hartman: The Rise and Fall of Whiteness Studies, p. 34 (›post-Marxist‹).

39 Eric Arnesen: Whiteness and the Historians’ Imagination, pp. 21-23; Gregory Meyer-son: Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Labor Competition, passim; Frank Towers: Project-ing Whiteness, pp. 47-57.

26 David Roediger

yond all boundaries of acceptability, even intelligibility, and would beroundly attacked. Before reviews much appeared, Rogin sent me a draftof his essay on the book, slated to appear in ›Radical History Review‹.I did not know him at the time, only his extraordinary scholarship. Thegenerous and long review essay he wrote reassured me about the book’sreception – indeed it put the book’s arguments more clearly and adven-turesomely than I had. But there was one problem: Throughout the piece,in total dozens of times – the draft misspelled my name as ›Roedinger‹.After hesitating, I contacted him with thanks and with the hope that cor-rections might be made. They were, but the real payoff was Rogin’s re-sponse to me. He excitedly said that the error should be read as a tribute,an attempt to smuggle in an ›n‹ so that all letters in his name would be inmine as well, making him a ›father‹ of the book.

The response underlined what I already knew, that Rogin took psy-choanalysis more seriously than I. But it also sent me back to Rogin’sFathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the Amer-ican Indian, which I had remembered mainly for its ›psychohistory‹, butwhich also tellingly deployed Marxist categories of accumulation andwhich featured a long first section, amounting to a third of the book, ti-tled ›White‹. In that sense, Rogin was rightly claiming, at the level ofmethods (including historical materialism) and content, to have been a›father‹ of critical histories of whiteness. When Saxton was a graduatestudent at Berkeley, Rogin, who later became a leading student of white-ness and immigration, was one of his mentors.40

While, like many New Left students, I read attempts to bringMarx and Freud together – Herbert Marcuse, Norman O. Brown, JulietMitchell, Eli Zaretsky, Wilhelm Reich and above all Frantz Fanon –the specific possibility of applying insights from these works to race inU.S. history came through appreciation of the closing chapters of GeorgeRawick’s From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Commu-nity. There Rawick departed from his classic history of slavery to probemodern racism more broadly, especially in its early phases after Europe’s›discovery‹ of the Americas and expanded slave trade with Africa. Dur-ing this transition to capitalism, Rawick argued, the various repressions ofdesire required to fashion societies and personalities devoted to the accu-mulation of capital exacted tremendous human costs. Especially among

40 Iain Boal: In Memoriam, passim, esp. on Rogin’s ties to radical labor movements; LauraMulvey: Professor Michael Rogin; Michael Rogin: Black Masks, White Skin; id.: Fa-thers and Children, pp. xxxiv, 2 f., 19-113 and 165-205; id.: Blackface, White Noise;Robert Rydell: Grand Crossings, p. 279.


slave-traders and colonial slaveholders, white racism came to be devel-oped, indeed invented, hard by such repressions.

The Africans met and commoditized as part of the development ofplantation economies came to be seen as embodiments not only of ownedlabor, but also of the desires that elites had only recently, and only par-tially, repressed. In organizing their own disappointments and desires,elites imagined Black workers as both degraded and as possessed of tiesto nature, eroticism, and pre-capitalist work rhythms that held appealeven as they were deplored. In Rawick’s memorable phrasing, »[t]he En-glishman«, in such interactions, »met the West African as a reformed sin-ner meets a comrade of his previous debaucheries«, all the while creating»a pornography of his former life«.

Rawick, who as my friend and mentor taught me much about Marx-ism in the 70s and 80s, relied at key points on Marcuse, Fanon, Freud,and especially on the Austrian-born Marxist associate of Freud, WilhelmReich. Reich’s Nazi-era work attempted to understand the Mass Psychol-ogy of Fascism, as based on character structures wedded to both internal-izing and dealing out misery. Rawick called Reich’s Character Analysis»that great underground classic of modern thought« and held that his ownanalysis of white supremacist and master class ideology »could not havebeen written without [Reich’s] monumental attempt to relate Marx andFreud«. Rawick, a friend in the 1950s of Reich’s socialist associate, thepsychoanalyst Erich Fromm, risked much in so deeply calling on psy-choanalysis. C. L. R. James, for whom Rawick served as personal assis-tant in the 60s, found From Sundown to Sunup to be »the best thing Ihave read on slavery«, predicting it »will make history«. However, evenJames sharply registered displeasure with its Freudian closing chapters.Nonetheless such risks were incurred from within Marxism.41

My perhaps-too-simple analysis in Wages of Whiteness took Rawick’swork on race, slavery and early capitalism into the realm of the North-ern white working class formation in the antebellum period of workingclass formation. As proletarianization brought new losses of access to thecommons and new forms of time discipline and social regimentation tofar greater numbers of people, white workers processed loss by projectingonto Black workers what they still desired in terms of imagined absenceof alienation, even as they bridled at being treated as ›white niggers‹.42

41 George Rawick: Listening to Revolt, pp. xlii (James’s reaction), 102 (›reformed sin-ner‹), 180, n. 9 (on debts to Reich) and 31, 66, 162, 93-119; generally, see JohnAbromeit: Whiteness as a Form of Bourgeois Anthropology.

42 David Roediger: Wages of Whiteness, pp. 66-84; id.: Notes on Working Class Racism,pp. 61-67 explores specifics debts to Rawick.

28 David Roediger

There were likewise other inspirations beyond Rawick, as I had be-gun close association with the surrealist movement, where commitmentsto Marx and Freud coexisted. Especially through friendly debates withthe surrealist writers Paul Garon and Franklin Rosemont, I increasinglylearned about the older writings on racism of the important organizer of aglobal network of Marxist psychoanalysts, Otto Fenichel, and of SandorFerenci, as well as the more recent work of Joel Kovel.43

As importantly, I have come to understand that psychoanalysis wasthere at the beginnings with Du Bois’s choice to discuss a specifically›psychological wage‹ as central to white identity. The useful recent schol-arship on Du Bois and psychoanalysis at times gravitates too easily to-wards connections between ›double consciousness‹ and Freud’s ideas.However, since Du Bois had not read Freud when he wrote about ›dou-ble consciousness‹ in The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, such affinities hadto exist at a high level of abstraction regarding ideas emerging among›intellectual contemporaries‹.44

As Du Bois had it in his 1940 autobiography Dusk of Dawn, it wasin about 1930 that »the meaning and implications of the new psychologyhad begun slowly to penetrate my thought. My own study of psychology[. . . ] had pre-dated the Freudian era, but it prepared me for it. I nowbegan to realize that in the fight against race prejudice, we were not facingsimply the rational, conscious determination of white folk to oppress us;we were facing the age-long complexes sunk now largely to unconscioushabit and irrational urge«.45

In 1935, midway between that realization and Dusk of Dawn, Du Boispublished Black Reconstruction, which could thus hardly have used thephrase ›psychological wage‹ lightly. There is a sense then in which, thecritic Andrew Hartman, though fully unsympathetic to the Freudian ap-proach, is onto something in his overstatement that »Roediger furthers DuBois’s psychoanalysis«, though I certainly did not know enough about DuBois and Freud to see this dimension when I first wrote. In short, giventhese multiply Marxist inspirations, Bruce Laurie’s recent review essaycould not be more startlingly wrong when it connects the use of psycho-

43 David Roediger: Colored White, pp. 40 and 252, n. 36. On Fenichel, see Russell Jacoby:The Repression of Psychoanalysis.

44 Peter Coviello: Intimacy and Affliction, pp. 2 and 3-37; Christina Zwarg: Du Bois onTrauma. All of the material on Du Bois and psychoanalysis benefitted from research byDonovan Roediger.

45 W. E. B. Du Bois: Dusk of Dawn, pp. 295 f.; Shannon Sullivan: On Revealing White-ness, pp. 231 f.


analysis in my work to examples provided by the Southern conservativehistorian David Donald.46

As in the case of James’s reaction to Rawick, some of the early writersof critical histories of whiteness deplored the bits of psychoanalysis inWages of Whiteness. Allen in particular found »resort to the languageof psychoanalysis« unfortunate, but he to a surprising extent joined thefray, praising much in the work of Kovel and Fanon, though on somewhatnarrow bases, including the improbable view that Fanon »proceeded fromMarxist economic determinist premises«. Saxton’s firm judgment wasthat »difficulties seem exceptionally severe for psychohistory because ofits assumption that real causes are psychic ones that can be approachedonly through metaphorical interpretation«.47

This stance so impresses Hartman that his review essay hinges its pro-nouncement that Saxton is the best historian of whiteness – I agree – onit. It so impresses Eric Arnesen that he exempts Saxton from even hav-ing to be considered within the benighted study of whiteness. However,Saxton’s categorical pronouncements come as he explains why psycho-analysis cannot explain the origins of white supremacy, again a positionwith which I agree. Shortly thereafter, he discusses John Quincy Adams’sviews on Othello in a very different way and explains, »I am of coursebringing forward an argument previously rejected, to the effect that whiteEuropean Americans constructed metaphors linking African blackness toshameful actions and to the dark passions of sexuality«. He continued:»While I consider this [psychohistorical] argument unpersuasive as anexplanation for the initiation of African slavery, it seems to work plau-sibly well when placed in a dependent relationship to prior ideologicalproductions« – also a position with which I agree.48

Ignatiev meanwhile found that Wages of Whiteness »errs« by losingtrack of »attendant material advantage« without which there could hardlybe sustained »psychological value of the white skin«. However, he added,»I do not know enough about psychoanalysis to venture a judgment onhow much it can explain by itself«. Rogin, Rawick, and Rosemont, onthe other hand very much championed the use of psychoanalysis, thoughnot by itself. Like so much else, this is a question on which Marxists dif-

46 Andrew Hartman: Rise and Fall of Whiteness Studies, p. 35; Bruce Laurie: Workers,Abolitionists, and the Historians, p. 36.

47 Theodore Allen: On Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness, p. 9 (both ›resort‹ and ›economicdeterminist‹); Alexander Saxton: Rise and Fall of the White Republic, pp. xvi, 13 (›ex-ceptionally severe‹); the following quote is from ibid., p. 89 (›previously rejected‹).

48 Andrew Hartman: The Rise and Fall of Whiteness Studies, pp. 35 f.; Eric Arnesen:Whiteness and the Historians’ Imagination, pp. 27, n. 4 and 31, n. 83.

30 David Roediger

fer, though not as starkly as some retrospective accounts of early criticalwhite histories imply.49

Past and Present

A closing clarification of just what is claimed in this article is apposite, asare brief remarks on the field today and the continuing if diffuse impactof its radical origins. The argument is that the Marxist left generated themost influential early historical studies of whiteness in the U.S. past. Theclaim is not that by virtue of their historical materialist origins that thoseworks are therefore correct or complete. Indeed many of their gaps in mywork particularly might better be traced to their origins in the specificdebates and movements I have outlined above. The relative inattention togender, which Allen remarked on near the end of his life, is one example.I have attempted with mixed success to remedy this blindspot in Wagesof Whiteness, but to date more by adding rather than fundamentally re-thinking the whole ensemble of social relations.

We would been better poised perhaps if we had followed James Bald-win’s relationship to psychoanalysis, with its rich dimensions of sexualityand gender as well as race, as well as Du Bois’s invocation of psychol-ogy. Similarly, as my exchange with Rogin suggested, the classic Marxistdebates are much more at home discussing the relation of whiteness toslavery than to settler colonialism, another problem only beginning to beaddressed in my own work.50 Likewise it seems possible that a particulardesire to unearth the story of how white workers forwarded racism leftthe relationship of whiteness to capital and to management relatively un-derdeveloped.51 But however deep these deficiencies, which might makeus as Marxists think about the possibility that we do have much to learnfrom other bodies of theory, it remains the case that both the errors andthe considerable strengths in early critical histories of whiteness grew outof Marxism, in specific political moments.

More recent historical writing on whiteness in U.S. history hasemerged in a very different political context. As I argue at length inthe 2006 essay Whiteness and Its Complications, much such recent writ-ing on race in the U.S. is best understood as reflecting academic trends.

49 Noel Ignatiev: Whiteness and Class Struggle, pp. 230 f.50 Robyn Wiegman: Whiteness Studies and the Paradox of Particularity; Jonathan Scott,

Gregory Meyerson: An Interview with Theodore W. Allen, pp. 3 ff.; David Roediger:Colored White, pp. 103-137; id.: How Race Survived U.S. History, pp. 12-29, 51-63 and127 f.; Jean-Paul Rocchi: Dying Metaphors and Deadly Fantasies, pp. 159-177.

51 Elizabeth Esch, David Roediger: ›One Symptom of Originality‹.


Such scholarship has much to teach those of us writing from a Marxistperspective and has often learned much from us.52 More recent socialmovements animate some of the best recent work. The important schol-arship of Thomas Guglielmo on Italian Americans and whiteness, forexample, grows from the defense of affirmative action, as did the bestsingle piece of writing on whiteness published in the 90s. Cheryl Harris’sWhiteness as Property.53 Radical scholars who wonderfully use the crit-ical study of whiteness as one element in ambitious books seeking to un-derstand a multiracial working class have taken the lead in charting newpaths. Indeed the successes of Moon-Kie Jung’s study of Hawaii, PhylisCancilla Martinelli’s of Arizona, and David Chang’s of Oklahoma, Jen-nifer Guglielmo’s of Italian immigrant women workers in astonishinglydiverse workplaces, struggles, and communities all suggest that just asthe critical study of whiteness emerged from ethnic studies, its most ap-posite move is to return there, as part of broad inquiries not focusingon one race.54 Recent work most directly reflecting my influence devel-ops a far more profound understanding of gender as integral to class andracial formation.55 In addition to Krikler’s work on South Africa, ex-citing new historical writing on whiteness in the Pacific has appeared,reflecting influences ranging from the U.S. Marxism of Gerald Horne, tothe pro-indigenous and pro-immigrant commitments of Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Marilyn Lake, and Henry Reynolds.56 If the critical history ofwhiteness grew out of a small world of U.S. Marxists, it registers con-tinuing impact in a much different and wider one. Like that wider world,it badly needs new and stronger struggles and movements, and the ideasthat they generate.

ReferencesAbromeit, John: Whiteness as a Form of Bourgeois Anthropology. Historical Ma-

terialism in the Work of David Roediger, Max Horkheimer and Erich Fromm.Unpublished conference paper, Toronto, Historical Materialism Conference,May 2010.

52 David Roediger: Whiteness and Its Complications, pp. B6-B8.53 Thomas Guglielmo: White on Arrival; Cheryl Harris: Whiteness as Property.54 Moon-Kie Jung: Reworking Race; Phylis Cancilla Martinella: Undermining Race;

David Chang: The Color of the Land; Jennifer Guglielmo: Living the Revolution.55 Paul Taillon: Good, Reliable White Men; Jennifer Guglielmo: Living the Revolution.

Guglielmo and Taillon both worked with me as students.56 Jeremy Krikler: White Rising; Aileen Moreton-Robinson (ed.): Whitening Race; Mar-

ilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds: Drawing the Global Color Line.

32 David Roediger

Allen, Theodore W.: Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The In-vention of the White Race. Hoboken Education Project. Hoboken: RadicalEducation Project 1975.

—: On Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness. At: http://clogic.eserver.org/4-2/allen/html, 2002, pp. 1-27.

—: The Invention of the White Race. 2 Vol. (1: Racial Oppression and SocialControl; 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America). New York:Verso 1994 and 1997.

Arnesen, Eric: A Paler Shade of White. In: The New Republic, 226, 2002, 24,pp. 33-35.

—: Passion and Politics. Race and the Writing of Working-Class History. In: TheJournal of the Historical Society, 6, 2006, 3, pp. 323-356.

—: Whiteness Studies and the Historians’ Imagination. In: International Laborand Working Class History, 60, 2001, pp. 3-32.

Baldwin, James: The Price of the Ticket. Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985. NewYork: St. Martin’s/Marek 1985.

Boal, Iain: In Memorium [to Michael Rogin]. At: http://www.forensicgenesis.org/retort/msg00135.html, December 6, 2002.

Brodkin, Karen: How Jews Became White Folks & What That Says about Racein America. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press 1998.

—: Studying Whiteness Shouldn’t Be Academic. In: Borderlands E-Journal, 3,2004, 2. At: http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/brodkin_studying.htm.

Chang, David: The Color of Land. Race, Nation, and the Politics of Landown-ership in Oklahoma, 1832-1929. Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress 2010.

Coviello, Peter: Intimacy and Affliction. Du Bois, Race and Psychoanalysis. In:MLQ. Modern Language Quarterly, 64, 2003, 1, pp. 1-32.

Drew, Allison, David Binns: Prospects for Socialism in South Africa. An Inter-view with Neville Alexander. In: Journal of Communist Studies and Transi-tion Politics, 8, 1992, 4, pp. 251-274.

Du Bois, W. E. B.: Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880. New York:Atheneum, 1962 (originally 1962).

—: Dusk of Dawn. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers 2009 (originally1940).

Esch, Elizabeth, David Roediger: ›One Symptom of Originality‹. Race and theManagement of Labour in United States History. In: Historical Materialism,17, 2009, 4, pp. 3-43.

Fischhoff, Maya: For Dunster Tutor Noel Ignatiev. A Lifetime of Fighting ›In-justice‹. In: Harvard Crimson, May 18, 1992 at http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1992/5/18/for-dunster-tutor-noel-ignatiev-a/.

Fowler, Josephine: Transcribed Interview with Alexander Saxton. In: JosephineFowler Papers. Special Collections, Charles Young Library, University of Cal-ifornia, Los Angeles, Box 51, Folder 2.


Garvey, John, Noel Ignatiev: Race Traitor. New York: Routledge 1996.Green, Venus: Race on the Line. Gender, Labor and Technology in the Bell Sys-

tem, 1880-1980. Durham: Duke University Press 2001.Guglielmo, Jennifer: Living the Revolution. Italian Women’s Resistance and Rad-

icalism in New York City, 1880-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Car-olina Pres 2010.

Guglielmo, Thomas: White on Arrival. Italians, Race, Color, and Power inChicago, 1890-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003.

Harris, Cheryl: Whiteness as Property. In: Harvard Law Review, 106, 1993,pp. 1709-1795.

Hartman, Andrew: The Rise and Fall of Whiteness Studies. Race and Class, 46,2004, pp. 22-38.

Horne, Gerald: The White Pacific. U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in theSouth Seas After the Civil War. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 2006.

Horowitz, David: Ethnic Studies or Racism. At: http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=22652 at Frotpagemag.com, June 1, 1998.

Ignatiev, Noel: How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge 1995.—: Immigrants and Whites. In: Race Traitor, 2, 1993, pp. 60-67.—: ›The American Blindspot‹. Reconstruction According to Eric Foner and W.

E. B. Du Bois. In: Labour/Le Travail, 31, 1993, pp. 243-251.—: ›Whiteness‹ and American Character. An Essay. In: Konch, 1,

1990, 1, pp. 136-139.—: Whiteness and Class Struggle. In: Historical Materialism, 11, 2003, 4,

pp. 227-235.Ignatin, Noel: Black Workers, White Workers. In: Radical America, 8, 1974, 4,

pp. 41-60.—: White Blindspot. In: Understanding and Fighting White Supremacy, ed. by

id., Ted Allen. At: http://www.sojournertruth.net/whiteblindspot.html, 1967.Jacoby, Russell: The Repression of Psychoanalysis. Otto Fenichel and the Politi-

cal Freudians. New York: Basic Books 1983.Jung, Moon-Kie: Reworking Race. The Making of Hawaii’s Interracial Labor

Movement. New York: Columbia University Press 2006.Kelly, Brian: Introduction to the reprint of Bernard Mandel’s Labor: Free and

Slave. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2007, pp. ix-lxix.Kolchin, Peter: Whiteness Studies. The New History of Race in America. In:

Journal of American History, 89, 2002, 1, pp. 154-173.Krikler, Jeremy: Lessons from America. The Writings of David Roediger. In:

Journal of Southern African Studies, 20, 1994, pp. 663-669.—: White Rising. The 1922 Insurrection and Racial Killing in South Africa.

Manchester: Manchester University Press 2005.Lake, Marilyn, Henry Reynolds: Drawing the Global Color Line. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press 2008.Laurie, Bruce: Workers, Abolitionists, and the Historians. A Historiographical

Perspective. In Labor, 5, 2008, pp. 17-55.

34 David Roediger

Lipsitz, George: Conversations with Scholars of American Popular Culture. Fea-tured Guest George Lipsitz. In: Americana: The Journal of American PopularCulture 1900 to Present, 2002, at http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/spring_2002/lipsitz.htm., 9 pp.

—: The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress 1998.

Martinelli, Phylis Cancilla: Undermining Race. Ethnic Identities in Arizona Cop-per Camps. Tucson: University of Arizona Press 2009.

McLemee, Scott (ed.): C. L. R. James on the ›Negro Question‹. Jackson: Univer-sity of Mississippi Press 1996.

Meyerson, Gregory: Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Labor Competition. In: Cul-tural Logic http://clogic.eserver.org/1-1/meyerson.html 1997.

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen (ed.): Whitening Race. Essays in Social and CulturalCriticism. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press 2005.

Morrison, Toni: Playing in the Dark. Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.New York: Vintage 1990.

Mulvey, Laura: Professor Michael Rogin. In: The Independent (14.12.2001) andat http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-michael-rogin-729584.html.

Munro, John: Roots of ›Whiteness‹. In: Labour/Le Travail, 54, 2004, pp. 175-192.Nelson, Bruce: Divided We Stand. American Workers and the Struggle for Black

Equality. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2001.Painter, Nell Irvin: The History of White People. New York: Norton 2010.Perry, Jeffrey B.: In Memorium: Theodore W. Allen. At: http://clogic.eserver.org/

2005/perry.html, 2002, 8 pp.Rawick, George P.: From Sundown to Sunup. The Making of the Black Commu-

nity. Westport: Greenwood 1973.Richards, Paul: W. E. B. Du Bois and American Social History. The Evolution of

a Marxist. In: Radical America, 4, 1970, pp. 37-65.Rocchi, Jean-Paul: Dying Metaphors and Deadly Fantasies. Freud, Baldwin and

Race as Intimacy. In: Human Architecture. Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 7, 2009, 2, pp. 159-178.

Roediger, David: An Outmoded Approach to Labour and Slavery. In: Labour/LeTravail, 60, 2007, pp. 245-250.

—: Colored White. Transcending the Racial Past. Berkeley: University of Cali-fornia Press 2002.

—: How Race Survived U.S. History. New York: Verso 2008.—: Notes on Working Class Racism, In New Politics, 7, 1989, pp. 61-67.—: The Wages of Whiteness. Race and the Making of the American Working

Class. New York: Verso 2007 (originally 1991).—: Whiteness and Its Complications. In: The Chronicle Review. 14.7.2008, pp.

B6-B8.— (ed.): Black on White. Black Writers on What It Means to Be White. New

York: Schocken 1998.


—, Martin Smith (eds.): Listening to Revolt. Selected Writings of George Raw-ick. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Company 2010.

Rogin, Michael: Black Masks, White Skin. Consciousness of Class and AmericanNational Culture. In: Radical History Review, 54, 1992, pp. 141-152.

—: Blackface, White Noise. Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting-Pot.Berkeley: University of California Press 1996.

—: Fathers and Children. Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the AmericanIndian. New York: Knopf 1975.

Rosemont, Franklin: Surrealism. Revolution Against Whiteness. In: Race Traitor,9, 1998, pp. 19-29.

Rydell, Robert: Grand Crossings. The Life and Work of Alexander Saxton. In:Pacific Historical Review, 73, 2004, 2, pp. 263-285.

Sacks, Karen Brodkin: Caring by the Hour. Women, Work, and Organizing atDuke Medical Center. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1988.

Saxton, Alexander: In Dubious Battle. In: Pacific Historical Review, 73, 2004, 2,pp. 249-262.

—: The Great Midland. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997 (originally1948).

—: The Indispensable Enemy. Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in Califor-nia. Berkeley: University of California Press 1971.

—: The Rise and Fall of the White Republic. Class Politics and Mass Culture inNineteenth Century America. New York: Verso 2003 (originally 1990).

Scott, Jonathan: Introductory Notes on Theodore Allen’s ›Base and Superstruc-ture and the Socialist Perspective‹. In: Socialism and Democracy, 21, 2007,2, pp. 75-85.

—, Gregory Meyerson: An Interview with Theodore W. Allen. At: http://clogic.eserver.org/1-2/allen%interview.html, 1998, pp. 1-9.

Smith, Sharon: Race, Class, ›Whiteness Theory‹. In: International Socialist Re-view, 46, 2006 at http://www.isreview.org/issues/46/whiteness.shtml, unpag-inated.

Staudenmaier, Michael: Revolutionaries Who Tried to Think. A History of theSojourner Truth Organization. Unpublished manuscript 2010. 42 pp.

—: The White Skin Privilege Concept. From Margin to Center in Revo-lutionary Politics. At: http://sojournertruth.blogsome.com/2007/11/09/the-white-skin-privilege-concept-from-margin-to-center-of-revolutionary-politics/ 2007.

—: Unorthodox Leninism. Workplace Organizing and Anti-Imperialist Solidarityin the Sojourner Truth Organization. In: The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Rad-icalism, ed. by Dan Berger. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press 2010(forthcoming).

Sullivan, Shannon: On Revealing Whiteness. A Reply to Critics. In: Journal ofSpeculative Philosophy, 21, 2007, 3, pp. 231-242.

Taillon, Paul: Good, Reliable White Men. Railroad Brotherhoods, 1877-1917.Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2009.

36 David Roediger

Talbot, Margaret: Getting Credit for Being White. In: New York Times Magazine,30.11.1997, pp. 116-119.

Towers, Frank: Projecting Whiteness. Race and the Unconscious in the Historyof Nineteenth Century American Workers. In: Journal of American Culture,21, 1998, pp. 47-57.

Trotter, Joe: Coal, Class, and Color. Blacks in Southern West Virginia, 1915-1932. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1990.

Weinkopf, Chris: Whiteness Studies. In: Frontpagemag.com, 25.6.2003 at http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=17536.

Wiegman, Robyn: Whiteness Studies and the Paradox of Particularity. In: bound-ary 2, 26, 1999, 3, pp. 115-150.

Zwarg, Christina: Du Bois on Trauma. Psychoanalysis and the Would-Be BlackSavant. In: Cultural Critique, 51, 2002, pp. 1-39.

Racist Symbolic Capital

A Bourdieuian Approach to the Analysis of Racism1

Anja Weiß

Abstract: Theories of racism offer a wealth of interesting approaches, and yetsome important questions have remained open. One significant issue concernsthe relative importance of cultural patterns and social structure for the reproduc-tion of racism. The paper revisits this question and resolves it with the help ofa modern classic, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He does not directlydeal with the problem of racism but his theory offers the analytical instrumentsnecessary to develop a refined model of racism, namely his work on relations ofsymbolic power and his attention to the cultural and symbolic dimensions of so-cial inequality. Being based on Bourdieu’s theory the model of racism proposedin this article has the advantage of being systematically integrated into a moregeneral social theory. In conclusion the paper shows the advantages of this ap-proach for the study of racism and suggests options for further research.

Only half a century ago it was common practice to contrast ideas aboutthe essence of specific races with racism, which was criticized as a biasedand misleading attitude towards the same entity, e.g. the ›black race‹.Since the sociological reformulation of the term race this is, at least the-oretically, over. Fundamental differences in the way in which racism isthought about nevertheless persist. This becomes most obvious when weare not talking about the ›black race‹ but about the lately discovered con-cept of ›whiteness‹. ›Whiteness‹ is conceptualized depending on the in-vestigational emphasis: researchers in the neo-Marxist tradition focus onthe »wages of whiteness« including the »risky business« of »[i]dentifyingoneself by negation«, the objectivist strand of studies on race operateswith the »simple quartet: White Woman, White Man, Man of Color, andWoman of Color« while the (de-)constructivist tradition criticizes »the

1 I would like to thank Wulf D. Hund for the interesting discussion about the terms ›racist‹vs. ›racialized‹ with respect to the German situation.

38 Anja Weiß

absence of the reference to whiteness in the habitual speech and writingof white people«.2

Accordingly, the definitions of racism remain manifold and are basedon very different epistemological positions.3 In the course of this, thedistinction between »structural racism« and »ideological racism« read-ily emerges, and an investigation of the »precise interplay between socialstructures and individual performances« is repeatedly called for.4 This,on the one hand, is the manifestation of a general social science de-bate. The social sciences have for a long time both tried to overcome thetheoretical divide between an analysis of micro-social transactions andmacro-social structures and to resolve the dispute between culturalismand structuralism.5 On the other hand, these general social science de-bates affect research into racism in a special way because racist contentsare culturally produced even though they only gain societal relevancethrough their embedding into social-structural relations of inequality.

For attempts to overcome the divide between ›structural racism‹and ›ideological racism‹ the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu providesa promising approach. In his theory of symbolic power he develops amodel of how dichotomous classifications can become structurally rel-evant. This model can be transferred onto the problem of racism andbe moulded into a model in which ›race‹ constitutes at the same timea symbolic ascription and an objective social reality – a model in which,therefore, the divide between ideological classification and objective seg-mentation of the social world is overcome. To embed the argument, Istart with the traditional analytic approaches to racism, which found ex-pression, inter alia, in the divide between structure and ideology. Subse-quently, I deal with the relation of symbolic power and symbolic strugglebeing central to Bourdieu’s thought. Starting from there I develop a modelof racist discrimination, which is embedded in a multidimensional theoryof social inequality.

2 Cf. David Roediger: The Wages of Whiteness, p. 60 (›negation‹); Ruth Frankenberg:Local Whitenesses, Localizing Whiteness, p. 11 (›quartet‹); Richard Dyer: White, p. 2(›absence‹); for the dimensions of the debate cf. i. a. Tim Engles (ed.): Towards a Bib-liography of Critical Whiteness Studies.

3 Cf. Wulf D. Hund: Rassismus, p. 27-33; see Leonard Harris (ed.): Racism, who dis-criminates between objectivist and constructivist approaches; in Anja Weiß: Rassismuswider Willen, p. 29, I distinguish interaction-centred from macro-social models.

4 Robert Friedman: Institutional Racism, p. 387 (›structural / ideological‹); Epifanio SanJuan Jr.: Problems in the Marxist Project of Theorizing Race, p. 45 (›interplay‹).

5 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu: Social Space and Symbolic Power.

Racist Symbolic Capital 39

Structure and Ideology

Nancy Fraser has criticized much of social theory for reducing the idea ofjustice to distributional injustice. She argues that justice should be seen asparticipatory parity, i.e. as »social arrangements that permit all to partic-ipate as peers in social life«.6 Justice can be compromised both by mal-distribution which deprives some people of the resources needed in orderto interact as equals, and by misrecognition. Misrecognition results frominstitutional arrangements which deny specific groups recognition to beequal. In essence, Fraser’s theory of justice puts a name to a divide thattheories of class and theories of racism have frequently reproduced: re-search on social inequality tends to focus on ›class‹, and class has mostlybeen understood in terms of economic positions, whereas theories of racehave focused on ›race‹ as an ideology and / or cultural matter.

The divide goes back to a one-dimensional reception of Marx’s the-ory on the capitalist economy, which resulted in class being theorized asunequal positions in the means of production. In comparison with thisbasic social contradiction, race in neo-Marxist thinking has often beenseen »as epiphenomenal, the tool capitalists use to divide the workers,the ›false consciousness‹ that needs to be demystified«,7 an ideology thatsplits the working classes contrary to their best interests. Despite Webersuggesting a very different model of class, he also connects class with theeconomy and ethnic status with cultural phenomena. Weber grasps eco-nomic inequalities through vocational classes on the one hand and owner-ship classes on the other. Additionally, he looks at social interconnectionsin order to define social classes and status and argues that political partiesstructure power relations.

Taking up Weber’s lead, theories of social closure have argued thatclasses should not be seen as objective formations but as groups of actorswho try to monopolize resources by closing access to outsiders who inturn organize in order to lay claim to the wanted resources.8 Optionsfor closure relate to the economic position of actors, e.g. whether theyare specialized workers or unskilled, but they also relate to their optionsfor self-organization and to their position with respect to state structures.The dominant classes can use the state to affirm their position whereasnewcomers – and that includes ethnic and racial minorities – are limitedto their own resources for organizing claims. Again, ethnic and racial

6 Nancy Fraser: Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World, p. 255.7 Charles W. Mills: From Class to Race, p. 128.8 Cf. Frank Parkin: Marxism and Class Theory; Raymond Murphy: The Structure of Clo-

sure.

40 Anja Weiß

categories do not stand in their own right, but they are seen as adding toor reducing economic and political chances.

For a long time most theories of inequality deduced ethnic and racialclassifications from struggles about economic resources. This resulted inanalytical problems. Firstly, class took precedence, and ethnic and racialconflict was frequently seen through the lens of class conflict. This wasconfusing for an analysis of white working class racists who were of-ten criticized as irrational by leftist theory. In the orthodox paradigm ofclass conflict it would have been wise of them to unite with their raciallystigmatized brethren. That they did not do so was misinterpreted as falseconsciousness.

Neither could the situation of the black middle classes be understoodby theories which focused on class and saw racism as a deduced cate-gory. Clearly, the black middle classes were not exploited in the labourmarket and, as Michael Omi and Howard Winant have argued, their eco-nomic position may partially depend on political mobilization and thembeing preferred by black customers and constituencies.9 At the sametime they are experiencing the impact of racism.10 Thus class theoriesprove problematic in conceptualizing status inconsistent groups such asworking class white supremacists and middle class Blacks. It was notuntil the last decades of the 20th century that authors like Floya Anthiasand Nira Yuval-Davis stated that »[i]t is increasingly seen as inadequateto understand other social divisions, like sex or race, as epiphenomenaof class«.11 In studies on race this was discussed under the heading of»wages of whiteness« and whether it could be possible that the whitelower classes profit from racism.12

Secondly, the dichotomy between class and ideology / group forma-tion suggests implicitly that class is an (often invisible) part of socialstructure whereas racism must be an obvious cultural matter. Both theMarxist and the Weberian tradition conceptualize class as a relativelystable structure of social inequality which may become an issue of con-tention but which also follows economic logics, which may not be visibleto the involved actors. Marx, for example, distinguishes class ›in itself‹and ›for itself‹, i.e. both as structural social relations and as social group-ings, which form as a result of political organizing.13 Objective classes

9 Cf. Michael Omi, Howard Winant: Racial Formation in the United States, p. 28.10 Cf. Joe R. Feagin: The Continuing Significance of Race.11 Floya Anthias, Nira Yuval-Davis: Racialized Boundaries, p. 92.12 Cf. David Roediger: The Wages of Whiteness; Eduardo Bonilla Silva: Rethinking

Racism, p. 468.13 Cf. Michael Vester: Klasse an sich / für sich, p. 736; Tom Bottomore: Class, p. 85.


may share a common structural position but be split through competi-tion and therefore not be organized as a social class. Since thinkers inthe Marxist and Weberian traditions view race as an ideology or a formof group closure, they tend to think of racial and ethnic classificationsas being obvious, politically contentious and more malleable than ›realstructural‹ inequality.14

The problems arising from the base-superstructure dualism hidden inthis kind of theorizing can well be seen in studies on whiteness.15 I wouldview ›whiteness‹ as a structurally privileged position in race relations,which needs not be translated into political group formation. Much likeprivileged class positions whiteness can structure social relations with-out becoming emphasized in social interaction. Studies about whitenessare, however, continuously looking for a ›white identity‹ and tend to bepuzzled by the fact that whites do not view themselves as being white. Ifrace was seen as an objective social classification, it would not be amaz-ing that a privileged group does not acknowledge its privilege but takesit for granted. Only when the concept of race is reduced to ›group forma-tion‹, does the failure of the privileged group to acknowledge its positionin race relations become a problem for research.

To a large extent, students of race have taken their cue from theoriesof inequality. They, too, tend to think of racism as a cultural or groupphenomenon. Research on racism treats its subject as racial prejudice,racial identities or racialized discourse.16 These approaches agree thatracism must be continuously reproduced in social interaction and that itis a cultural and/or group phenomenon. They underestimate the structuralaspects and the durability of racism. Clairece and Joe Feagin were amongthe first to argue that racism takes the form of institutional discriminationas well as that of open individual and group hostility. Institutional dis-crimination can be both direct and indirect, i.e. the authors argue that

14 As a vindication of the concept of ideology cf. Robert Miles, Malcolm Brown: Racism,pp. 7 ff.; as to criticism see i. a. Michel Wieviorka: The Arena of Racism, p. 30: »Thenotion of ideology is a powerful tool, admittedly, but is it not also restrictive, reducingthe phenomenon to its political and doctrinal expression alone, and does it not leave outof account many of the manifestations of racism?«

15 Cf. the contributions to Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic (eds.): Critical White Studies;Mike Hill (ed.): Whiteness; Nakayama, Thomas K., Judith N. Martin (eds.): White-ness; Ashley W. Doane, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (eds.): White Out, and the overview ofAlastair Bonnett: ›White Studies‹.

16 Cf. Gordon W. Allport: The nature of prejudice; Muzafer Sherif: Group Conflict andCooperation, Henri Tajfel: Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination, Henri Tajfel,Michael G. Billig, Robert P. Bundy, Claude Flament: Social Categorization and In-tergroup Behavior, Henri Tajfel: Differentiation Between Social Groups (›identities‹);Teun A. Van Dijk: Communicating Racism; Robert Miles: Racism (›discourse‹).

42 Anja Weiß

institutions, which have negative effects on racially constructed groupsas a result of past discrimination, should also be seen as racist institu-tions.17 To some extent they resolve the problem of culturalism but theysuffer from a third problem common to most of the studies on race andethnic relations: students of race have to characterize their subject as anadjective ›racial‹ because they are unclear whether racism is a prejudice,an ideology, a group relation, or a discourse.18 I will argue that racism isall of these and that we need a model which can show how racism can beall of these and a structure of social inequality at the same time.

A revised theory of racism should conceptualize racism as both sym-bolically reproduced and a structure of social inequality. Bourdieu’s the-ory offers the conceptual tools necessary for such an endeavour. His con-cept of symbolic power shows how ascribed classifications translate intounequal habits of practice and into relations of symbolic domination.Symbolic domination is more stable than symbolic struggles, but it re-mains closely interconnected with symbolic struggles. This clarifies theimportance of both solidified structure and group struggle for the repro-duction of racism and the connection of symbolic power and symbolicstruggle. Symbolic domination can then be integrated into Bourdieu’smultidimensional theory of social inequality.

Symbolic Power and Symbolic Struggle

Bourdieu has written little about racism but was interested in masculinedomination. Starting with his earliest works on traditional Kabyle soci-ety, Bourdieu shows how classifications turn into stable social structuresin the realm of symbolic exchange.19 His description of masculine dom-ination can be generalized to other relations of domination.

Male domination originates in the gendered classification, due towhich men and women enter marriage markets with asymmetrical start-

17 Cf. Joe R. Feagin, Clairece Booher Feagin: Discrimination American Style.18 Cf. Loïc J. D. Waquant: For an Analytic of Racial Domination.19 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu: La domination masculine; id.: Masculine Domination; see also

Pierre Bourdieu, Loïc J. D. Waquant: An Invention to Reflexive Sociology, p. 173 f.:»To account for the fact that women are, throughout most known societies, consignedto inferior social positions, it is necessary to take into account the asymmetry of statusascribed to each gender in the economics of symbolic exchanges. Whereas men are thesubjects of matrimonial strategies through which they work to maintain or to increasetheir symbolic capital, women are always treated as objects of these exchanges in whichthey circulate as symbols fit for striking alliances. [. . . ] Male domination is thus foundedupon the logic of the economics of symbolic exchanges, that is, upon the fundamentalasymmetry between men and women instituted in the social construction of kinship andmarriage: that between subject and object, agent and instrument«.


ing positions. While men ›act‹ in these markets, women’s actorship mustbe hidden in indirect strategies such as dropping a napkin or being in theright spot at the right time. Asymmetrical positions in the ›economicsof symbolic exchanges‹ differ from other economies in that small dis-tinctions may amount to large differences, and in that they may becomequite efficient by promoting divergent strategies of action. For example,»women can exercise some degree of power only by turning the strengthof the strong against them or by accepting the need to efface themselvesand, in any case, to deny a power that they can only exercise vicariously,as ›éminences grises‹«.20

If women adapt their strategies to their market position they will pre-fer indirect power strategies and thus appear to be cunning, whereby theclassification of women as the opposite of men is stabilized: »The andro-centric view is thus continuously legitimated by the very practices that itdetermines. Because their dispositions are the product of embodiment ofthe negative prejudice against the female that is instituted in the order ofthings, women cannot but constantly confirm this prejudice«.

As time goes by, both classifications and practices become habitual-ized and thus part of the accepted social order. Bourdieu speaks of sym-bolic violence or power,21 when subjective structures, habitualized prac-tices, and objective structures coincide without leaving room for doubtor criticism. »Symbolic power is that invisible power which can be exer-cised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that theyare subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it«.22 A situation inwhich the dichotomous and hierarchical classification of men and womenis reflected in practice and reproduced through the gendered division oflabour would for example be considered as symbolically powerful maledomination.

According to Bourdieu male domination is characterised by the factthat it regulates a specific market: the marriage market and the workof reproduction. Can the same mechanism be helpful for an analysis ofrace relations in particular and racist discrimination in general? In orderto argue this, Bourdieu’s argument must be generalized from marriage

20 Pierre Bourdieu: Masculine Domination, p. 32; for the following quotation see ibid.21 Bourdieu uses the concept of ›doxa‹ mainly for traditional societies (see id.: Structures,

Habitus, Power). In class societies he talks of a dominant culture, which is not self-evident, but forces all other cultures to define themselves as subcultures in relation totheir distance to the dominant culture (see id.: Pierre Bourdieu: On Symbolic Power,p. 167).

22 Pierre Bourdieu: Language and Symbolic Power, p. 164; for the preceding see id.: Out-line of a Theory of Practice.

44 Anja Weiß

markets to all markets, systems or arenas of a society:23 Let us assumethat some actors are marked through arbitrary criteria as people of lesserrights. Their right to participate in many markets, systems or arenas iscontested. In the least, they are asked to prove why they should be ac-cepted as equals.

In this case a similar process like the one described for masculinedomination would take place: the people threatened with exclusion willfind that they need to act strategically in order to be accepted as equals,and they will subtly adapt their practice to their challenged position.Members of the privileged group, on the other hand, will act ›normally‹,i.e. as entitled to an interaction of equals. In order for classifications to af-fect practices, doubt about the right to be included as equals is sufficient.For example, an employer will feel some scepticism towards applicantswho might have ›visa problems‹. A landlady may anticipate hostilities by›normal‹ tenants, if she lets an apartment to ›foreigners‹. Sartre has de-scribed the fear of assimilated Jews that someone at some time may startto research ancestry once more.24

Once the threat of delegitimation is generalized, it translates into di-vergent action strategies and finally into symbolic power. Then delegit-imization starts to become largely independent from invididual situations.Racist classifications develop into an objective structuration of societymuch in the way Bourdieu describes for masculine domination.

This way of looking at racism has several advantages. Firstly, itshows why racism consists of prejudice (i.e. ›classifications‹ in Bour-dieu’s words) and group formation processes (i.e. practices) and of dis-course and institutions (i.e. symbolic power). Secondly, it becomes possi-ble to understand the stability of racism as a form of symbolic dominationand thereby to integrate it into an analysis of social structure. Thirdly, theconcept of symbolic power shows that racism is most stable when it is notchallenged and that ideological and group struggles about racism are onlythe tip of the iceberg. In societies where racism is racially constructed,symbolic struggles appear when race relations are either challenged orenforced, but they do not address the hidden set of assumptions underly-ing racial inequality.25

The empirical relevance of the concept of symbolic power is best un-

23 Cf. Sylvia Walby: Globalisation and Inequalities. Functionalist and political approachesboth have advantages for an analysis of blocked access. For a discussion see Anja Weiß:The Racism of Globalization.

24 Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre: Anti-Semite and Jew.25 For the several dimensions of racist discrimination see Wulf D. Hund’s essay in this

volume and id.: Rassismus.


derstood when looking at other societies from a distance. The one-drop-rule e.g. appears self-evident to U.S. Americans of African and Europeandecent likewise.26 Under the one-drop-rule every person who has anyAfrican ancestry at all is considered ›black‹. This rule made ›sense‹ in aslave holder society which did not believe in ›bettering‹ slaves throughintermarriage (like in Latin American slavery) nor in degrees of good andbad genes as in German national socialist racism, but which allowed slaveowners to profit economically from raping their slaves and then sellingtheir children.

Historical reconstruction shows that the designing of the one-drop-rule was highly contingent but a contemporary analysis will come to theconclusion that the one-drop-rule now is a generally accepted classifi-cation in the USA.27 This is due to long-term institutionalization of theone-drop-rule but also due to the fact that it produced advantages forblack politicians, too. In the 20th century the black community started tofeel solidarity and in fact demand solidarity from every person with anyAfrican heritage at all because the one-drop-rule allowed the black com-munity to broaden their potential constituency. In a situation of symbolicpower the strategies of both the dominant and the dominated are con-ceived in a common context, despite the fact that the dominant groupscontrol this system, while the dominated groups adapt to it in an effort toempower themselves.

An American audience may likewise find the German school system’spractice to educate children irrespective of their native language amazing.Children who have not learned German in their families either acquireGerman in voluntary and costly kindergarten (and not from professionallanguage teachers) or they are left to their own resources in school. Asthe path for higher education diverges from general education in grade4, i.e. at age 10, an extremely high proportion of migrant children endup in the lower echelons of a hierarchically segmented school system.This nowadays almost certainly leads to long-term unemployment or un-deremployment. As a result of the PISA study this problem has receivedsome public attention partly because Germans were concerned that thelow achievement of migrant children spoiled national averages and Ger-

26 For the following see F. James Davis: Who is Black?; Naomi Zack: Mixed Black andWhite Race and Public Policy; Loïc J. D. Waquant: Who is Black?

27 Cf. F. James Davis: Who is Black?

46 Anja Weiß

many’s position in OECD hierarchies.28 Still the ›German only‹29 prac-tice of German educational institutions is considered to be self-evident.Institutional reforms aim at teaching children German prior to their entryinto the school system so that the monolingual culture of German schoolsremains unchallenged.30

The fact that I am writing about these issues shows that they havealready become issues of contention. In its purest form symbolic powerremains unchallenged and self-evident. Only when the need arises to af-firm symbolic power or when it crumbles, can we see symbolic struggles.Empirical studies of racism must therefore understand the interconnect-edness of symbolic power and symbolic struggle.

A Multidimensional Theory of Social Inequality

In his work on social inequality Bourdieu distinguishes between eco-nomic capital, cultural capital and social capital.31 Economic capitalcomprises the diverse forms of money and property. Cultural capitalincludes institutionalized forms, e.g. certificates, but also incorporatedknowledge and cultural objects such as paintings or a library as well.Social capital results from good connections. Note that Bourdieu doesnot objectify the forms of capital. He affirms that capital must be ac-knowledged symbolically in order to have value. In that Bourdieu differssignificantly from theories of human capital.

In his work on masculine domination Bourdieu emphasizes that thelogic of symbolic exchange is economic, but that its economic logic dif-fers from that of capitalist markets. ›Non-economic‹ exchanges of giftsare apparently disinterested, but they serve to mask and reproduce socialinequality. In his work on fields Bourdieu shows that the rules of the gamemay differ depending on whether actors compete in the field of the artsor in the field of politics.32 And his extensive work on cultural capital in-sists that cultural capital is reproduced through incorporation. Therefore

28 In 2002 the concept that migrant children have to overcome language deficiencies hadbeen challenged by one study on institutional discrimination – cf. Mechtild Gomolla,Frank-Olaf Radtke: Institutionelle Diskriminierung.

29 I should add that additional education in the native tongue is offered to some groups ofstudents in the hope that their parents will return with them to their native country. Thiseducation is not enabling them to succeed in the German system though.

30 With the exception of elite schools which are of course bilingual English – German andfew experimental schools also catering mostly to the middle classes.

31 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu: The (Three) Forms of Capital; concerning the following see ibid.32 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu: The Rules of Art; for the following see Pierre Bourdieu: Distinc-

tion.


it cannot be transformed and exchanged in the same way as economiccapital. In sum, these arguments amount to a multi-dimensional theory ofsocial inequality in which the value of capital is negotiated.

Bourdieu himself never fully developed the potential of his theory foran analysis of gender relations and he did not address issues of racism.I would interpret this as reluctance to part with Weberian thinking. Theonly way in which he can envision a class society is through a dominanceof economic and cultural capital. In his empirical analyses he assumesstructural homologies between diverse capitals and fields. Thus he is ableto integrate multiple sources of social inequality into a model of class,which consists of the economically rich, the culturally rich and the lowerclasses.

Yet, Bourdieu offers perfect instruments in order to overcome the di-vide between theories of class and ethnic and race relations. Followingand extending Bourdieu’s lead, I suggest that the stable ›symbolic power‹forms of racism be treated as a specific type of symbolic capital.33 Racistsymbolic capital is an asymmetrically distributed resource with consid-erable influence on the life chances of its owners. Physical features suchas light skin and an ›angelic face‹ have turned into symbolic goods sig-nifying equal standing. Institutions such as passports, border controls,labour market restrictions, educational certificates, or the laws regulat-ing professions serve to distinguish between equals and others. Note thatracist symbolic capital translates into economic and cultural capital, butthat it is not identical to it. Educated blacks may earn a middle class in-come, wear a doctors outfit and insignia, but still be addressed as cleaningwomen as a ›result‹ of their visible features.34

In racialized societies, racialized individuals cannot escape the›racial‹ status attributed to them, even though entire groups can movetheir position in racial hierarchies as was the case for Asian Americansin the second half of the 20th century. Like social capital, racist symboliccapital is a collective resource which can however be emphasized andutilized by individuals as representatives of a group.35 Like cultural capi-tal racist symbolic capital must be acquired through lengthy processes ofsocialization and the collective endeavours of numerous generations, butin contrast to cultural capital the emphasis in the reproduction of racistsymbolic capital is on the classificatory efforts of the dominant class andnot so much on the acceptance of a dominant culture by the dominated

33 Cf. Anja Weiß: Rassismus wider Willen; id.: Rassismus als symbolisch vermittelte Di-mension sozialer Ungleichheit; id.: The Racism of Globalization.

34 Cf. Philomena Essed: Understanding Everyday Racism.35 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu: Language and Symbolic Power, pp. 203-219.

48 Anja Weiß

group. Part of the logic of racist domination consists in leaving the dom-inated group little space for transformative action because they can adaptor rebel, but either way they will suit racial stereotyping.

Bourdieu’s concept of class is specific in that he views class as anobjective position in social space.36 Sociology creates ›classes on paper‹that share similar objective conditions even when they do not view them-selves as a ›class for itself‹. In this kind of abstract modelling we canconceptualize racist symbolic capital as one among several axes structur-ing social space (see graphics) and contributing to class formation evenwhen members of society do not primarily see themselves as stratifiedalong racist lines.

Racist symbolic capital

For example we can imagine a situation – such as in Germany – wherepersons with a low level of economic and cultural capital experienceracist symbolic capital as a central and explicit dimension of their classposition.37 In part this is the result of a current discourse, which identifiescultural and economic poverty with ethnic or racial difference. Membersof the racistly dominated group may therefore be objectively disadvan-taged in several dimensions of social inequality at the same time, but

36 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu: Social Space and Symbolic Power.37 Predominately, the racist discrimination is not directed against racially constructed oth-

ers but is culturally connoted. In this case, discrimination is racist but not racial. De-scendants of Turkish migrants are racistly discriminated but not racialized. In numerouscases of antiislamic violence racialized and cultural-religious motives overlap. Anti-semitism has been largely detached from the term race and attempted to be legitimisedin a culturalistic and nationalistic manner.


attribute their disadvantage to racist domination. Irrespective of whetherthis attribution is causally correct or a result of public discourse attribut-ing diverse kinds of social problems to unwanted migration, this situationmakes it more likely that members of the racistly dominated group willidentify according to their objective class position, e.g. as ›Turkish Ger-mans‹ or ›foreigners‹.

With respect to the German middle classes I am reluctant to pre-dict such a clear picture. The racistly dominant middle classes controldominant culture and are protected from competition by institutional clo-sure through a discriminatory educational system and among other thingsthrough professional laws excluding foreigners from settling in the reg-ulated professions. Inside their dominant culture those aspects of racismthat have developed into symbolic power are viewed as self-evident andnatural, as »what goes without saying and what cannot be said for lack ofan available discourse«.38 Therefore, members of dominant groups tendto find the possession of racist symbolic capital so natural and, at thesame time, so implicit that they cannot even put a name to ›white privi-lege‹.39 In their identity and discourse they may sympathize with liberalvalues and denounce ›lower class‹ racism.

Members of the middle classes whose racist symbolic capital is lowwill most likely find themselves in an ambiguous position, which hasbeen analysed so well by Sartre’s analysis of antisemitism.40 They may›pass‹ as fully fledged members of the educated middle classes if theirstrategies of self-representation fit and if their interaction partners areinclined to accept them. At the same time they can always be symbol-ically kicked out – in specific settings – or when competition becomesstronger.41 I would expect their political self-organization to reflect thatdilemma by trying to pass and, at the same time, constructing a largerclass of the racistly excluded.

Implications for Further Research

Revisiting race relations research on the basis of a more general theoryof social inequality has some clear advantages. Firstly, and in contrast tomore mainstream models of social inequality that focus on inequalities

38 Pierre Bourdieu: Structure, Habitus, Power, p. 165.39 Cf. Ruth Frankenberg: The Social Construction of Whiteness.40 Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre: Anti-Semite and Jew.41 This risk is high for visible minorities, e.g. when Marwa El-Sherbini, who lived in Dres-

den as the wife of a scientist and did not accept antiislamic hate speech was murderedby her assailant or when an Afro-German scientist was assaulted in Potsdam 2006.

50 Anja Weiß

of distribution, the symbolic logic of racism is better understood. Thesymbolic logic of racism, on the one hand, consists of struggles aboutcategorization and the relative status of specific groups and racist mark-ers. On the other hand, it also consists of symbolic violence, that is to sayracism is most stable when all members of a society including oppressedgroups take racist classifications and an unequal distribution of rights tobe self-evident.

Secondly, and in contrast to most theories of racism, the integrationof racism into a Bourdieuian model of social inequality can clarify thedifference between derogatory fantasies about ›others‹ and a fully de-veloped system of structural racism. We should only speak of racism ifracist classifications have been ingrained in practice – both of the domi-nant and the oppressed – and if they are institutionalized, e.g. in labourmarket segregation or discriminatory standards of interaction.

Both theoretical advantages have a positive impact on empirical re-search about racism. Firstly, the theory shows that and why the contentof racist classifications can and will change. The defining criteria, whichdifferentiate racism from other classifications, tend to be the result of po-litical struggles and this goes for everyday definitions as well as for thedefinitions employed by state of the art social research. Therefore, re-searchers can and must reflect upon their own normative position. Cate-gories in migration research may for example stabilize racist hierarchies,because they are imported from migration legislation and they neither re-flect the self-definition of the persons concerned nor relevant scientificconcepts.42

Scientific definitions of racism must choose the criteria that distin-guish racist classifications from other classifications on the basis of socio-historical context. In the case of Germany, racism, which refers to bio-logical criteria, has been ostracized for the most part, while racism thatrefers to other visible markers and essentialist markers of difference is onthe rise.43 We should talk of racism when a long-term and stable markerpretends to make alleged otherness visible and is impacting on socialclassifications, practice and institutions in a manner that attributes lesserrights to collectives of that category, irrespective of whether this markerrefers to biological or other kinds of stable difference.

Secondly, it becomes clear why some researchers of racism tend to

42 Cf. Anja Weiß, Ulrike Selma Ofner, Barbara Pusch: Migrationsbezogene biographischeOrientierungen und ihre ausländerrechtliche Institutionalisierung; Anja Weiß: The Im-pact of Legal Barriers on the Labour Market Integration of Highly Educated Migrants.

43 Cf. Etienne Balibar: Is There a ›Neo-Racism‹?


use the ›logic of the trial‹44 and why all of them are accused of takinga normative stance even when they have made every effort to avoid nor-mative statements. By discussing the mechanisms and contents of racismsocial science cannot avoid some involvement in symbolic struggles, be-cause any statement will be seen as contributing to these struggles. This isnot to say that students of race must position themselves in political strug-gles. Bourdieu has suggested a more differentiated connection betweensocial science and critique. He does not denounce scientists who do takea political stance, but he argues that as social scientists they become crit-ical not by organizing for specific political parties but by reconstructinghow specific social structures – including relations of domination – havecome into being. By analyzing the historic continuity and contingency ofracial classifications researchers show that things could have turned outdifferently and that triggers moral discussions even when the scientistherself has actively tried to avoid them.

Thirdly, the proposed theory emphasizes a social scientific approachto race relations. Racist discourse is not primarily seen as a result of›identity problems‹, ›failed (authoritarian) socialization‹ or simple ›stu-pidity‹, but it is understood in its systematic connections to other socialstructures and institutions. Racism is a dimension of social inequality inits own right – that means it is not a derivative of class struggle nor canit wholly be explained as a form of social closure. Instead it is basedon symbolic classifications, diverging practices and institutional orders,which attribute unequal rights to the groups which they have constructed.

This approach enables us, fourthly, to see that strategies againstracism are misleading when they focus on open forms of racism only.Take the German school system as an example. It is based on the assump-tion that students know German when they enter elementary school. Bynow there are some programs that make sure that non-German studentslearn German prior to entering school but still school teachers have noeducation in teaching bilingual children, and they have little space to ac-tually help bilingual children in learning better German. In this situationmany teachers prefer to work in schools with a low proportion of foreignchildren. Some of them phrase this as a general preference to work in›better schools‹. Others talk in a derogative manner about ›Turkish chil-dren‹. Anti-racist strategies, which criticize the teachers instead of thediscriminating structures, are short-sighted. Teachers will respond by be-

44 Cf. Loïc J. D. Waquant: For an Analytic of Racial Domination; for the following cf.Pierre Bourdieu, Loïc J. D. Waquant: On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason.

52 Anja Weiß

coming more guarded but the disadvantages for bilingual children willnot cease.

This is not to say that anti-racist struggle happens only by chang-ing institutional structures. As racism is a result of symbolic struggles,anti-racism must also address hateful public and private discourse. Anti-racism will fail, however, if it remains on the level of discourse and ex-cludes criticism of institutional discrimination. A ›discourse only‹ anti-racist strategy restricts the expression of a social problem but cannot con-tribute to solutions both on the institutional and the discursive level.

This insight is especially helpful in situations in which a relativelyprivileged group of people claims to be open-minded and friendly whenthey in fact profit from institutional closure. Bourdieu has described asimilar problem for the encounter of a factory owner with her secre-tary.45 Bourdieu states that the friendliness of the factory owner cannotbe taken at face value but must be understood in the context of a clearlyunequal power relation. The factory owner will be commended for beingso friendly when she really needs not be friendly to her inferior. Friend-liness in this situation serves a very different function than when it takesplace in an equal-status relationship.

Research, which colleagues and I conducted on highly skilled mi-grants,46 shows that migrants in the regulated professions are often barredfrom their profession through the intricacies of professional law.47 Wehave also heard accounts that some of their German colleagues are clearlyunhappy that Dr. X, who is such a nice and competent physician, can-not practice as a result of professional law, and they would be willing toemploy her in their practice and therefore give her a chance to earn atleast a bit of money. The same colleagues are members of professionalgroups, which make sure that foreign doctors continue to be discrimi-nated against. Very often they are not aware that the professional groupsact in that manner. Sometimes they know but do not care. Their friend-

45 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu: Social space and symbolic power.46 The international study group ›Cultural Capital During Migration‹ was headed by Arnd-

Michael Nohl, Karin Schittenhelm, Oliver Schmidtke and the author. For an outline ofthe study see id.: Cultural Capital During Migration. Further English publications canbe found under www.cultural-capital.net

47 In some countries such as Germany and Turkey, professional laws clearly state thatonly nationals are allowed to practice in a regulated profession. Germany offers reducedaccess for foreigners, but then a second barrier arises which is also relevant for countriessuch as Canada, who theoretically do accept foreigners in the regulated professions:An intricate and localized system of on-the-ground degree recognition and a very lownumber of slots for adaptive qualification de facto reduce chances of foreign educatedprofessionals.


liness is similar to that of the factory owner but it is taken at face valueby attitude research, which tends to find that the more educated and moreprivileged are less racist than the lower classes.

References

Allport, Gordon W.: The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge: Addison-Wesley 1954.Anthias, Floya, Nira Yuval-Davis: Racialized Boundaries. Race, Nation, Gender,

Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle. London etc.: Routledge 1992.Balibar, Etienne: Is There a ›Neo-Racism‹? In: id., Immanuel Wallerstein: Race,

Nation, Class. Ambiguous Identities. London etc.: Verso 1991, pp. 17-28.Barker, Martin: The New Racism. Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe.

London: Junction Books 1981.Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo: Rethinking Racism. Toward a Structural Interpretation.

In: American Sociological Review, 62, 1997, 3, pp. 465-480.Bonnett, Alastair: ›White studies‹. The Problems and Projects of a New Research

Agenda. In: Theory, Culture & Society, 13, 1996, 2, pp. 145-155.Bottomore, Tom: Class. In: A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. by id., Laurence

Harris, Victor G. Kiernan, Ralph Miliband. 2nd ed. Malden etc.: Blackwell1991, p. 84-87.

Bourdieu, Pierre: Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.

—: La domination masculine. Paris: Éditions du Seuil 1998.—: Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press 1991.—: Masculine Domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2001.—: Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

1977.—: Social Space and Symbolic Power. In: id., In Other Words. Stanford: Stanford

University Press 1990, pp. 123-139.—: Structures, Habitus, Power. Basis for a Theory of Symbolic Power. In: Culture

/ Power / History, ed. by Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, Sherry B. Ortner.Princeton: Princeton University Press 1994, pp. 155-199.

—: The Rules of Art. Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Cambridge:Polity Press, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

—: The (Three) Forms of Capital. In: Handbook of Theory and Research in theSociology of Education, ed. by John G. Richardson. New York etc: Green-wood 1986, pp. 241-258.

—, Loïc J. D. Wacquant: An Invention to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press 1992.

—, Loïc J. D. Wacquant: On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason. In: Theory, Cul-ture and Society, 16, 1999, 1, pp. 41-58.

Davis, F. James: Who is Black? One Nation’s Definition. University Park: Penn-sylvania State University Press 1991.

54 Anja Weiß

Delgado, Richard, Jean Stefancic (eds.): Critical White Studies. Looking Behindthe Mirror. Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1997.

Doane, Ashley W., Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (eds.): White Out. The Continuing Sig-nificance of Racism. New York etc.: Routledge 2003.

Dyer, Richard: White. London etc.: Routledge 1997.Engles, Tim (with support from Carmen P. Thompson, Perzavia Praylow, Karen

Rodríguez) (ed.): Toward a Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies. Ur-bana-Champaign: University of Illinois 2006 (http://cdms.illinois.edu/pages/Research/06-07Research/CriticalWhiteness/Bibliography.pdf).

Essed, Philomena: Understanding Everyday Racism. An Interdisciplinary The-ory. London etc.: Sage 1991.

Feagin, Joe R.: The Continuing Significance of Race. Antiblack Discriminationin Public Places. In: American Sociological Review, 56, 1991, pp. 101-116.

Feagin, Joe R., Clairece Booher Feagin: Discrimination American Style. Institu-tional Racism and Sexism. Malabar: Robert E. Krieger 1986.

Frankenberg, Ruth: Local Whitenesses, Localizing Whiteness. In: id. (ed.), Dis-placing Whiteness. Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism. Durham: DukeUniversity Press 1997, pp. 1-33.

—: White women, Race matters. The Social Construction of Whiteness. London:Routledge 1993.

Fraser, Nancy: Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World. In: Global inequality,ed. by David Held, Ayse Kaya. Cambridge: Polity Press 2007, pp. 252-272.

Gomolla, Mechtild, Frank-Olaf Radtke: Institutionelle Diskriminierung. Die Her-stellung ethnischer Differenz in der Schule. Opladen: Leske und Budrich2002.

Harris, Leonard (ed.): Racism. Key Concepts in Critical Theory. New York: Hu-manity Books 1999.

Hill, Mike (ed.): Whiteness. A Critical Reader. New York: New York UniversityPress 1997.

Hund, Wulf D.: Rassismus. Bielefeld: transcript 2007.Kalpaka, Annita, Nora Räthzel (eds.): Die Schwierigkeit, nicht rassistisch zu sein.

Leer: Mundo 1990.Miles, Robert: Racism. London etc.: Routledge 1989.—, Malcolm Brown: Racism. 2nd ed. London etc.: Routledge 2003.Mills, Charles W.: From Class to Race. Essays in White Marxism and Black

Radicalism. Lanham etc.: Rowman & Littlefield 2003.Murphy, Raymond: The Structure of Closure. A Critique and Development of the

Theories of Weber, Collins and Parkin. In: British Journal of Sociology, 35,1984, 4, pp. 547-567.

Nakayama, Thomas K., Judith N. Martin (eds.): Whiteness. The Communicationof Social Identity. Thousand Oaks: Sage 1999.

Nohl, Arnd-Michael, Karin Schittenhelm, Oliver Schmitdke, Anja Weiß: Culturalcapital during migration – A multi-level approach for the empirical analysis ofthe labor market integration of highly skilled migrants. In: Forum Qualitative


Sozialforschung [On-Line Journal] 7, 2006, 3, Art. 14 (download under http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-06/06-3-14-e.htm).

Omi, Michael, Howard Winant: Racial Formation in the United States. From the1960s to the 1990s. New York etc.: Routledge 1994.

Parkin, Frank: Marxism and Class Theory. A Bourgeois Critique. New York:Columbia University Press 1979.

Roediger, David R.: The Wages of Whiteness. Race and the Making of the Amer-ican Working Class. Rev. ed. London etc.: Verso 1999.

Sartre, Jean-Paul: Anti-Semite and Jew. New York: Schocken 1965.Sherif, Muzafer: Group conflict and cooperation. Their social psychology. Lon-

don: Routledge and Keagan Paul 1967.Tajfel, Henri: Differentiation Between Social Groups. Studies in the Social Psy-

chology of Intergroup Relations. London: Academic Press 1978.—: Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination. In: Scientific American, 223,

1970, pp. 96-102.—, Michael G. Billig, Robert P. Bundy, Claude Flament: Social Categorization

and Intergroup Behavior. In: European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 1971,2, pp. 149-178.

Van Dijk, Teun A.: Communicating Racism. Ethnic Prejudice in Thought andTalk. London etc.: Sage 1987.

Vester, Michael: Klasse an sich / für sich. In: Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuchdes Marxismus, ed. by Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Vol. 7/1. Hamburg: Argument2008, pp. 736-775.

Wacquant, Loïc J. D.: For an Analytic of Racial Domination. In: Political Power& Social Theory, 11, 1997, pp. 221-234.

—: Who Is Black? One Nation’s Definition. In: Theory & Society 23, 1994, 6,pp. 902-908.

Walby, Sylvia: Globalization and Inequalities. Complexity and Contested Moder-nities. Thousand Oaks: Sage 2009.

Weiß, Anja: Rassismus als symbolisch vermittelte Dimension sozialer Ungleich-heit. In: Klasse und Klassifikation. Die symbolische Dimension sozialer Un-gleichheit, ed. by id., Cornelia Koppetsch, Oliver Schmidtke, Albert Scharen-berg. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 2001, pp. 79-108.

—: Rassismus wider Willen. Ein anderer Blick auf eine Struktur sozialer Un-gleichheit. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 2001.

—: The Impact of Legal Barriers on the Labour Market Integration of HighlyEducated Migrants. In: Les ressorts de l’intégration, ed. by Mario Hirsch et.al. Amsterdam: Dutch University Press (in print).

—: The Racism of Globalization. In: The Globalization of Racism, ed. by Don-aldo Macedo, Panayota Gounari. Boulder etc.: Paradigm Publishers 2006,pp. 128-147.

—, Ulrike Selma Ofner, Barbara Pusch: Migrationsbezogene biographische Ori-entierungen und ihre ausländerrechtliche Institutionalisierung. In: KulturellesKapital in der Migration. Hochqualifizierte Einwanderer und Einwanderin-

56 Anja Weiß

nen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt, ed. by Arnd-Michael Nohl, Karin Schittenhelm,Oliver Schmitdke, Anja Weiß. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag 2010, pp. 197-210.

Wieviorka, Michel: The Arena of Racism. London etc.: Sage 1995.Zack, Naomi: Mixed Black and White Race and Public Policy. In: Hypatia, 10,

1995, 1, pp. 120-132.

Negative Societalisation

Racism and the Constitution of Race

Wulf D. Hund

Abstract: Racism goes through various stages of development and it uses dif-ferent patterns of social inclusion and exclusion. Since ancient times, these havebeen organised in pairs of opposites, which include, among others, the cultivatedand the barbarians, the chosen and the outcasts, the civilised and the savages andfinally the whites and the coloureds. Their logic turns the discriminated othersinto undifferentiated representatives of an inferior humanity. In comparison tothem, the members of socially differentiated and hierarchically ordered societiescan see themselves as a uniform and superior group. Even those who are eco-nomically and culturally declassed are therefore granted symbolic appreciation.This negative social integration requires the popularisation of racist stereotypes.The same applies to racial theory. Through the construction of races, such the-ory first develops an academic concept for the differentiation of humankind andthe elevation of its so-called white part. Afterwards, whiteness is generalised andrace is constituted as a social category. This is by no means only an ideologicaloperation from above. Rather, ›race‹ is closely connected to ›class‹ and the lowersocial classes are significantly involved in its constitution.

The »luxury« of »a common day labourer in Britain [. . . ]is much superior to that of many an Indian prince« (Adam Smith)

»We stand together, we whites, shopkeepers andmerchants, artisans, labourers and farmers« (William Lane)

»The social question is essentially a Jewish question« (Otto Glagau)

›Nueva Australia‹ and ›Nueva Germania‹ were located only a little morethan two hundred kilometres away from each other. The ideological dis-tance between their founders was however considerably greater: one wasa socialist agitator; the other, a völkish fanatic. Nevertheless, their world-views had something important in common. They built on the term raceand its promise to be able to distinguish between what is ›own‹ and whatis ›other‹ to the ›blood‹.

58 Wulf D. Hund

William Lane had a considerable influence not only on the organisa-tion of the ›Australian Labour Federation‹ but also on its constituency. Hewas a co-founder of the ›Australian Labour Federation‹ and the first edi-tor of ›The Worker‹. His ideas combined anarchistic, socialist, nationalistand racist perspectives. He increasingly doubted, in view of the Asian mi-gration, that Australia could develop into an acceptable society. Hence hepinned his hopes on a colony in Paraguay, which should implement socialand racial utopias. He left for Paraguay in 1893, but the ›Nueva Australia‹experiment failed to a great degree because of his authoritarian claim toleadership. Lane relocated to New Zealand and became a reactionary andchauvinistic journalist.1

Bernhard Förster was a driving force of political antisemitism inGermany. He was a member of the Richard Wagner circle and thebrother-in-law of Friedrich Nietzsche. As a co-founder of the ›DeutscherVolksverein‹ (German People’s Association) he became one of the initia-tors of the Antisemites’ Petition, which demanded that the emancipationof the Jews be revoked. Disgusted by the situation in Germany, which inhis eyes was liberal, he decided to build an Aryan colony in Paraguay,where he moved with a group of followers in 1886. In ›Nueva Germa-nia‹, the German character was supposed to be protected from contamina-tion by foreign races and able to develop without distortion. But the planfailed. Demoralised by money troubles and internal quarrelling, Förstercommitted suicide.2

These different phantasmagorias of racially pure life belonged to thegravitational fields of the ›Aryan myth‹ and the ›white Australia policy‹.The category race, which guided both, already had a long history whenthey were established. Until around the middle of the 17th century, it hadspread from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to England. Moreover, ithad been expanded in a way so as to describe religious and ethnic differ-ence in addition to class differences. In this form, ›race‹ was integratedinto the theoretical attempts to classify humankind.

However, it took a long hundred years before the use of the word racehad been consolidated enough to turn it into the central term of the sci-entific racism developed by the Enlightenment, whose different versionscombined cultural with biological arguments. This is how the scheme offour races distinguished by skin colour, the whites, yellows, blacks and

1 Cf. Lloyd Ross: William Lane and the Australian Labor Movement; Anne Whitehead:Paradise Mislaid.

2 Cf. Annette Hein: ›Es ist viel Hitler in Wagner‹, pp. 85, 165 ff.; Daniela Kraus: Bernhardund Elisabeth Försters Nueva Germania in Paraguay.

Negative Societalisation 59

reds, which simultaneously pretended order and hierarchy, finally gainedpopular acceptance.3

This process has been described as the ›invention‹ and ›construction‹of race.4 The terms emphasise that races are not products of nature, butthat they constitute social entities. Racism, however, is often declared tobe a mere ideology, and race sometimes even to be fiction. The objec-tion that race is »a social fact« is directed against this idea. Furthermore,alternative suggestions conceptualise race as an expression of »racial for-mation« or »racial constitution«.5 Independently of their methodologicaldifferences, such conceptions see racism as a social relation. Its analysistherefore not only has to consider the relations between structural, per-formative, material, ideological and historical dimensions of the social. Italso has to question the different historical stages of the development ofthe race concept.

The first stage in this development was marked by the formationof European colonialism and transatlantic slavery. In their course, tradi-tional patterns of contempt were extended by new elements. Traditionaldichotomies distinguished between the cultivated and barbarians, humansand monsters, the pure and the impure, the chosen and outcasts. Then thecontrasts between the civilised and savages as well as between whitesand coloureds were added to them. It was in this way that skin colourgradually became an element in the formation of imagined communities.

In the second stage, these instruments of discrimination were devel-oped into the race concept and race was turned into a scientifically ac-cepted term. The Enlightenment first differentiated between people ac-cording to a constructed scheme of skin colours, which were soon sup-plemented by allegedly measurable differences in body structure. Therace scheme devised in this context presented the so-called white race asthe sole representative of developed humanity.

The third stage led to the generalisation of the race concept. It becameparadigmatic in anthropology and spread in the sciences and humanities.At the same time, it was culturally encoded and popularised. The ›white‹lower classes were granted membership in the ›master race‹ as well. Racewas constituted as a social community. With regard to the formation of

3 And it took another long period until the coinage of the term ›racism‹ »which goes backonly to the early twentieth century« (George M. Fredrickson: Racism, p. 156).

4 Cf. Theodore W. Allen: The Invention of the White Race; Lee D. Barker: From Savageto Negro.

5 Cf. Margaret L. Andersen: Whitewashing Race, p. 33 (›social fact‹); Michael Omi,Howard Winant: Racial Formation in the United States; David Theo Goldberg: RacistCulture, p. 83 (›racial constitution‹).

60 Wulf D. Hund

modern racism, one can therefore distinguish between the stages of theimagination, construction and constitution of the race concept.6

I will explain this process with regard to a few essential steps. First, Iwill develop a model of ›inclusion by exclusion‹. Hierarchically orderedsocieties certainly also hold together because of positive indicators. How-ever, since their resources are distributed unequally, they cannot achievesocial cohesion without negative elements. And, as such, they partly haveto form community at the expense of others. Societies of this type organ-ise the social inclusion of the underprivileged classes through the racistexclusion of alienated others.

Then I will focus on two important stages in the process of racein the making. For one, I will examine the theoretical ›construction ofrace‹. Using the example of Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlighten-ment, I will show that the ideological potential of the race concept wasalready recognized at the beginning of modern racism. For another, I willdiscuss the ›popularisation of race‹ and illustrate this process throughtwo »white supremacist entertainments«,7 world and ethnographic exhi-bitions, which were widespread in the late 19th century, as well as usingthe example of the emerging racist advertising of mass-produced articles.

Subsequently, I will discuss the embedding of the popularised raceconcept in socio-political action as the constitution of race. Two verydifferent instances of racist nation-building will be presented: the whiteAustralia policy and political antisemitism in Germany. I will show thatthe slogan of the later national anthem, ›advance Australia fair‹, thema-tised the racist integration of different colonies to form a nation. And Iwill argue that the statement ›the Jews are our misfortune‹ accentuatedan opinion which existed in different social groups and political campsin Germany and flanked the construction of the nation against Jews. Inmy concluding and recapitulatory thoughts, I will characterise racism as›negative societalisation‹, i. e. the formation, association, and integrationof social groups by means of the exclusion of others.8

Inclusion by Exclusion

As a rule, social elites do not tend to make themselves equal to the lowerclasses. This attitude has a long tradition, which ranges from antiquity

6 Cf. Wulf D. Hund: Rassismus (2007), pp. 34-81; id.: Die weiße Norm, p. 175; id.:[lemma] Rassismus.

7 Robert W. Rydell: All the World’s a Fair, p. 6.8 The translations of the German ›Vergesellschaftung‹ vary. Societali[s/z]ation at least

has the advantage of not being occupied by other meanings.


over the Middle Ages to the early modern times and modernity. In earlycapitalism, it found expression in theoretical concepts of class racism.The most well-known of them is Malthus’s ideological intertwinementof primitivity, misery and extermination. It was not only supposed tohold true for allegedly undeveloped races but also for the lower classes incivilised societies. These ideas influenced Herbert Spencer’s theorem ofthe ›survival of the fittest‹ and contaminated the substantiation of evolu-tionary theory by Charles Darwin. In eugenics, they were carried forwardtheoretically as well as socio-politically.9

In the European context, such ideological operations can be datedback to ancient times. The great philosophy of the Greek did not shrinkfrom eugenic slogans. And it created scenarios of social inclusion and ex-clusion which operated with natural characteristics. Platon, for instance,developed an allegory based on the quality of blood to illustrate the sup-posedly decreasing value of the social classes. On the one hand, citizenshad to be shown that they were brothers. On the other hand, they hadto be persuaded that the gods still had not created them equal. Rather,they had added gold to a few, silver to some and iron to many.10 Whatwas supposed to nonetheless make them all united was not least the dif-ferentiation between Hellenes and barbarians. It was alleged to have de-veloped especially strongly in Athenians, as they were »purely Hellenic[. . . ] and unmixed with barbarians«. The citizens were therefore unifiedby »a wholly pure hatred [. . . ] against foreign nature«.

Aristotle finally claimed that barbarians were slaves by nature.11 Hischaracterisation of slaves incorporated an opportunistic realism whichlater justifications of the racist defamation of others would use time andagain, too. Nature, Aristotle let us know, aimed at a bodily expression ofthe difference between free people and slaves. However, this often wentwrong, so that external features were unsuitable indicators for human in-feriority.12 Therefore, the inferiority was moved to the condition of themind. Those who did not possess reason actively but could only under-stand its imperatives passively were considered to be slaves. Slaves wereto free people as the body to the soul and animals to humans.

Platon and Aristotle obviously did not employ modern race nomen-

9 Cf. Wulf D. Hund: Negative Vergesellschaftung, pp. 59 ff.10 Cf. Platon: Politeia, p. 145 (415 a); for the following see id.: Menexenos, p. 118 (245

c/d).11 Cf. Benjamin Isaac: The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity, p. 178.12 Cf. Aristoteles: Politik, p. 53 (1254 b, 25 ff.); for the following cf. ibid., p. 53 (1254 b,

15 ff.).

62 Wulf D. Hund

clature. Instead of »the Big Three of race, class, and gender«,13 they usedthe term › ‹ to set off the ›genos‹ of women from that of men, todifferentiate between elites, middle classes and lower classes as golden,silver and iron ›gene‹ and to distinguish between the ›gene‹ of barbariansand Hellenes. In every case, the logic of the discrimination was based onnatural differences but separated by inclusive and exclusive devaluation.Compared to slavish barbarians, such different ›gene‹ as women and menor the poor and the rich could be thought of as unified free Greeks. Thecomparisons between the dissimilarity of the body and soul or animalsand humans were meant to reveal the fundamental character of the differ-ence and served as a blueprint for similar undertakings of later times.14

Although the European Middle Ages did not give up the separationbetween the ›cultivated‹ and the ›barbarians‹, the differentiations betweenthe ›pure‹ and the ›impure‹ as well as between the ›chosen‹ and the ›out-casts‹ served as the main grounds for racist exclusion. Both belonged tothe early arsenal of antisemitism. The church fathers had already declaredJews to be lepers and claimed that they could smell their »stench of un-belief«. Jews were suspected of being especially impure because theirmen supposedly menstruated as well.15 From the 15th century onwards,the Spanish policy of the purity of blood organised a system of inclusionand exclusion which even theorists, who overall date racism later andclosely connect it to the concept of race, consider to be »the first forma-tion of modern racism«, »racism in the modern sense« and »undoubtedlyracist«.16

Like contaminatory racism, demonological racism operated with aradically exclusive dichotomy. It was defined by the construction of op-posite worlds, where evil was represented mainly by Muslims and Jews.In the antisemitic part of this conceptual universe, devils wore Jew badgesand Jews exuded a devilish smell, the Antichrist was born as the son ofSatan and a Jewish whore and Jews prayed to the devil, who tried to wipeout Christianity with their help.17

The stereotypes relating to the devil, impurity and the barbarian, not

13 Jan Nederveen Pieterse: Other, p. 307; for the following see Rachana Kamtekar: Dis-tinction Without Difference, pp. 4 f.

14 Cf. the contributions in Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, Joseph Ziegler (eds.):The Origins of Racism in the West.

15 Cf. Wulf D. Hund: [lemma] Rassismus (the ascription of leprosy was made by Am-brosius, that of stench by Maximus, male menstruation was imputed by Thomas deCantimpré and others).

16 Christian Geulen: Geschichte des Rassismus, p. 36; George L. Mosse: Die Geschichtedes Rassismus in Europa, p. 27; George M. Fredrickson: Racism, p. 33.

17 Cf. Joshua Trachtenberg: The Devil and the Jews.


only made the incorporation of different social groups possible but madeinter-group unity seem virtually indispensable for the defence againstevil. Therefore, it was no coincidence that the call for the First Crusadewas also followed by the lower classes. As they banded together againstan eternal enemy, they did not even bother to go south to ›free‹ the HolyCity but destroyed the Jewish communities of German cities.18 Itinerantpreachers had popularised the idea of the crusade. People from varioussocial classes, from paupers to members of the nobility, joined forces inchiliastic crowds. The lower and middle classes of the cities they struckmade common cause with them.

A similarly racist unio mystica was enabled by the Spanish policyof the purity of blood (›limpieza de sangre‹). The policy not least af-fected social climbers who could be proven to have ancestors with ›Jew-ish blood‹ or to have been breastfed by a converted wet nurse. In compar-ison with them, the ›pureblooded‹ members of lower classes could feelto be part of a chosen community to such an extent that it was finallyclaimed that Spain had »two kinds of nobility, namely a higher – the hi-dalguerie – and a lower – this is the limpieza«. Meanwhile, the allegedlyuncontaminated Christian background had become so significant that a»commoner with pure blood« was supposedly held in higher regard thana »hidalgo with impure blood«.19

From the 16th century onwards, the discrimination of others as bar-barian, impure or outcasts in different combinations belonged to the in-ventory of the ideological ships’ libraries of European colonialism. In thecourse of genocidal land seizure and slaveholding, the legitimatory func-tion of this organon was continuously adjusted. On its basis, the Enlight-enment finally developed a new, now allegedly truly scientific variant:race theory.

Its cross-class quality, which created community, had already beenanticipated by the solidarity of the settlers arising from the violence ofthe frontier, which the colonial settler societies constantly sought to shiftto their advantage. Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 has been interpreted as aportent of future racist mobs. It united gentlemen, free framers, Europeanservants and African slaves against the colonial government of Virginiaand unified them through hatred of Indians. The finally victorious elitessubsequently moved the boundary of racist exclusion and juridically drewit between Europeans as genuine ›Christians‹ and Indians as ›savages‹ as

18 Cf. Der Erste Kreuzzug 1096 und seine Folgen; Dieter Mertens: Christen und Juden zurZeit des ersten Kreuzzuges.

19 Quoted in Léon Poliakov: Geschichte des Antisemitismus, p. 87.

64 Wulf D. Hund

well as Africans as ›Negro slaves‹. The negative societalisation thus of-fered to the lower classes did not change their socioeconomic condition.However, it gave them a sociopolitical sphere of action called ›freedom‹which was justified racistly20 and finally marked as ›white‹.21

This ideological resource was fixed theoretically in the 18th centuryand generalised in the 19th century. It was first accepted and propagatedby the lower classes in the race societies which had arisen from Europeancolonialism and eventually became part of the everyday consciousness ofsections of the working classes in the imperialist metropoles. The con-stitution of the working classes was accompanied by the formation of›white‹ identity. Their organisations not only emphasised their readinessfor social conflict but also often claimed their right to social integration.This was frequently accompanied by a willingness to discriminate againstothers in a racist way.

The social function of this process has been described in contem-porary sociological and psychological thinking. Max Weber called sucha societalisation »purely negative« and explained it by using the exam-ple of »ethnic honour«. He conceived of »ethnic honour« as a »masshonour« which was available independently of social status and thus tomembers of the lower classes as well. To illustrate this, he pointed tothe poor whites in the South of the United States, whose »social ›honour‹was fully dependent on the social degradation of blacks«. Sigmund Freudconsidered this relation to be functional for class societies and declaredit to be the surrogate for exploitation and repression. Through the »au-thorisation to despise outsiders«, the oppressed were »recompensed forrestrictions in their own circle«.22

20 This unusual adverbial form is necessary to differentiate between racial actions whichare racially orientated and racist actions, which could be connected with the race stereo-type as well as with the stereotypes of the barbarian, the impure, the outcast, or thesavage. ›Racism‹ is the general category, ›racialism‹ is one of the forms of racism. Inthe case of Bacon’s Rebellion discrimination was racistly justified with the traditionalstigmas of the heathen and the savage as well as with the just recently developed stigmaof race.

21 Cf. Edmund S. Morgan: American Slavery, American Freedom, pp. 250-270 (– who onp. 328 draws attention to the fact that in Virginia »racism« first had a unifying effect as»hatred against Indians« and was subsequently used as a means »to separate dangerousfree whites from dangerous slave blacks«); Terrance MacMullan: Habits of Whiteness,pp. 25-42 (– who on pp. 25 f. points out that »whiteness was established largely in acircular or negative fashion«).

22 Max Weber: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, pp. 303, 309; Sigmund Freud: Die Zukunfteiner Illusion, p. 147 – (Weber contributed his share to the stabilisation of German eth-nic honour when during the war he bristled that »an army of negroes, Ghurkas and allthe barbaric rabble of the world is standing at our border«: id., Rußlands Übergang zurScheindemokratie, p. 259; Freud developed his idea that »the sense of community of


This resource of distinction which is also available to the lowerclasses has been described in more recent discussions of racism as racistcultural capital or racist symbolic capital.23 Both are complex termswhich were coined following Pierre Bourdieu. Despite their heuristicstretchability, they differ in that ›cultural capital‹ is rather a category ofequipment and ›symbolic capital‹ rather a category of ascription. Culturalcapital is incorporated through education, objectified through culturalassets and institutionalised through titles. Symbolic capital is assignedthrough recognition and expressed as prestige. Insofar as the ›authori-sation to despise outsiders‹ finds expression in ›ethnic honour‹, such aresource can obviously also be granted to poor and uneducated membersof a community which is imagined in this way.

The Construction of Race

The Enlightenment already found the category race in a form prepro-cessed for its purposes. In the description of the world and the order oflife, it further developed the category empirically. At the same time, it in-tegrated race into the theory of progress. Both from its origin and throughits analytical redefinition, race was a hierarchising term.

Its origin combined class thinking with fear of contamination. Asearly as in the first half of the 15th century, Alfonso Martinez de Toledoclaimed that the noble (»buena rraça«) and common (»vil rraça«) descentfrom farmers and knights would prevail even if the children were sep-arated from their parents and raised under the same conditions. In the16th century, Christophle de Bonours asserted that noblesse was a racialfeature (»vertue de race«) which affected body and soul. At that time, theexpression race had already entered the English language and could carryethnic connotations. Edmund Spencer commented on the mixing of En-glish and Irish people: »how cane suche matchinge but bringe forthe anevill race«. Soon after, the word was part of the great literature. WilliamShakespeare created Caliban as a »savage«, »beast« and »monster« of a»vile race«.24

the masses [needs] the hostility towards an outside minority for its completion« usingthe example of »Jew hatred«: id., Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion,p. 538).

23 Cf. Steve Garner: Whiteness, p. 49 (›cultural capital‹); Anja Weiß: Rassismus als sym-bolisch vermittelte Dimension sozialer Ungleichheit (›symbolic capital‹) – see also heressay in this volume.

24 Alfonso Martinez de Toledo, quoted from Max Sebastián Hering Torres: ›Limpieza desangre‹, p. 28 (see also David Nirenberg: Das Konzept von Rasse in der Forschung

66 Wulf D. Hund

In the 17th century, this terminology was systematised and linked tothe category ›whiteness‹.25 The complexions of the inhabitants of thedifferent continents were coded in terms of colour and hierarchised. Skincolours, which allegedly differed by race, became subjects of scientificinvestigation for Robert Boyle and others and an element of philosophicalspeculation in John Locke’s work. Finally, William Petty formulated anoutline of what was later to be developed into modern race theory.

Like the other European philosophers of the Enlightenment, the Scot-tish moral philosophers in the 18th century integrated the idea of colouredhuman races and white supremacy into their theory of progress. Thistheory assumed that »[i]n every part of the earth, the progress of manhath been nearly the same; and we can trace him in his career fromthe rude simplicity of savage life, until he attains the industry, the arts,and the elegance of polished society«.26 Against this background, the so-called primitive races were written back to the beginning of all history.To William Robertson, the »original race« in the Americas consisted of»human beings in the infancy of social life«, so that they were rightlycalled »savage«. They were so »rude and indolent« that their lands »werealmost in the same state as if they had been without inhabitants«. Whilethere was no doubt »that all the human race spring from the same source«,the humans of the New World »differed remarkably from the rest of thehuman species«, so that even the view »that they formed a separate raceof men« was advanced.

One of the exponents of this view, Henry Home, Lord Kames, fol-lowed the contemporary theory of colours, which claimed that men were»white in Europe, black in Africa, yellow in Asia, and red in America«.However, he inverted the argument of the climate theory which was oftenused to explain this. After all, he argued, the whites or blacks who came

über mittelalterlichen iberischen Antijudaismus, pp. 61 f.); Christophle de Bonours,quoted from Arlette Jouanna: L’idée de race en France au XVIème siècle et au début duXVIIème siècle, III, p. 1341; Edmund Spenser: A View of the State of Ireland, p. 173;William Shakespeare: The Tempest, pp. 81 (I.2 – ›savage‹, ›race‹), 125 (II.2 – ›mon-ster‹), 167 (IV.1 – ›beast‹). Looked at that way, the meanings of ›race as lineage‹ and›race as type‹ intermingled at an earlier date than Michael Banton (Racial Theories,pp. 17 ff., 44 ff.) assumed.

25 Here, I follow the analysis of Gary Taylor: Buying Whiteness, pp. 257 (›skin colours‹),271 ff., (›scientific investigation‹), 316 ff. (›philosophical speculation ‹), 269 f. (›Petty‹);for Petty and his formulation of an early version of the future concept of colouredhuman races see already Margaret T. Hodgen: Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries, pp. 419 ff.

26 William Robertson: The History of the Discovery and Settlement of America, p. 131;for the following see pp. 126 (›original race‹, ›rude‹, ›without inhabitants‹), 129 f. (›allthe human race‹), 130 (›separate race of men‹), 138 (›infancy of social life‹).


to America from Europe or Africa did not change their skin colours evenafter generations. Therefore, it had to be assumed that the climate had notcreated different types of humans, but that conversely »different speciesof men« had been created »for [. . . ] different climates«. At least in theform of a question, Kames speculated that »God created many pairs of thehuman race, differing from each other both externally and internally«.27

David Hume not only sympathised with this attitude but also lackedany qualms about documenting the ignorance connected to it. This be-came very clear in his notorious footnote on the race question: »I am aptto suspect the negroes and in general all other species of men (for thereare four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites.There never scarcely ever was a civilized nation of any other that com-plexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action orspeculation. [. . . ] On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of thewhites, such as the ancient Germans [. . . ] have still something eminentabout them [. . . and] low people, without education, will start up amongstus [. . . ]. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts andlearning; but ‘tis likely he is admired [. . . ] like a parrot, who speaks a fewwords plainly«.28

›Whiteness‹ in this context was held to be a characteristic of thosewho had contributed to the development of human culture and thus tobe superior to all nonwhites. This involved a mechanism of attributionwhich made it possible to see those in earlier states of whiteness digni-fied through the shine of its later maturation (so that the ingenious Egyp-tians curiously were not mentioned, whereas the barbaric Germans werepraised).

Moreover, not only the crude ancestors of foreign nations but alsothe members of one’s own, not less foreign, lower classes could thusbe comprehended by the ideological framework of whiteness. The ›lowpeople‹ did not get ›amongst us‹ through the removal of class barriers.Rather, they were included negatively, through the exclusion of others.Only the comparison to ›non-whites‹ turned them into ›whites‹, mem-bers of a racial community.

At the same time, Hume pointed out the social advantage of the racistsymbolic capital thus offered to the lower classes. With its help, theycould feel superior to others who had a considerably higher cultural cap-

27 Henry Home, Lord Kames: Sketches of the History of Man, vol. 1, pp. 26 (›Europe‹etc.), 20 (›different species‹), 76 (› many pairs‹).

28 David Hume: Of National Characters, p. 252; the reconstruction of the changes in thetext follows John Immerwahr: Hume’s Revised Racism, p. 483, who edited it so thatcrossouts and additions become clear.

68 Wulf D. Hund

ital but no comparable symbolic capital. Hume expressed the option con-nected to this with open malice and obvious ignorance by ridiculing ablack scholar.

This was of course only a theoretical vade mecum for the membersof the lower classes, whom Hume certainly did not imagine to be readersof his philosophical treatises. Adam Smith argued similarly, albeit lessspitefully. He was comparatively impartial with regard to the starting po-sition of the different social development of individuals. In his famouscomparison between the philosopher and the porter, he let them be equalin their infancy and considered the development of their social charac-ters, which finally contrast strongly, to be the result of different socialmilieus.29 Moreover, he explained the dissimilar material equipment ofthese milieus as a result of unjust social conditions.

Smith was certain that the legitimation of property through one’s ownlabour developed by Locke was childish and false. Large private propertycould not have been accumulated in this way. It could only be generatedthrough the appropriation of the labour of others. This involved an ex-tremely unequal distribution of labour and property. Those who workedthe most got the least and those who hardly worked or did not work at allappropriated the most. Smith called this an »enormous defalcation« andregarded the lower classes as its victims.30

Nonetheless, he justified the social order which resulted from theseconditions. He asserted that it promoted the industriousness of individu-als through the pursuit of wealth and thus contributed to an increase inthe prosperity of the whole. Therefore, according to Smith, one could ac-cept that social valuation was based on distorted patterns and that effortsto rise socially led to alienation. At the end of his critical argumenta-tion, Smith turned out to be an ideologist of bourgeois society and itseconomic, social and political conditions. Moreover, when he set aboutmaking the purpose and utility of their efforts palatable to the workingclasses, he covertly changed the perspective of his argumentation.

In his diagnosis of the material and moral conditions in society, heremained within the social whole characterised by him as a class society.Afterwards, he recommended its lower classes an external comparison todetermine their position. Smith assumed that the cohesion between theclasses could not be secured safely enough if the poor accepted the val-

29 Cf. Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and the Causes of the Wealth of Nations,pp. 28 f.

30 Adam Smith: Early Draft of Part of The Wealth of Nations, pp. 563 f.; for the followingcf. id.: Theory of Moral Sentiments, pp. 61 (›corruption of moral sentiments‹), 181-184(Smith does not use the term ›alienation‹ but he outlines the issue).


ues and norms of the rich and admired their status. Since they could notovercome the social gap between themselves and the rich, they also hadto be offered an external yardstick for the assessment of their situation.

Therefore, the »common day labourer in Britain« was called upon tocompare his condition to that of American Indians. He would then re-alise »that his luxury is much superior to that of many an Indian prince,the absolute master of the lives and liberties of a thousand naked sav-ages«. If he compared himself to his betters in his own society, he wouldhave to realise that his situation was »extremely simple and easy«. Butif he compared himself to those in colonised areas, he saw that his com-fort »exceeds that of the chief of a savage nation in North America«.31

Those who were deemed poor wretches in the classist comparison werenonetheless allowed to imagine themselves as members of the supposedsuperior culture in the racist comparison.

Adam Ferguson also assumed the existence of different human racesand their different positions on the scale of human progress. He listedas races »[t]he European, the Samoeide, the Tartar, the Hindoo, the Ne-gro, and the American« and claimed that »[t]he genius of political wis-dom and of civil arts« had »selected his favourites in particular races ofmen«.32 Ferguson was aware that comparisons of the relation of barbar-ian to civilised races which were made on such a basis promoted thecohesion of those who constituted themselves as the supposedly supe-rior group. Already »[a]mong the Greeks, the name of Barbarian, underwhich that people comprehended every nation that was of a race [. . . ]different from their own, became a term of indiscriminate contempt andaversion«. From such situations, for which the term ›prejudice‹ was def-initely at his disposal, Ferguson concluded: »Our attachment to one di-vision [. . . of humans] seems often to derive much of its force from ananimosity conceived to an opposite one«.

As in all race theories, Scottish moral philosophers not only used theterm race to describe the outward differences between humans. They con-nected them to mental abilities and cultural peculiarities and passed offthe social categories they thus constructed as products of nature. Further-more, in the theory of progress they had helped to develop, they placed

31 Adam Smith: Early Draft of Part of The Wealth of Nations, pp. 562 f.; see also id.:Lectures on Jurisprudence, pp. 338 ff.; with this figure of thought Smith directly linkedhis argument to John Locke’s legitimisation of settler colonialism (cf. John Locke: TwoTreatises of Government, II, § 41, pp. 314 f.).

32 Adam Ferguson: Institutes of Moral Philosophy, p. 19 (›races‹) and id.: An Essay on theHistory of Civil Society, p. 165 (›genius‹); for the following see ibid., pp. 30 f. (›Greeks‹/ ›Barbarians‹), 24 (›animosity‹) and id.: Principles of Moral and Political Science, 1,pp. 216 f. (›prejudice‹).

70 Wulf D. Hund

the races they created into different stages of human development. Thedistance between peoples which was generated in this way served severalfunctions. It synchronised world history with European history and madethe latter the yardstick for human development in general. Thereby, itsecretly turned colonial land seizures into civilising missions. And it the-oretically generated a space of whiteness open to different classes, whichin practice had long been staked out in settler societies.

The Popularisation of Race

»I myself should like to see in London an anthropological garden, some-thing on the same principle as the Zoological Gardens, where living spec-imens of the principal varieties of the human race might be seen andcompared«, Berthold Seeman declared before the ›Anthropological So-ciety of London‹ in 1863.33 The learned gardener, botanising traveller,honorary doctor of the University of Göttingen and editor of the ›Journalof Botany‹ did not have scruples about extending his experiences withthe collection and exhibition of plants to humans.

At that time, popular and academic expositions of those racistlydeemed different and inferior were already claimed to be separate andhad been organised in museums on the one hand and ethnographic ex-hibitions and world’s fairs on the other. In reality, however, instead ofclear boundaries there were several links between these institutions. Theorganisers of world expositions cooperated with ethnologists and anthro-pologists. And those who staged ethnographic exhibitions had the mem-bers of foreign peoples they engaged examined by scientists. The onegroup spared itself the journey to distant lands and seized the chance forinexpensive race examinations; in return, the other group received expertopinions on the authenticity of their shows.34

In Germany, the new genre of the ›Völkerschau‹ (human zoo) reachedall classes of society. There were ›cheap days‹, and classes of all schooltypes attended the events en masse. This formation of a socially heteroge-neous mass audience resulted from the advance of urbanisation. The legalintroduction of the work-free Sunday and the leisure time thus availableto many for the first time benefited the growth of a developing entertain-ment industry.35 Between 1875 and 1930, a good four hundred shows

33 Quoted in Paul Turnbull: British Anthropological Thought in Colonial Practice, pp. 212f.

34 Cf. Anne Dreesbach: Gezähmte Wilde, pp. 33 f.; Gabi Eißenberger: Entführt, verspottetund gestorben, pp. 199 f.

35 Cf. Hilke Thode-Arora: Für fünfzig Pfennig um die Welt, p. 148 (›all classes‹, ›cheap


were staged. Most of them were presented in several places; some couldbe seen in up to twenty cities and also made guest appearances abroad.The highest number of people attending on a single day was more thanone hundred thousand, and in a single place, more than one million.

The central motif of the different representations was the creation ofdistance through the defamiliarisation of the others. Through the stagedimages of foreign ways of living, the exotic portrayal of the people whowere shown also conveyed the idea of different stages of civilisation. Thiswas not least expressed in the frequent appearance of ethnographic ex-hibitions in fenced-off areas in zoological gardens. The people on dis-play were marked as ›savages‹.36 Vis-à-vis them, the socially heteroge-neous crowd of spectators could understand themselves as ›civilised‹.Since those who were presented regularly belonged to groups labelled›coloured‹, the cultural background of the race nomenclature seemedsensually perceptible and the audience was identified as ›white‹. Occa-sionally, this was also expressed directly. In 1894, for instance, an ethno-graphic show in the zoological garden of Leipzig, which was announcedas a ›Swahili-caravan‹, staged amongst others scenes one called ›wash-ing the moor‹, in which a fair-haired child tried to wash a black personwhite.37

This motif also spread widely through advertising. On the one handthis contributed to the supplementation of the elitist »scientific racism«by a popular »commodity racism«.38 On the other hand, the consumptionof goods which were advertised in this way, like the visit to an ethno-graphic exhibition, allowed the formation of racist symbolic capital. Ac-cess to the zoological garden and shopping in the colonial store was notlimited to a certain class but orientated to the attraction of a diverse audi-ence and heterogeneous customers.

Racist advertisements signalled to consumers through the goods theyhelped to promote both racial superiority and egalitarian unity. The ser-vant figure which the others were often made to represent came from thefund of class society. However, it also especially offered its services tothose who may not have been able to afford domestics but could wellbuy a low-cost mass product. Moreover, these figures were increasinglyracialised and conveyed by images which emphasised their fundamen-

days‹, ›school classes‹); Anne Dreesbach: Gezähmte Wilde, pp. 40 f. (›mass audience‹,›leisure time‹); for the following see ibid., p. 79 (number of exhibitions and spectators).

36 Cf. Balthasar Staehelin: Völkerschauen im Zoologischen Garten Basel, pp. 86 ff.37 Cf. Nana Badenberg: Die Bildkarriere eines kulturellen Stereotyps, p. 174.38 Anne McClintock: Imperial Leather, p. 33; for racist soap advertisements see ibid.,

pp. 207 ff. and Jan Nederveen Pieterse: White on Black, pp. 195 ff.

72 Wulf D. Hund

tal difference to consumers.39 The popularised and racialised aura of theexquisite did not promise prestige through a change in social circum-stances but as admission to the ›white race‹.

This dimension of consumer racism was further intensified throughthe fact that new forms of advertising, which were committed to cus-tomer retention, prompted consumers to buy again through free gifts ofcollectible cards. They were not only added to goods which were relatedto colonialism (coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, rum etc.) or potentiallyassociated with it due to racial stereotypes (soap, shoe polish, toothpasteetc.) but were used for a number of products in the context of »empiremerchandising« and »popular imperialism«.40

As ›image schools‹ for ›Herrenmenschen‹ (members of the masterrace), they contributed to the popularisation of a racist ideological cli-mate. In Germany, for example, this climate allowed the director of theGerman Colonial Office to declare from above: »with respect to the col-ored man even the proletarian is master«. From below, revisionist mem-bers of the Social Democratic Party proclaimed »that in certain matters,for instance in colonial affairs, there is a solidarity of interests betweenthe bourgeois and the proletarian«.

Thus everywhere in the imperialist and related countries, ethno-graphic exhibitions and advertisements for colonial goods offered an›empire for the masses‹ which could be entered and consumed and hadideological support from all political camps.41 Its different elements wereespecially highlighted at world fairs. Technology and underdevelopmentwere staged and scientific and popular racism combined to demonstratewhite supremacy. These found architectural expression in a ›white city‹at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

This ensemble was ideologically framed by two performances whichscientifically explained the triumph of civilisation and enacted it withmass impact. The historian Frederick Jackson Turner developed his the-ory of ›The Significance of the Frontier in American History‹ at a side-event of the world exhibition. The actor William Frederick Cody pre-sented ›Buffalo Bill’s Wild West‹ in immediate vicinity to the fair. Whilethe former asserted that the plough was an essential tool in the cultivationof the supposedly uncultivated continent, the latter sang the praises of the

39 Cf. David M. Ciarlo: Rasse konsumieren, p. 146.40 Michael Pickering: Stereotyping, p. 127 (›merchandising‹); Jan Nederveen Pieterse:

White on Black, p. 77 (›imperialism‹); for the following see Joachim Zeller: Bilder-schule der Herrenmenschen; Ben Kiernan: Blood and Soil, p. 390 (cit. ›proletarian asmaster‹); Fatima El-Tayeb: Schwarze Deutsche, p. 70 (cit. ›solidarity of interests‹).

41 Cf. William H. Schneider: An Empire for the Masses.


rifle in the fight against its professedly savage inhabitants.42 The messageof both served the legitimatory overwriting of land seizure and genocide.As if in passing, Chicago was vindicated as a legitimate place of whiteself-representation. The initiators of the world exposition pointedly ex-pressed this by inviting several Sioux chiefs to the opening ceremony.Their participation in the self-presentation of ›white‹ civilisation (afterthe murder of Sitting Bull and Spotted Elk and the massacre of WoundedKnee) seemed to finally seal its triumph.

At the fair grounds, the ›white city‹ was virtually symbolically framedby an anthropology building situated in the southeast and the entertain-ment area Midway Plaisance set up in the northwest. Visitors to the an-thropological section could compare their own bodies and those of othersby observing two statues which were supposed to represent the typicalaverage bodies of a male and a female American student and which, as ifit were a matter of course, were white.43 The exhibitions documented thestate-of-the-art of race sciences. Contemporary commentators describedthese sciences as an »illustrated encyclopedia of humanity« which madeclear »the steps of progress of civilization [. . . ] up to the present time«.

This concept was repeated in popular form in the Midway area. Aspectator understood it as a »sliding scale of humanity« and recom-mended traversing it from bottom to top: »starting with the lowest speci-mens of humanity, and reaching continually upward to the highest stage«.This view coincided with the coverage of the ›Chicago Tribune‹, even if itsuggested the opposite journey – »tracing humanity in its highest phasesdown almost to its animalistic origins«.44 In a special issue of the ›Cos-mopolitan‹, one could read about the alleged experience related to this:»who can tell how many thousand years away from us as to appearance,modes of life and traditions, is the Dahomey village«.

Frederic Ward Putnam, curator of the ›Museum of American Archae-ology and Ethnology‹ at Harvard University and head of the anthro-pology department of the World’s Columbian Exhibition, left no doubtabout whom the staging of such distance was aimed at. With regard to»Soudanese, Dahomeyans, Nubians and the Congo people« he declared:»The Negro types of the fair [. . . ] represented very fairly the barbarous

42 Cf. Richard White: Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill; for the following seeRobert W. Rydell: All the World’s a Fair, p. 63.

43 Cf. Roberta J. Park: Physiology and Anatomy are Destiny, p. 56 (photographs of thestatues can be found ibid., p. 57); for the following quotations see Curtis M. Hinsley:The World as Marketplace, p. 346 (›encyclopedia‹, ›progress‹).

44 Both quoted in Robert W. Rydell: All the World’s a Fair, p. 65; for the following see themap in James Gilbert: Perfect Cities, p. 112.

74 Wulf D. Hund

or half civilized state of a people who are a numerous and rapidly in-creasing class of American citizens«.45 By subsequently emphasising the»advanced social condition of the African Americans over that of theirbarbarous countrymen«, he was not only able to see a, supposedly civ-ilizing, side in slavery. He also assumed that only slavery had snatchedsome Africans from the state of barbarity in which the majority were heldstill to remain.

This invective was popularised at the world exhibition by the firstappearance with mass impact of two stereotypes of commodity racismwhich have survived until today: the uncle of ›Cream of Wheat‹ and themammy of ›Aunt Jemima‹.46 They counteracted the prospects the abo-lition of slavery held for blacks through the propaganda of a »unifying«and »racial nostalgia« for whites – »regardless of class«.47 The amalga-mation of racial stereotypes and advertising for a mass market thereforepromoted the harmony of southern savoir vivre and northern ingenuity,the split between white ladies and black mammies, and the dualism ofblack servitude and white dominance.

›Advance Australia Fair‹

When the current Australian national anthem was first played officially in1879, its lyrics were sexist (for ›sons‹ only), colonialist (Cook ›landed onour shore‹) and chauvinist (for ›Britannia’s‹ sons only). When the songwas sung by a ten-thousand-strong choir at the inauguration party of theCommonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901, not much had changed,except that Britannia’s sons had become ›loyal sons‹. In today’s version,both Cook and the sexual exclusiveness are erased. However, the land andits inhabitants are still described as ›young and free‹. At the time whenthese lyrics originated, this was a clear message. Aborigines were sungout of their history and land.

The chorus of the anthem, which was retained as well, is ambiguous:›advance Australia fair‹. It indicates that the song »in its original rendi-tion was an effort to assert the whiteness of a new British possession«.48

45 Julian Hawthorne: Foreign Folk at the Fair, p. 572 (›thousand years away‹); Orientaland Occidental Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the Midway Plaisance, n. p.(›barbarous or half civilized state‹) – for the following see ibid.

46 Cf. Chaim M. Rosenberg: America at the Fair, p. 127; Adele Wessell: Between Alimen-tary Products and the Art of Cooking, p. 117.

47 Kimberly Wallace-Sanders: Mammy, p. 62 (›unifying‹); cf. also Maurice M. Manring:Slave in a Box; Robert W. Rydell: All the World’s a Fair, p. 67 (›class‹).

48 Christopher Kelen: Hymns for and from White Australia, p. 207.


The history of this possession begins with the colonial annexation of Aus-tralia. It tells of the difficulties in the practical fulfilment of Hume’s racistoffer to the ›low people amongst us‹, ›the whites‹. For ideological offersare far from material conditions. Furthermore, the ›low people‹, when theFirst Fleet reached Australia in 1788, were made up of the ship’s lowerranks and troops, but mainly comprised convicts who were deported tothe new colony.

They were confronted with strong prejudice. The developing colonialclass society incorporated them as an underclass of disenfranchised un-free forced labourers.49 Initially, they mainly worked for the state, but astime went by they were, in increasing numbers, also assigned to free orreleased settlers. Around 1820, almost 75 percent of the convicts were inprivate services, mainly in agriculture. Such large landowners as WilliamCox employed up to one hundred convicts. Through their work, they wereembroiled in the conflicts of the colonial frontier and the genocidal mas-sacres of the Aborigines. Their bosses thought »that the blackfellow wasnot a human being«, and opinion leaders such as Cox declared »that thebest thing that could be done, would be to shoot all the blacks and manurethe ground with their carcases«. As to the persecution of Aborigines, whohad officially been declared outlaws, both »Free Men« and »Prisoners ofthe Crown«, as it said in a proclamation by Governor Lachlan Macquarie,were allowed »to kill and utterly destroy them«. When Governor GeorgeArthur organised the ›Black Line‹ in Tasmania in 1830, military forces,the police, free settlers and convicts were called upon to join the humanchain which was supposed to round up the last surviving Aborigines.50

Colonial officials, the great landowners, but also the small settlerswho employed only a few convicts, let the convicts partake in the »ethosof violence« which developed in all Australian colonies and led to a »sol-idarity of racial feelings«.51 Within the classist internal relations of thesettler society, the convicts themselves were victims of violent assaultsand a great number of them were humiliated and whipped. In the racistclimate of violent land seizure, however, like the growing number of freewageworkers, they had the experience of belonging to the ›white‹ colo-

49 Cf. Robert Miles: Capitalism and Unfree Labour, pp. 94 ff.; for the following see MarionPhilipps: Colonial Autocracy, p. 128 (convicts in private services); Ben Kiernan: Bloodand Soil, p. 262 (›blackfellow‹ etc.).

50 A Proclamation of Native Outlawry, quoted in: Sharman Stone (ed.): Aborigines inWhite Australia, p. 37 (Macquarie); Lyndall Ryan: The Aboriginal Tasmanians, p. 110(Arthur).

51 Henry Reynolds, Dawn May: Queensland, p. 170 (›ethos‹); Alexander T. Yarwood,Michael J. Knowling: Race Relations in Australia, p. 109 (›solidarity‹).

76 Wulf D. Hund

nial society through the authorisation for them to use violence against›blacks‹.52

The racist symbolic capital obtained through this was no possessionbut a social relation. Its fragility was quickly made clear to the Australianlower classes. When the end of the system of low-cost convict labour wasin the offing, the colonial state apparatuses reacted with restrictive ›Mas-ters and Servants Acts‹ and employers demanded that cheap labourersbe imported from India, China and the Pacific islands.53 The resistancewhich developed against this escalated when during the gold rush Euro-pean and Chinese diggers competed, and it reached a spectacular peak atLambing Flat.54 About three thousand gold diggers ganged up under themotto »Roll Up, Roll Up, No Chinese«. The motto was written on a flagthey carried with them when they attacked the settlement of the Chinese.They cut off their hair, destroyed their tents and working equipment andchased them off their claims.

From then on, wide sections of the lower classes linked the racistsymbolic capital which they were allegedly entitled to with the demandfor wages of whiteness.55 The developing labour organisations foughtagainst reductions in wage levels due to the employment of racialisedothers, so-called ›coolies‹ and ›kanakas‹, from China, East Asia, Indiaand the islands of the Pacific. And they warned against the hybridisa-tion of Australia, which they declared to constitute ›contamination‹ and›mongrelisation‹. For both reasons, they demanded, as the program of the›Political Labor League‹ of 1896 stated, »the total exclusion of undesir-able alien races«.56

This made them allies of the rather liberal groups of the ruling classes.The latter shared with the conservative circles a racistly motivated disdainfor the nonwhite races. But the conservatives also pointed out the useful-

52 Cf. Raewyn W. Connell, Terence H. Irving: Class Structure in Australian History, p. 63:»For all the hostility and the depth of the social gulf between pastoral owners and pas-toral workers, they shared a clear interest in smashing the Aboriginal tribes [. . . ]. Theracist doctrines that were almost universal in the countryside (and in most of the citypress) had the effect of cementing this alliance«.

53 Cf. Charlie Fox: Working Australia, pp. 26 ff., 47 ff.54 Cf. Ann Curthoys: ›Men of All Nations, except Chinamen‹ (›Lambing Flat‹) – the flag

is shown on http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/objectsthroughtime/objects/lambingflatsbanner/.

55 For the analytical dimensions of this concept cf. David Roediger: The Wages of White-ness – see also his essay in this volume.

56 Quoted in Jürgen Matthäus: Nationsbildung in Australien von den Anfängen der weißenBesiedlung bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, p. 207; for the following see ibid., pp. 67 ff. (›con-servatives‹ / ›liberals‹), 162 (›Sydney Morning Herald‹, 1.3.1888), 163 (›The Age‹,19.3.1888); cf. also Raymond Evans: ›Pigmentia‹.


ness of these races as cheap labour. They further claimed that members oflower races could not, in any way, become dangerous to members of thesuperior races. The majority of liberals argued against this with a loudand clear alarmism which was fed by assumptions about the size andabounding population of China and the supposed industriousness and un-demanding nature of its inhabitants. They warned against the danger ofan Asian invasion of the continent. This message was finally also spreadby differently oriented print media. The ›Sydney Morning Herald‹ main-tained that the »Australian people have made up their minds that theywill not be swamped by hordes of Chinese«. And ›The Age‹ supportedthe »necessity of preventing these fair lands from being overrun by Mon-golian hordes«.

Influential representatives of the labour movement joined in thissermon. Under the headline »Australia for the Australians«, WilliamLane conjured up »a true racial struggle« which could only be won bycross-class race solidarity. He declared: »We stand together, we whites,shopkeepers and merchants, artisans, labourers and farmers«. Finally,the ›Queensland Worker‹ posed the leading question: »Should not allwhite people unite to save their race and civilisation from going downbefore the black, brown and yellow invaders?«. Lane’s slogans in the›Boomerang‹ can easily be read as anticipated answers to such questions:»We must be white [. . . ]. Shopkeepers, traders, manufacturers, farmersand wage earners can agree upon this, however much they differ on othermatters«.57

At that time, the political demands for whiteness had already beenaccompanied by ›white supremacist entertainments‹ and a white ›com-modity racism‹ for a fairly long time. Among the entertainments, as if itwere a matter of course, were the world’s fairs. On the one hand, the Aus-tralian colonies endeavoured to present themselves overseas to improvetheir image of the rustic colonial society so as to attract new ›white‹ set-tlers.58 On the other hand, they tried to use the international success ofthe world exhibitions for their own image formation at home. In doingso, they contributed innovatively to the creation of a racist dramaturgy.

57 ›Queensland Worker‹, 15.5.1897, ›Boomerang‹, 4.8.1888 – both quoted in VerityBurgmann: Revolutionaries and Racists, pp. 100, 67; the preceding statements by Lanein the ›Boomerang‹ of 4.8.1888 and 26.5.1888 are quoted in Jürgen Matthäus: Na-tionsbildung in Australien von den Anfängen der weißen Besiedlung bis zum ErstenWeltkrieg, pp. 188, 166.

58 Cf. Peter H. Hoffenberg: An Empire on Display, pp. 129 ff.; for the follow-ing see Graeme Davison: Festivals of Nationhood (›Australian exhibitions‹), http://museumvictoria.com.au/reb/history/site-of-two-world-fairs/ (›Melbourne CentennialExhibition‹).

78 Wulf D. Hund

Five years before the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago claimedto celebrate four hundred years of the white civilisation of America, onehundred years of the white colonisation of Australia was commemoratedat the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition.

Part of this entailed not only the display of machinery indicating thecontrol of nature and a collection of goods conveying abundance, whichcontributed to the hegemonic integration of the working classes into thebourgeois programme of progress, but also their complicity in the colo-nial land seizure and a genocidal settlement policy. The success of thiskind of mateship was demonstrated by the organisers of the exhibitionwith an anthropological rarity: the skeleton of the Tasmanian Truganini,who had been declared the last of her race. It served as proof of the socialDarwinist belief in the world-historical mission of the white race, againstwhom the weaker races had to retreat and become extinct.59

With regard to Aborigines as well as the Chinese and Pacific is-landers, the popular picture service of the press ensured the public spreadof discriminatory stereotypes through countless racist caricatures. Oneof them was the image of the savage and cannibalistic Pacific Islander,whose employment kept white workers off the sugar plantations. Thecampaign for ›white sugar‹ which built on this is one of the most notableacts of consumer racism. Expecting the sugar planters, the vast major-ity of the population opposed the employment of ›coloured‹ workers andthe labour organisations agitated against sugar which was produced byblack labour and was thus white only in appearance, but not in essence.Of course William Lane commented on this issue as well. »Grow sugarwith white labour«: he told the planters and threatened that »we will staywhite and progressive although we have to eat beet-root sugar«.60

It did not come to that. Not only did ›Advance Australia fair‹ resoundfrom ten thousand throats at the celebration of the foundation of the Com-monwealth of Australia, delegates from the labour parties of the differentcolonies had already made the »total exclusion of ›coloured and unde-sirable races‹« one of their central demands at a meeting in Sydney in1900.61 In 1901, the inaugural session of the new Federal Parliament fit-

59 Cf. Raewyn W. Connell, Terence H. Irving: Class Structure in Australian History, p. 122(›hegemonic integration‹); Antje Kühnast: ›In the interest of science and of the colony‹,pp. 218 f. (Truganini); Patrick Brantlinger: Dark Vanishings (›extinction of races‹).

60 Quoted in Verity Burgmann: Revolutionaries and Racists, p. 61 (from ›Boomerang‹,20.4.1889 and 7.1.1888); for background and nexus see the essay of Stefanie Affeldt inthis volume.

61 Stuart Macintyre: The First Caucus, p. 18; for the following cf. the documentation ofthe debates on both acts in Don Gibb: The Making of ›White Australia‹, pp. 99 ff. and128 ff. – the following quotation can be found ibid., p. 130.


tingly took place in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, whichhad housed the world’s fair that had marked the centenary of the annex-ation of Australia only a good decade earlier. In the same year in whichthe Federal Parliament was founded, its members passed the ›Common-wealth Immigration Restriction Act‹ and the ›Pacific Island LabourersAct‹. In the debate on the latter, the Prime Minister made no secret of itsracist and classist aim. What was at stake was »all Australia, the preser-vation of the purity of the race and the equality [. . . ] of its standard ofliving«.

›The Jews are our Misfortune‹

On the North Sea island of Borkum, since the end of the 19th century, onecould buy postcards with the lyrics of a song seen as the anthem of theisland. It was played daily by the spa band and the bathers sang it on allkinds of occasions. Apart from dunes and the sea, it dealt with the ›trueGerman spirit‹. Visitors with ›flat feet‹, ›hooked noses‹ and ›frizzy hair‹were not wanted on this gem of ›Germanness‹ and had to go ›out‹.62

The Borkum song was part of a whole range of symbolic acts thetourists performed to make sure that the claim of a travel guide whichhighlighted, as a »special asset« of the island, that it was »Jew-free«,was true. These acts marked the resort as a »capital market« where »eco-nomic capital was used to acquire social and symbolic capital«. How-ever, this was not about the internal differentiation between different mid-dle classes. Rather, the discrimination of ethnicised and racialised oth-ers became the catalyst for negative community formation on the basisof shared »resentment of a part of the traditional elites«, the »bourgeoismiddle class endeavouring to advance socially as well as the lower mid-dle classes«.

The background of the racist acts of exclusion was the boom in polit-ical antisemitism in Germany. There are a number of overlapping, com-plementary and contradictory approaches to its interpretation.63 Almostall, however, agree on its »ideologically integrative« nature.64 It not onlyextended to the middle of society but was also aimed at the lower classes.

62 Cf. Frank Bajohr: ›Unser Hotel ist judenfrei‹, p. 14; the following quotation from anislands guidebook of 1897 can be found ibid., p. 12., the following explanations are onpp. 24 (›capital market‹) and 32 (›resentment‹, ›middle class‹).

63 For an overview see Werner Bergmann, Mona Körte (eds.): Antisemitismusforschung inden Wissenschaften; a comprehensive collection of contemporary antisemitic writingsis included in Wolfgang Benz (ed.): Die ›Judenfrage‹.

64 Helmut Berding: Antisemitismus in der modernen Gesellschaft, p. 204.

80 Wulf D. Hund

This was even reflected in formulations by its leftist critics. Friedrich En-gels declared antisemitism to be a variety of »feudal socialism« and theslogan of antisemitism being the »socialism of fools« was circulated inthe Social Democratic Party.65

Like every ideology, the antisemitism at the end of the 19th centurywas complex. Its answer to the so-called Jewish question combined reli-gious, political and social elements with race arguments, making it ide-ologically and socially flexible. Its »policy of resentment« was able topresent a »multiplex concept of the enemy«, which included subversivejournalists and selfish speculators as well as brutal exploiters or interna-tional conspirators.66

The religious dimension was exemplified by Catholic and Protestantantisemitism. It was also expressed in the success of August Rohling’s›The Talmud Jew‹ (›Der Talmudjude‹, 1871), which explicitly drew onJohann Andreas Eisenmenger’s ›Judaism Unmasked‹ (›Entdecktes Ju-dentum‹, 1700), who in turn had transferred the antisemitism of the Mid-dle Ages to the modern age. Part of this was the repetition of traditionalallegations such as that which accused Jews of ritually murdering Chris-tians. It mainly, however, provided antisemitism with a religious »deeplayer«. It was widespread in all sections of society and firmly rooted ineveryday consciousness through socialisation processes, religious dog-mas and church rituals.67

The political dimension followed the thesis of the Jews as a statewithin the state, which had already been formulated during the emancipa-tion debate. It escalated into the diagnosis of a pestilential infestation ofthe ›Volkskörper‹ (people’s body). The orientalist Paul de Lagarde com-bined both elements. He felt it was »impossible« to »tolerate« the Jews asa »nation within the nation« and recommended »trampling these usuriousvermin to death«.68 Less brutally phrased doubts about the possibility forJews to belong to the nation also tended to demand that the emancipationbe abolished. They were characteristic of a climate in which antisemitismbecame »part of a whole culture«. Among those who made it »socially

65 Friedrich Engels: Über den Antisemitismus, p. 50; Eduard Bernstein: Das Schlagwortund der Antisemitismus, p. 237.

66 Peter Pulzer: Die Wiederkehr des alten Hasses, p. 217.67 Cf. Olaf Blaschke: Katholizismus und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich,

p. 89 (›deep layer‹); Wolfgang E. Heinrichs: Das Judenbild im Protestantismus desDeutschen Kaiserreichs; Jacob Katz: Vom Vorurteil bis zur Vernichtung, pp. 215 f.(›Rohling‹), 19 ff. (›Eisenmenger‹); Johannes T. Groß: Ritualmordbeschuldigungengegen Juden im deutschen Kaiserreich (1871-1914).

68 Paul de Lagarde: Deutsche Schriften, p. 34 (›nation‹); id.: Juden und Indogermanen,p. 339 (›vermin‹).


acceptable« was the historian Heinrich von Treitschke.69 He explainedan alleged antisemitic »instinct of the masses« as a »natural reaction ofthe Germanic Volk feeling against a foreign element«. It would find ex-pression in all classes, »as if with one voice«, in the conviction: »TheJews are our misfortune«.70

The racial dimension of the so-called Jewish question played a signif-icant role in these operations. It was expressing popular agitation but wasalso supported by the cultural and natural sciences, which could build onelements of a venerable hundred-year-old tradition. The anthropology ofthe Enlightenment had already speculated about physical peculiarities ofJews. As early as 1790, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach described the bignasal bone as an anatomic characteristic of the Jewish skull. In the secondhalf of the 19th century, the craniologist Hermann Welcker treated him-self to his own »collection of Jewish skulls«. The ›Jewish race‹ became aspecial anthropological object of study.71

The social dimension had a much longer tradition and had already re-ceived literary sanctification by the ethnicising distinction between capi-tal as useful Christian trading capital and pernicious Jewish usury capitalin the ›Merchant of Venice‹. Under the conditions of industrialisation,the crisis of the middle classes and the organisation of the working class,it was drastically expanded. A wide range of antisemitic currents saw aconnection between the ›social question‹ and the ›Jewish question‹. Thisamounted to recommending, like Bernhard Förster, that the battle againstcapitalism should be fought as a battle against Jews. Otto Glagau, whowith his articles in the ›Gartenlaube‹ (arbour) had belonged to those whohad fed catchwords to political antisemitism, finally reduced its integra-tionist social demagogy to the concise formula: »The social question isessentially a Jewish question«.72

In November 1879, Glagau became the chief editor of the ›Staats-Socialist‹ (State Socialist), the paper of the ›Central-Verein für Social-Reform‹ (Central Union for Social Reform), which shortly afterwards

69 Shulamit Volkov: Antisemitismus als kultureller Code, pp. 33 (›culture‹), 31 (›sociallyacceptable‹).

70 Heinrich von Treitschke: Unsere Aussichten, pp. 7 (›instinct‹), 11 (›natural reaction‹,›misfortune‹).

71 Cf. Annegret Kiefer: Das Problem einer ›jüdischen Rasse‹, S. 18; for the preceding seeibid., pp. 12 (›Blumenbach‹) and 12 f., 172 (›Welcker‹).

72 Otto Glagau: Deutsches Handwerk und historisches Bürgertum, p. 80; cf. Daniela Wei-land: Otto Glagau und ›Der Kulturkämpfer‹; for the preceding see Wulf D. Hund: Ras-sismus (1999), pp. 54-74 (›The Merchant of Venice‹); Massimo Ferrari Zumbini: DieWurzeln des Bösen, pp. 243 (›connection‹), 652 (›Förster‹).

82 Wulf D. Hund

merged with the ›Christlich soziale Partei‹ (Christian Social Party).73 Ithad been founded as the ›Christlichsoziale Arbeiterpartei‹ (Christian So-cial Workers’ Party) by Adolf Stoecker in 1878. The fact that a Prussiancourt preacher tried to establish a labour party was both an expression ofthe confusion of the ruling classes about the growth of Social Democracyand an acknowledgement of the rapid dynamisation of class relations.The reactions to the latter resulted in political repression (›Anti-SocialistLaws‹), attempts at social reform (›Social Legislation‹) and state socialistpromises (as by the ›Christian Social Workers’ Party‹).

Stoecker believed that one could only win the »hearts« of the work-ers by »also talking about the social issues«.74 Therefore, he candidlyadmitted that »social injustice and poverty« did in fact exist. However,he held »Jewish capital« responsible for it. At the same time, he com-plained about the »infiltration« of the »German Volk spirit by Jewish na-ture«. It showed in the »worst supporters of the mammonistic spirit« onthe stock exchange as well as in the »worst supporters of revolution« inSocial Democracy. The »Jewry« »attacked German culture and Germannature«. It was a matter of »race against race«. For the »pressure of the[Jewish] financial capital« in fact exerted itself on »workers«, »artisans«und »industrialists«.

With regard to the official policy of the Social Democracy, Stoecker’sadvances to the Volk community did not work. Forced to deal with thismovement, the party firmly rejected antisemitism. Nevertheless, therewere members in its ranks for whom the »flirtation with antisemitism«was a political option. This was already true at an early time, when Wil-helm Hasselmann, the leading editor of the newspaper of the ›GeneralGerman Workers’ Association‹ (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein)wrote in the ›New Social Democrat‹ that »clear-thinking socialists« re-garded the »Jewish tribe as the crux of bourgeois society« and »as anenemy of the cause of the workers who necessarily has to perish when

73 Cf. Dieter Fricke: Central-Verein für Social-Reform auf religiöser und constitutionell-monarchischer Grundlage, p. 432; Massimo Ferrari Zumbini: Die Wurzeln des Bösen,p. 163.

74 Quoted in Walter Frank: Hofprediger Adolf Stoecker und die christlichsoziale Bewe-gung, p. 302; for the following see Adolf Stoecker: Sozialdemokratisch, sozialistischund christlich sozial, pp. 171 (›poverty‹), 192 (›Jewish capital‹); id.: Die Anfänge derantijüdischen Bewegung in Berlin, pp. 152 (›infiltration‹), 150 (›worst supporters‹); id.:Das Judentum im öffentlichen Leben, p. 211 (›German culture‹); id.: Notwehr gegendas moderne Judentum, p. 167 (›race against race‹); id.: Die Bedeutung der christlichenWeltanschauung für die brennenden Fragen der Gegenwart, p. 381 (›Jewish financialcapital‹).


the proletariat emancipates itself«.75 And it still held true towards theend of the German Empire, when right-wing social democrats such asthe chairman of the ›General Commission of the German Trade Unions‹,Carl Legien, demanded a policy »to dump the Jewish gang«.

Despite the official rejection of political antisemitism, members of theparty were not free from ideas of everyday antisemitism, and the stereo-types of the latter were spread by the social democratic entertainmentpress. Patterns of graphic antisemitism, as circulated in picture sheetsand postcards, in joke books and illustrated magazines, could also befound in social democratic publications. Jews were portrayed as »hag-glers«, »usurers«, »East-Jewish caftan Jews«, »traders and stockjobbers«and marked by »ascribed outward features«: »frizzy hair«, »big nose«,»thick lips« and »crooked legs«. The antisemitic bifurcation of capitaland the racialisation of its mobile forms as ›Jewish‹ were reconstructedideologically and realised in pictures.76

For other parts of the working classes, this view practically be-came the focal point of their organisational self-concept. The ›GermanNational Association of Commercial Employees‹ (DeutschnationalerHandlungsgehilfen-Verband), whose origins go back to retail trade em-ployees who were also influenced by Stoecker, quickly developed intothe biggest organisation of employees in the German Empire. Its chair-man emphasized at its inaugural meeting that it had been »born fromantisemitism«. The executive committee stressed that one could bringabout »radical social reforms [. . . ] only in connection with the Jewishquestion«.77

The contemporary racist discourse tried to make antisemitic discrim-ination compatible with the concept of white supremacy. The differenti-ation of the white race into light-skinned and dark-skinned, Nordic andMediterranean parts, as well as the idea of mixed races could be usedfor this purpose. Against this background, Jews were claimed to be nottruly white or even black.78 However, this perspective was not generally

75 Quoted in Arno Herzig: Judenhaß und Antisemitismus bei den Unterschichten und inder frühen Arbeiterbewegung, p. 16; for the preceding and the following see LudgerHeid: Sozialistischer Internationalismus, sozialistischer Zionismus und sozialistischerAntisemitismus, pp. 111 (›flirtation‹), 114 (cit. Legien).

76 Rosemarie Leuschen-Seppel: Sozialdemokratie und Antisemitismus im Kaiserreich,p. 261 (›hagglers‹ etc.).

77 Quoted in Dieter Fricke, Werner Fritsch: Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband (DHV) 1893-1934, p. 459 (›antisemitism‹) and Iris Hamel: Völkischer Ver-band und nationale Gewerkschaft, p. 61 (›Jewish question‹).

78 Cf. Bruce Baum: The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race, pp. 133 ff. (for ThomasHenry Huxley and his division into light-skinned ›Xanthocroi‹ and dark-skinned

84 Wulf D. Hund

accepted. Instead, antisemitism took the essentialist racist alchemy to ex-tremes and maintained that the Jewish body was different even if it did notlook different. The social scientist Werner Sombart expressed this idea inthe assertion that »the Jew« was capable of all types of »mimicry«: »Heeven succeeds to a large extent in giving to his definite physical formthe appearance which he wants to give to it«. The physician and anthro-pologist Fritz Lenz finally attributed this to the »real mimicry« of Jews,who through »selection« approximated their »appearance« to that of their»host people«.79

Negative Societalisation

Societalisation comprises the production, reproduction and modificationof social conditions and relations. Societal individuals generate socialstructures and social facts of long duration, to which they are bound andof which they assure themselves in everyday actions. In their course theviability and significance of the social relations as well as their realisationand interpretation by the individual are validated. Since at the same timedistinction between those who hold social and economic power and thosewho do not is always a concern, questions of conformity and deviance be-come crucial. As distinction not only emphasises individual peculiaritiesbut also marks group-specific boundaries and secures privilege, societal-isation is always accompanied by the exertion of domination over subal-tern groups or at least their acquiescence to the ruling order.

In class societies, the resultant structures are reinforced materiallyand socially. This not only applies to the control of economic resourcesand access to the political and ideological apparatus of domination. Italso finds topographic, architectural, habitual and corporal expression.With palaces and temples (as later in the world shaped by Christianity,with castles and monasteries, town halls and cathedrals), not only placesof an awe-inspiring representation but also of luxurious consumption andwastefulness come into existence.

The consent to such relations thus remains fragile. Utopias and revoltsare the revenants of all domination. The former tell of the changeabilityof the conditions; the latter revoke the consent to them. In the presence

›Melanochroi‹), 144 ff. (for William Z. Ripley and his differentiation between ›Teu-tonic‹, ›Alpine‹ and ›Mediterranean races‹); Veronika Lipphardt: Biologie der Juden,pp. 102 ff. (Jews as ›racial mixture‹); Sander L. Gilman: Der jüdische Körper, pp. 168f. (Jews as ›black‹).

79 Werner Sombart: Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben, p. 327; Cornelia Esser: Die›Nürnberger Gesetze‹, p. 53 (cit. Lenz).


of utopias and revolts, the great legitimatory narratives of the functional-ity and naturalness of domination do not suffice for appeasement. Sinceancient times, they have been couched in metaphorical comparisons ofsociety with a ship or body, which in addition to the crew or limbs re-quired a captain or head.

Normally, this was not even enough to create contentment in ratherpeaceful times. Therefore, hierarchically organised societies have regu-larly developed legends of negative identity as well. They allowed thesubalterns to place themselves in one category with the dominant groups.Their distinctive feature was that the qualities of the identity they createdwere generated through differentiation from external groups. The oth-ers were characterised as imperfect and tended to be excluded from thesphere of full humanity.

With pertinent reservation about the simplifying tendency of typifi-cations, these relations can be illustrated by a simple model of negativesocietalisation (see the diagram, which depicts (as a square) the socialnexus of some included social groups (as circles with reciprocal con-nections) and (as arrows, inward and outward) the lines of the forces ofinclusion and exclusion). It shows that the societies we know are predom-inantly organised hierarchically and that the social distinction this con-veys is significantly based on the unequal distribution of societal wealth.I demonstrate this symbolically through the shape of a class pyramid,which historically applies to many societies. The superimposition of ide-ology upon this pyramid not least serves to legitimise social inequality.Taking into consideration the role Christian religion has played in this inthe Occident (and to do justice to the inevitable formalism which alwaysaccompanies the construction of models), I make use of the figure of thetriangle here as well. I use it in the form in which it has become the sym-bol of an omniscient god, who supposedly wanted the societal conditionsto be the way they are.

Already at the beginning of modern capitalism, theories stated thatthe values which supported it were distorted and served to perpetuatesocial inequality. We should model ourselves on the good and the wisebut oriented ourselves towards the rich and the noble. In the course of thisanalysis, Adam Smith points out that individual members of society learnthe historically and geographically different norms through their upbring-ing. Persistent socialisation simultaneously accomplishes the gradual in-clusion of individuals into different social groups and the adoption of thevalues which legitimise this hierarchy. I symbolise this with a road signwhich means ›caution‹ and, as if by chance, has the shape of a triangle.

86 Wulf D. Hund

Negative societalisation

Of course the societal conditions indicated by this are themselvescharacterised by various processes of inclusion and exclusion. Depend-ing on age, class membership, gender etc. certain actions are allowed orprohibited and certain spheres are open or closed. The dominational lim-itation of opportunities for development is to be rendered tolerable byoffering and allowing individuals to not only experience themselves asdeclassed but to also understand themselves as fully-fledged members ofa grouping which is conceived as uniform. This is made possible, amongother things, by the exclusion of others who are stigmatised as inferior.I illustrate this process by one of those triangles standing on their peakswhich were used in different colours to mark the prisoners in Germanconcentration camps.

Types of negative social integration have been developed under verydifferent conditions and correspondingly vary in form. In my view, how-


ever, the ›barbarians‹ of antiquity, the ›heathens‹ and the ›impure‹ of theMiddle Ages as well as early modern times and the ›savages‹ of the NewWorld have central things in common with the ›coloureds‹ which wereconstructed with the help of the race concept. They each form part of adualistic perspective which creates group identity through differentiationfrom others. They all serve to pass off socially differentiated societies,in which the dominant clearly distinguish themselves from the domi-nated, as homogeneous communities. They produce this pseudo-identityby ridding the racistly discriminated others of their social particularitiesand differences presenting them as uniform representatives of a counter-world. And for this purpose, they always devise dichotomies which cre-ate their own identity at the expense of others constructed as imperfect orinferior.

The race concept also serves the function of such inclusion throughexclusion. Its ideological potential is utilised early by its developers. Ihave shown that the Scottish moral philosophers already use ›class‹ und›race‹ as categories for the creation of social hierarchies and relate themto each other. On the one hand, they uncover the relation between ex-ploitation and wealth and point out the social distance it creates betweenmembers of society. On the other hand, they recommend to the pooramong them that they should not compare their condition to the rich butrather to members of so-called primitive races.

Of course this is not yet a hegemonic racist ideology. With the founda-tion of race theory, the Enlightenment generated knowledge with whosehelp existing colonialism and the coming imperialism could be legit-imised. Moreover, some of its proponents at least implied that on thisbasis symbolic racist capital could also be assigned to the lower classes.Before this, however, the concept of a class-spanning white race repre-senting the progress of humanity had to be popularly generalised as wellas accepted and acquired by the different social classes.

Among other things, this required the everyday dissemination ofracism, which I have described using some examples. It created quasi-egalitarian spaces for the racist unification of different social charactersthrough their encounters at ethnographic exhibitions and world fairs, inanthropological museums, through exotic advertisements etc. The racistsymbolic capital thus available to all social classes was no possession buta social relation, which had to be reproduced regularly through explicitagreement or tacit consent.

I explained this process using the two cases of the policy of whitenessin Australia and political antisemitism in Germany. They show that in

88 Wulf D. Hund

very different social constellations, racism may make use of strongly dis-similar exclusionary practices. In Australia, racism claimed that an iso-lated outpost of white culture runs the risk of being flooded by colouredmigrants. In Germany, it constructed the subversion of the nation by aninternationally networked internal enemy who simultaneously destroyssocial peace through socialist agitation and capitalist speculation.

In both cases, sections of the working classes followed this pro-gramme. In Australia, racism became an identity-building element of thelabour movement. As racist symbolic capital, it contributed to social inte-gration. As the demand for wages of whiteness, it served to strengthen aracialised class consciousness. In Germany, the attempt to destabilise So-cial Democracy with the help of an antisemitic pseudo-socialism failed.However, antisemitic stereotypes also spread among its members. More-over, antisemitism became the ideological focus of a nationalist employ-ees’ movement, which demagogically declared the social question to bethe racialised Jewish question.80

References(All quotations from non-English sources have been translated. Emphases in theoriginals are not included. All italics are mine. All URLs have been revised on10.5.2010).

Allen, Theodore W.: The Invention of the White Race. 2 vol. (1: Racial Op-pression and Social Control; 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America). London etc.: Verso 1994 and 1997.

Andersen, Margaret L.: Whitewashing Race: A Critical Perspective on White-ness. In: White Out. The Continuing Significance of Racism, ed. by AshleyW. Doane, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. New York etc.: Routledge 2003, pp. 21-34.

Aristoteles: Politik. Ed. by Wolfgang Kullmann. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt1994.

Bade, Klaus J.: Europa in Bewegung. Migration vom späten 18. Jahrhundert biszur Gegenwart. München: Beck 2000.

Badenberg, Nana: Die Bildkarriere eines kulturellen Stereotyps. 14. Juli 1894:Mohrenwäsche im Leipziger Zoo. In: Mit Deutschland um die Welt. EineKulturgeschichte des Fremden in der Kolonialzeit, ed. by Alexander Honold,Klaus R. Scherpe. Stuttgart etc.: Metzler 2004, pp. 173-182.

Bajohr, Frank: ›Unser Hotel ist judenfrei‹. Bäder-Antisemitismus im 19. und 20.Jahrhundert. Frankfurt: Fischer 2003.

80 I wish to thank Nadine Anumba for her translation of my essay and Maria RosaCattaruzza and Jeremy Krikler for their precise reading of the text. As often, BärbelKirchhoff-Hund was the first critic of the paper.


Banton, Michael: Racial Theories. 2nd ed. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge UniversityPress 1998.

Barker, Lee D.: From Savage to Negro. Anthropology and the Construction ofRace, 1896-1954. Berkeley etc.: University of California Press 1998.

Baum, Bruce: The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race. A Political History ofRacial Identity. New York etc.: New York University Press 2006.

Benz, Wolfgang (ed.): Die ›Judenfrage‹. Schriften zur Begründung des modernenAntisemitismus 1780-1918. Mikrofiche-Edition. München: Saur 2002.

Berding, Helmut: Antisemitismus in der modernen Gesellschaft: Kontinuität undDiskontinuität. In: Nation und Gesellschaft in Deutschland. Historische Es-says, ed. by Manfred Hettling, Paul Nolte. München: Beck 1996, pp. 192-207.

Bergmann, Werner, Mona Körte (eds.): Antisemitismusforschung in den Wis-senschaften. Berlin: Metropol 2004.

Bernstein, Eduard: Das Schlagwort und der Antisemitismus. In: Die Neue Zeit,11, 1892/93, 2, pp. 228-237.

Blaschke, Olaf: Katholizismus und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich.2nd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999.

Brantlinger, Patrick: Dark Vanishings. Discourse on the Extinction of PrimitiveRaces, 1800-1930. Ithaca etc.: Cornell University Press 2003.

Burgmann, Verity: Revolutionaries and Racists. Australian Socialism and theProblem of Racism, 1887-1917. (Typescript, PhD dissertation) Canberra:Australian National University 1980.

Ciarlo, David M.: Rasse konsumieren. Von der exotischen zur kolonialen Imag-ination in der Bildreklame des Wilhelminischen Kaiserreichs. In: Phantasie-reiche. Zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus, ed. by BirtheKundrus. Frankfurt etc.: Campus 2003, pp. 135-179.

Connell, Raewyn W., Terence H. Irving: Class Structure in Australian History.Documents, Narrative and Argument. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire 1980.

Curthoys, Ann: ›Men of All Nations, except Chinamen‹: Europeans and Chineseon the Goldfields of New South Wales. In: Gold. Forgotten Histories and LostObjects of Australia, ed. by Ian McCalman, Alexander Cook, Andrew Reeves.Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press 2001, pp. 103-123.

Davison, Graeme: Festivals of Nationhood: the International Exhibitions. In:Australian Cultural History, ed. by Samuel Louis Goldberg, Francis Barry-more Smith. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press 1988, pp. 158-174.

Der Erste Kreuzzug 1096 und seine Folgen. Die Verfolgung von Juden im Rhein-land. Düsseldorf: Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland 1996.

Dreesbach, Anne: Gezähmte Wilde. Die Zurschaustellung ›exotischer‹ Menschenin Deutschland 1870-1940. Frankfurt etc.: Campus 2005.

Eißenberger, Gabi: Entführt, verspottet und gestorben. LateinamerikanischeVölkerschauen in deutschen Zoos. Frankfurt: IKO 1996.

Eliav-Feldon, Miriam, Benjamin Isaac, Joseph Ziegler (eds.): The Origins ofRacism in the West. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press 2009.

90 Wulf D. Hund

El-Tayeb, Fatima: Schwarze Deutsche. Der Diskurs um ›Rasse‹ und nationaleIdentität 1890-1933. Frankfurt etc.: Campus 2001.

Engels, Friedrich: Über den Antisemitismus. In: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels:Werke, vol. 22. Berlin: Dietz 1963, pp. 49-51.

Esser, Cornelia: Die ›Nürnberger Gesetze‹ oder Die Verwaltung des Rassenwahns1933-1945. Paderborn etc.: Schöningh 2002.

Evans, Raymond: ›Pigmentia‹. Racial Fears and White Australia. In: Genocideand Settler Society. Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children inAustralian History, ed. by A. Dirk Moses. New York etc.: Berghahn 2004,pp. 103-124.

Ferguson, Adam: An Essay on the History of Civil Society. 2nd ed. London: Mil-lar & Cadell and Edinburgh: Kincaid & Bell 1768.

—: Institutes of Moral Philosophy. For the Use of the Students in the College ofEdinburgh. 2nd ed., rev. and corr. Edinburgh: Kincaid, Creech, Bell 1773.

—: Principles of Moral and Political Science. 2 vol. London: Strahan & Cadelland Edinburgh: Creech 1792.

Fox, Charlie: Working Australia. North Sydney: Allen and Unwin 1991.Frank, Walter: Hofprediger Adolf Stoecker und die christlichsoziale Bewegung.

2nd ed. Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt 1935.Fredrickson, George M.: Racism. A Short History. Princeton etc.: Princeton Uni-

versity Press 2002.Freud, Sigmund: Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion. In: id.,

Fragen der Gesellschaft. Ursprünge der Religion. Sigmund Freud Studien-ausgabe, ed. by Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards, James Strachey,vol. 9. Frankfurt: Fischer 1974, pp. 455-581.

—: Die Zukunft einer Illusion. In: id., Fragen der Gesellschaft. Ursprünge der Re-ligion. Sigmund Freud Studienausgabe, ed. by Alexander Mitscherlich, An-gela Richards, James Strachey, vol. 9. Frankfurt: Fischer 1974, pp. 135-189.

Fricke, Dieter: Central-Verein für Social-Reform auf religiöser und constitutio-nell-monarchischer Grundlage (Cv) 1877-1881. In: Lexikon zur Parteienge-schichte. Die bürgerlichen und kleinbürgerlichen Parteien und Verbände inDeutschland (1789-1945), ed. by id. et al., vol 1. Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein 1983,pp. 431-433.

—, Werner Fritsch: Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband (DHV) 1893-1934. In: Lexikon zur Parteiengeschichte. Die bürgerlichen und kleinbürger-lichen Parteien und Verbände in Deutschland (1789-1945), ed. by id. et al.,vol 2. Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein 1984, pp. 455-475.

Garner, Steve: Whiteness. An Introduction. Milton Park etc.: Routledge 2007.Geulen, Christian: Geschichte des Rassismus. München: Beck 2007.Gibb, Don: The Making of ›White Australia‹. West Melbourne: Victorian Histor-

ical Association 1973.Gilbert, James: Perfect Cities. Chicago’s Utopias of 1893. Chicago etc.: The Uni-

versity of Chicago Press 1991.Gilman, Sander L.: Der jüdische Körper: Gedanken zum physischen Anderssein


der Juden. In: Die Macht der Bilder. Antisemitische Vorurteile und Mythen,ed. by Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Wien. Wien: Picus 1995, pp. 168-179.

Glagau, Otto: Deutsches Handwerk und historisches Bürgerthum. 6th ed. Os-nabrück: Wehberg 1879.

Goldberg, David Theo: Racist Culture. Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning.Malden etc.: Blackwell 1993.

Groß, Johannes T.: Ritualmordbeschuldigungen gegen Juden im deutschenKaiserreich (1871-1914). Berlin: Metropol 2002.

Hamel, Iris: Völkischer Verband und nationale Gewerkschaft. Die Politik desDeutschnationalen Handlungsgehilfen-Verbandes 1893-1933. Frankfurt: Eu-ropäische Verlagsanstalt 1966.

Hawthorne, Julian: Foreign Folk at the Fair. In: The Cosmopolitan, 15, 1893, 5(The World’s Fair Number), pp. 567-576.

Heid, Ludger: Sozialistischer Internationalismus, sozialistischer Zionismus undsozialistischer Antisemitismus. In: Die Konstruktion der Nation gegen dieJuden, ed. by Peter Alter, Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch, Peter Berghoff. München:Fink 1999, pp. 93-117.

Hein, Annette: ›Es ist viel Hitler in Wagner‹. Rassismus und antisemitischeDeutschtumsideologie in den ›Bayreuther Blättern‹ (1878-1938). Tübingen:Niemeyer 1996.

Heinrichs, Wolfgang E.: Das Judenbild im Protestantismus des Deutschen Kaiser-reichs. Ein Beitrag zur Mentalitätsgeschichte des deutschen Bürgertums inder Krise der Moderne. 2nd compl. ed. Giessen: Brunnen 2004.

Hering Torres, Max Sebastián (2003): ›Limpieza de sangre‹ – Rassismus in derVormoderne? In: Wiener Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 3, 2003, 1,pp. 20-37.

Herzig, Arno: Judenhaß und Antisemitismus bei den Unterschichten und inder frühen Arbeiterbewegung. In: Juden und deutsche Arbeiterbewegung bis1933, ed. by Ludger Heid, Arnold Pauker. Tübingen: Mohr 1992, pp. 1-18.

Hinsley, Curtis M.: The World as Marketplace: Commodification of the Exoticat the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. In: The Poetics andPolitics of Museum Display, ed. by Ivan Karp, Steven D. Lavine. Washingtonetc.: Smithonian Institution Press 1991, pp. 344-365.

Hodgen, Margaret T.: Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Cen-turies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1964.

Hoffenberg, Peter H.: An Empire on Display. English, Indian, and Australian Ex-hibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War. Berkeley etc.: Universityof California Press 2001.

Home, Henry, Lord Kames: Sketches of the History of Man. 2nd ed. in 4 vol.Edinburgh: W. Creech 1778.

Hume, David: Of National Characters. In: id., The Philosophical Works, ed.by Thomas Hill Green, Thomas Hodge Grose, vol 3. Aalen: Scientia 1964(reprint of the edition London 1882), pp. 244-258.

Hund, Wulf D.: Die weiße Norm: Grundlagen des Farbrassismus. In: Cuerpos

92 Wulf D. Hund

Anómalos, ed. by Max S. Hering Torres. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional deColombia 2008, pp. 171-203.

—: [lemma] Rassismus. In: Enzyklopädie Philosophie, ed. by Hans Jörg Sand-kühler. 2nd exp. ed., vol. 3. Hamburg: Meiner 2010, pp. 2191-2200.

—: Negative Vergesellschaftung. Dimensionen der Rassismusanalyse. Münster:Westfälisches Dampfboot 2006.

—: Rassismus. Die soziale Konstruktion natürlicher Ungleichheit. Münster:Westfälisches Dampfboot 1999.

—: Rassismus. Bielefeld: transcript 2007.Isaac, Benjamin: The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton etc.:

Princeton University Press 2004.Jouanna, Arlette: L’idée de race en France au XVIème siècle et au début du XVII-

ème siècle (1498-1614). 3 vol. Lille etc.: Champion 1976.Kamtekar, Rachana: Distinction Without Difference? Race and Genos in Plato.

In: Philosophers on Race. Critical Essays, ed. by Julie K. Ward, Tommy L.Lott. Oxford etc.: Blackwell 2002, pp. 1-13.

Katz, Jacob: Vom Vorurteil bis zur Vernichtung. Der Antisemitismus 1700-1933.München: Beck 1989.

Kelen, Christopher: Hymns for and from White Australia. In: Postcolonial White-ness. A Critical Reader on Race and Empire, ed. by Alfred J. López. Albany:State University of New York Press 2005, pp. 201-239.

Kiefer, Annegret: Das Problem einer ›jüdischen Rasse‹. Eine Diskussion zwi-schen Wissenschaft und Ideologie. Frankfurt etc.: Lang 1991.

Kiernan, Ben: Blood and Soil. A World History of Genocide and Exterminationfrom Sparta to Darfur. New Haven etc.: Yale University Press 2007.

Kraus, Daniela: Bernhard und Elisabeth Försters Nueva Germania in Paraguay.Eine antisemitische Utopie. (Typescript, PhD dissertation) Wien: UniversiätWien 1999.

Kühnast, Antje: ›In the interest of science and of the colony‹. Truganini unddie Legende von den aussterbenden Rassen. In: Entfremdete Körper. Rassis-mus als Leichenschändung, ed. by Wulf D. Hund. Bielefeld: transcript 2009,pp. 205-250.

Lagarde, Paul de: Deutsche Schriften. Gesammtausgabe letzter Hand. Göttingen:Dieterichsche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1892.

—: Judentum und Indogermanen. Eine Studie nach dem Leben. Göttingen: Die-terichsche Unversitätsbuchhandlung1887.

Leuschen-Seppel, Rosemarie: Sozialdemokratie und Antisemitismus im Kaiser-reich. Die Auseinandersetzungen der Partei mit den konservativen und völ-kischen Strömungen des Antisemitismus 1871-1914. Bonn: Verlag NeueGesellschaft 1978.

Lipphardt, Veronika: Biologie der Juden. Jüdische Wissenschaftler über ›Rasse‹und Vererbung, 1900-1935. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 2008.

Locke, John: Two Treatises of Government, ed. by Peter Laslett. 2nd ed. Cam-bridge etc.: Cambridge University Press 1970.


Macintyre, Stuart: The First Caucus. In: True Believers. The Story of the FederalParliamentary Labor Party, ed. by John Faulkner, Stuart Macintyre. CrowsNest: Allen and Unwin 2001, pp. 17-29.

MacMullan, Terrance: Habits of Whiteness. A Pragmatist Reconstruction.Bloomington etc.: Indiana University Press 2009.

Manring, Maurice M.: Slave in a Box. The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima. Char-lottesville etc.: University Press of Virginia 1998.

Matthäus, Jürgen: Nationsbildung in Australien von den Anfängen der weißenBesiedlung bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (1788-1914). Frankfurt etc.: Peter Lang1993.

McClintock, Anne: Imperial Leather. Race, Gender and Sexuality in the ColonialContest. New York etc.: Routledge 1995.

Mertens, Dieter: Christen und Juden zur Zeit des ersten Kreuzzuges. In: Die Ju-den als Minderheit in der Geschichte, ed. by Bernd Martin, Ernst Schulin.München: dtv 1981, pp. 46-67.

Miles, Robert: Capitalism and Unfree Labour. Anomaly or Necessity? Londonetc.: Tavistock 1987.

Morgan, Edmund S.: American Slavery, American Freedom. The Ordeal of Colo-nial Virginia. 2nd ed. New York etc.: Norton 2003.

Mosse, George L.: Die Geschichte des Rassismus in Europa. Exp. ed. Frankfurt:Fischer 1990.

Nederveen Pieterse, Jan: Other. In: Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies, ed.by Ellis Cashmore. London etc.: Routledge 2004, pp. 306-307.

—: White on Black, Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture.New Haven etc.: Yale University Press 1992.

Nirenberg, David: Das Konzept von Rasse in der Forschung über mittelalterlicheniberischen Antijudaismus. In: Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kon-text in kulturräumlich vergleichender Betrachtung von der Spätantike bis zum18. Jahrhundert, ed. by Christoph Cluse, Alfred Haverkamp, Israel J. Yuval.Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung 2003, pp. 49-72.

Omi, Michael, Howard Winant: Racial Formation in the United States. From the1960s to the 1990s. 2nd ed. New York etc.: Routledge 1994.

Oriental and Occidental, Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the MidwayPlaisance. A Collection of Photographs of Individual Types of Various Na-tions from All Parts of the World [etc.], Together with an Introduction byFrederick Ward Putnam. St. Louis: N. D. Thompson 1894.

Park, Roberta J.: Physiology and Anatomy are Destiny?! Brains, Bodies and Ex-ercise in Nineteenth Century American Thought. In: Journal of Sport History,18, 1991, 1, pp. 31-63.

Philipps, Marion: Colonial Autocracy. New South Wales under Governor Mac-quarie 1810-1821. New impr., London: Frank Cass 1971.

Pickering, Michael: Stereotyping. The Politics of Representation. Basingstokeetc.: Palgrave 2001.

94 Wulf D. Hund

Platon: Menexenos. In: id., Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Walter F. Otto, ErnestoGrassi, Gert Plamböck, vol. 2. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1957, pp. 107-122.

—: Politeia. In: id., Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Walter F. Otto, Ernesto Grassi, GertPlamböck, vol. 3. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1958, pp. 67-310.

Poliakov, Léon: Geschichte des Antisemitismus. Vol. 4: Die Marranen im Schat-ten der Inquisition. Worms: Heintz 1981.

Pulzer, Peter: Die Wiederkehr des alten Hasses. In: Deutsch-jüdische Geschichteder Neuzeit. Vol. 3: Umstrittene Integration 1871-1918, by Steven M. Lowen-stein, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Peter Pulzer, Monika Richarz. München: Beck1997, pp. 193-248.

Reynolds, Henry, Dawn May: Queensland. In: Contested Ground. AustralianAborigines under the British Crown, ed. by Ann McGrath. St Leonards: Allenand Unwin 1995, pp. 168-207.

Robertson, William: The History of the Discovery and Settlement of America.Complete in 1 Vol. New York: Derby & Jackson 1856.

Roediger, David R.: The Wages of Whiteness. Race and the Making of the Amer-ican Working Class. Rev. ed. London etc.: Verso 1999.

Rosenberg, Chaim M.: America at the Fair. Chicago’s 1893 World’s ColumbianExposition. Charleston etc: Arcadia 2008.

Ross, Lloyd: William Lane and the Australian Labor Movement. Sydney: TheForward Press 1935.

Ryan, Lyndall: The Aboriginal Tasmanians. 2nd ed. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin1996.

Rydell, Robert W.: All the World’s a Fair. Visions of Empire at American In-ternational Expositions, 1876-1916. Chicago etc.: The University of ChicagoPress 1984.

Schneider, William H.: An Empire for the Masses. The French Popular Image ofAfrica, 1870-1900. Westport: Greenwood Press 1982.

Shakespeare, William: The Tempest. Der Sturm. (Englisch-deutsche Studienaus-gabe). Ed. by Margarete and Ulrich Suerbaum. Tübingen: Stauffenburg 2004.

Smith, Adam: An Inquiry into the Nature and the Causes of the Wealth of Nations,ed. by Roy Hutchison Campbell, Andrew S. Skinner, William Burton Todd. 2vol. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1976.

—: Early Draft of Part of The Wealth of Nations. In: id., Lectures on Jurispru-dence, ed. by Ronald L. Meek, David D. Raphael, Peter G. Stein. Oxford:Clarendon Press 1978, pp. 562-581.

—: Lectures on Jurisprudence. Report of 1762-3. In id.: Lectures on Jurispru-dence, ed. by Ronald L. Meek, David D. Raphael, Peter G. Stein. Oxford:Clarendon Press 1978. pp. 1-394.

—: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. by David. D. Raphael, Alexander L.Macfie. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1976.

Sombart, Werner: Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben. 9th thous. München,Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot 1918.


Spenser, Edmund: A View of the State of Ireland, ed. by Andrew Hadfield, WillyMaley. Oxford etc.: Blackwell 1997.

Staehelin, Balthasar: Völkerschauen im Zoologischen Garten Basel 1879-1935.Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien 1993.

Stoecker, Adolf: Das Judentum im öffentlichen Leben, eine Gefahr für dasDeutsche Reich. In: id., Christlich-Sozial. Reden und Aufsätze. Bielefeld etc.:Velhagen und Klasing 1885, pp. 208-216.

—: Die Anfänge der antijüdischen Bewegung in Berlin. In: Reden und Aufsätzevon Adolf Stöcker, ed. by Reinhold Seeberg. Leipzig: Deichertsche Verlags-buchhandlung 1913, pp. 141-157.

—: Die Bedeutung der christlichen Weltanschauung für die brennenden Fragender Gegenwart. In: id., Christlich-Sozial. Reden und Aufsätze. Bielefeld etc.:Velhagen und Klasing 1885, pp. 369-383.

—: Notwehr gegen das moderne Judentum. In:: id., Christlich-Sozial. Reden undAufsätze. Bielefeld etc.: Velhagen und Klasing 1885, pp. 154-168.

—: Sozialdemokratisch, sozialistisch und christlich sozial. In: Reden und Auf-sätze von Adolf Stöcker, ed. by Reinhold Seeberg. Leipzig: Deichertsche Ver-lagsbuchhandlung 1913, pp. 169-193.

Stone, Sharman (ed.): Aborigines in White Australia. A Documentary History ofthe Attitudes Affecting Official Policy and the Australian Aborigine 1697-1973. South Yarra etc: Heinemann 1974.

Taylor, Gary: Buying Whiteness. Race, Culture, and Identity from Columbus toHip-Hop. New York etc.: Palgrave Macmillan 2005.

Thode-Arora, Hilke: Für fünfzig Pfennig um die Welt. Die HagenbeckschenVölkerschauen. Frankfurt etc.: Campus 1989.

Trachtenberg, Joshua: The Devil and the Jews. The Medieval Conception of theJews and its Relation to Modern Antisemitism. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress 1943.

Treitschke, Heinrich von: Unsere Aussichten. In: Der Berliner Antisemitismus-streit, ed. by Walter Boehlich. Frankfurt: Insel 1965, pp. 5-12.

Turnbull, Paul: British Anthropological Thought in Colonial Practice: the Ap-propriation of Indigenous Australian Bodies, 1860-1880. In: Foreign Bodies.Oceania and the Science of Race 1750-1940, ed. by Bronwen Douglas, ChrisBallard. Canberra: The Australian National University Press 2008, pp. 205-228.

Volkov, Shulamit: Antisemitismus als kultureller Code. In: id., Antisemitismusals kultureller Code. Zehn Essays. München: Beck 1990, pp. 13-36.

Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly: Mammy. A Century of Race, Gender, and SouthernMemory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan 2008.

Weber, Max: Rußlands Übergang zur Scheindemokratie. In: id., Zur Politik imWeltkrieg. Schriften und Reden 1914-1918 (Gesamtausgabe, sec. I, vol. 15),ed. by Wolfgang J. Mommsen. Tübingen: Mohr 1988, pp. 236-260.

—: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie, ed. byJohannes Winckelmann. Köln etc.: Kiepenheuer und Witsch 1964.

96 Wulf D. Hund

White, Richard: Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill. In: The Frontier inAmerican Culture, ed. by James R. Grossman. Berkeley etc.: University ofCalifornia Press 1994, pp. 7-65.

Whitehead, Anne: Paradise Mislead. In: Search of the Australian Tribe ofParaguay. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press 1997.

Weiland, Daniela: Otto Glagau und ›Der Kulturkämpfer‹. Zur Entstehung desmodernen Antisemitismus im frühen Kaiserreich. Berlin: Metropol 2004.

Weiß, Anja: Rassismus als symbolisch vermittelte Dimension sozialer Un-gleichheit. In: Klasse und Klassifikation. Die symbolische Dimension sozialerUngleichheit, ed. by id., Cornelia Koppetsch, Albert Scharenberg, OliverSchmidtke. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag 2001, pp. 79-108.

Wessell, Adele: Between Alimentary Products and the Art of Cooking: The In-dustrialisation of Eating at the World Fairs – 1888/1893. In: Consuming Cul-ture in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. by Tamara S. Wagner, Narin Hassan.Plymouth: Lexington Books 2007, pp. 107-123.

Yarwood, Alexander T., Michael J. Knowling: Race Relations in Australia. NorthRyde: Methuen 1982.

Zeller, Joachim: Bilderschule der Herrenmenschen, Koloniale Reklamesammel-bilder. Berlin: Ch. Links 2008.

Zumbini, Massimo Ferrari: Die Wurzeln des Bösen. Gründerjahre des Anti-semitismus: Von der Bismarckzeit zu Hitler. Frankfurt: Klostermann 2003.

STUDIES

A Paroxysm of Whiteness

›White‹ Labour, ›White‹ Nation and ›White‹ Sugarin Australia

Stefanie Affeldt

Abstract: During the first one hundred and fifty years of European settlementin Australia, whiteness as a social construction underlay continuous definitionand redefinition with regard to its boundaries of belonging. Initially, the convictsusually dwelled at the social fringes of the early settler society and only expe-rienced symbolical admittance to ›whiteness‹ in contradistinction to the indige-nous people. Subsequently, members of the labour movement were able to drawon ideological elements of ›whiteness‹ to maintain their ground in the struggleagainst capital. When, at the turn of the twentieth century, legislation and a broaddesire for a ›White Australia‹ helped the Queensland sugar industry to becomethe model for a physically, socially and demographically ›white‹ industry, labourwas enabled to fight successfully for tangible ›wages of whiteness‹. Though theconsumption of Australian sugar then became the outward profession of faith towhite supremacy, during the following decades the subsidization of Australiansugar remained the basis on which doubts about the intra-Australian demarcationof ›whiteness‹ were expressed.

Around 1900 the Australians were well-nigh drunk with ›whiteness‹. Po-litically, they constituted themselves as a ›white nation‹. Socially, theyintegrated members of all classes into their understanding of whiteness.And culturally, they celebrated their shared whiteness by expanding itwell into everyday life.

Of special significance therefore was a product which was called›white sugar‹ and that was consumed in large quantities. With it the Aus-tralians dressed the dough for their scones, cooked their candy, sweetenedtheir tea, brewed their beer and distilled their rum. It was important forthem to have thoroughly, meaning doubly, white sugar: ›refined white‹and ›produced white‹. The former was a technical problem and was, sincethe improvements of the vacuum-pan in the mid-nineteenth century, ba-sically solved. The latter was the result of a sociopolitical decision withvarying factors contributing to its implementation and acceptance.

100 Stefanie Affeldt

The necessary development of this was anything but self-evident.When the First Fleet arrived in Australia in 1788, it had on board sugarcane cuttings and unfree labour. The latter, though it was not incorporatedin slaves but in convicts, nonetheless indicated the traditional pattern ofcolonial plantation economy. That this pattern did not unfold was not onlyaccounted for by the fact that sugar initially did not grow well. Nor wasit only due to the fact that, during a spectacular process even before theFirst Fleet departed, slavery was declared incommensurate with the En-glish way of life. To a greater degree, it was owed to colonialism whichhad already been fully established for a considerable time when the FirstFleet reached Australia and which, in terms of theory, had just received asupposedly scientific justification with the inception of race theory.

Starting with this I investigate the story of ›white‹ sugar in the con-text of that paroxysm of whiteness which made Australia into one ofthe model countries of racism around 1900. The relations within the set-tler society, interspersed with violence, enabled even those convicts whowere exposed to social deprivation to feel as representatives of a whitesupremacy.

The racist symbolic capital acquired in the course of this, however,was simply ignored by the unfolding capital interests which favouredcheap labour of whichever colour. Therefore, the emergent labour move-ment utilized the existent ›white‹ self-awareness of the lower classes toconstitute itself as white labour.

Since this process went along with nation building, the labour move-ment had the possibility to present its interests as national imperatives.This chance was decisively seized. Many labour organizations saw thesetting-up of a white nation as a guarantor for the improvement of thesocial position of their members.

But the racistly1 imagined commonalities did not override the dissentbetween capital and labour. This is not least shown in the sugar industrywhere the planters did everything they could to continue the employmentof the cheapest possible labour. The conversion of racist symbolic capital

1 To date, the English language possesses no ›official‹ adverb for racist action. Nonethe-less, its necessity has entered professional literature where ›racistically‹ and ›racistly‹are used interchangeably (see Terry J. Ellingson: The Myth of the Noble Savage, p.334; Eduardo S. Bonilla: On the Vicissitudes of Being ›Puerto Rican‹, p. 34; Noël Car-roll: Beyond Aesthetics, p. 187 for ›racistically‹ and Kamari M. Clarke, Deborah A.Thomas: Globalization and Race, p. 232; Katharyne Mitchell: Conflicting Geographiesof Democracy and the Public Sphere in Vancouver BC, p. 176; Gavin Kitching: Seek-ing Social Justice Through Globalization, p. 305 for ›racistly‹). I prefer using the term›racistly‹ because it is more concise and poignant; for the necessity to differentiate be-tween ›racially‹ and ›racistly‹ see Wulf D. Hund’s essay in this volume.

A Paroxysm of Whiteness 101

into white wages had to be fought for by the labour organizations. In thecourse of this, they drew on a rhetoric in which demands for social equitywere inextricably linked with racist discrimination.

To indulge in white sugar, it was not sufficient merely to ban non-white labourers from the sugar industry and introduce wages of white-ness. Doubts about the ›whiteness‹ of the wages’ recipients necessi-tated constant ideological justification of the sugar industry’s importance.Also, the sugar produced in this manner would not have been able tocompete with traditional plantation cane sugar or beet sugar on the worldmarket, and thus it had to be publicly subsidized and protected by importtariffs.

White Supremacy

Before the First Fleet departed for Australia, debates in London soughtto determine whether the convicts were to lead »a life of hard labouron plantations« in the new colony or should be landed »not as planta-tion slaves but as free yeoman farmers [. . . ] with a small grant of land«.By contrast, Captain Arthur Phillip, leader of the expedition and sub-sequently the first governor of New South Wales, adopted a pragmaticposition. On the one hand, it appeared to be obvious to him that »therecan be no slavery in a free land«. On the other hand, he assumed that theconvicts were to serve the time of their sentences with hard labour to laythe foundations of a new colony.2

Therefore, he would not have been surprised that his ships carried –in addition to forced labourers – cuttings of that plant which was closelylinked to the history of slavery and colonialism: sugar cane. The con-temporary class racism might well have supported his consent to such acargo. It found such flagrant expression that »[t]he stereotypes of the poorexpressed so often in England during the late seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies were often identical with the descriptions of blacks expressedin colonies dependent on slave labor, even to the extent of intimating thesubhumanity of both«.3

Added to this, the convicts embodied a group constituted through thepunishment of behaviour deemed deviant – a group that was neither so-cially nor ethnically homogenous. To begin with, that meant that the con-victs were divided into different categories. Accordingly, some of them

2 Cassandra Pybus: Black Founders, pp. 60 (cit. John Robertson: ›hard labour‹), 66 (cit.James Mantra: ›yeoman‹); Manning Clark: Select Documents in Australian History,p. 42 (cit. Arthur Phillip: ›free land‹).

3 Edmund S. Morgan: American Slavery, American Freedom, p. 325.


were eligible for positions ordinarily filled by free people – like MichaelMassey Robinson who was educated at Oxford and worked as an attor-ney, then tried for extortion and conditionally emancipated almost uponarrival in the colony where he became secretary to the deputy judge ad-vocate.4

Furthermore, the founders of what was supposed to become a ›white‹outpost of Britain were not of a homogenous skin colour. Of the five hun-dred and forty-three male convicts of the First Fleet eleven were ›black‹.5

On the one hand, they served as a benchmark for the indigenous society.Compared to the Aborigines a black convict was said to have »their com-plexion«. An Aborigine, in turn, could be termed a »native negro« andit was believed that even washing would not render them »two degreesless black than an African Negro«.6 On the other hand, an emancipatedconvict like ›Black Francis‹ could become a squatter and be assignedwhite convicts as labourers. This was partly accounted for by the fact thatcolour racism in the convict society was overridden by class racism andthat white like black ›criminals‹ of the lower classes were treated alike.Not least, however, it was due to the colonially-oppressive racist relationsof the settler society. Among other things this became apparent in the fateof the first bushranger, ›Black Cesar‹. As long as he was believed to havekilled the Aboriginal resistance leader Pemulwuy, the otherwise despisedCaesar rose in the esteem of lieutenant-governor David Collins.7

Upon arrival in the new colony, lines of belonging were drawn.William Bradley, First Lieutenant on the HMS Sirius, discriminated be-tween »our« and »their« people.8 ›Our‹ people subsumed all the newarrivals; ›their‹ people meant Aborigines. The gulf between the convictsand the other settlers was only bridged when seen in juxtaposition to thenative population of Australia. When compared to the Aborigines, theforced migrants became members of a British outpost.

With the expansion of the frontier accelerating and the forms of land-

4 Cf. William Nichol: Ideology and the convict system in New South Wales, pp. 3 ff.(grades of convicts); Donovan Clarke: Robinson, Michael Massey.

5 Cf. Cassandra Pybus: Black Founders, p. 90; see also Ian Duffield: Martin Beck andAfro-Blacks in Colonial Australia, pp. 9 f., who estimates that over three hundred sev-enty male and seventeen female »›Afro-Black‹ convicts« were landed in New SouthWales in the time from 1788 until 1842.

6 William Bradley: A Voyage to New South Wales, p. 62 (›complexion‹); ›TasmanianAborigines‹, in: Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser, 8.4.1825(›native negro‹); Janeen Webb, Andrew Enstice: Aliens & Savages, p. 30 (cit. WatkinTench: ›two degrees‹).

7 Cf. Ian Duffield: The Life and Death of ›Black‹ John Goff, p. 36.8 William Bradley: A Voyage to New South Wales, pp. 59 ff. (›our‹), 81 (›their‹).


use generating the necessity for exclusive property rights over large tractsof land in the 1820s, conflicts between Aborigines and Europeans inten-sified.9 Against the official instruction which stressed the friendly treat-ment of the Aborigines, settlers and squatters more or less clandestinelyacclaimed the convicts’ contribution to the seizure of land and expansionof the colonial frontier.

After the first years in the new settlement, the experiences on the colo-nial frontier transformed Captain Phillip’s attempts to establish a friendlyrelationship with the Aborigines into the desire to occupy evermore landby getting rid of the people who occupied it. One settler actually com-plained that due to the flight of the »very troublesome natives« into the»extensive mountainous country« the white settlers of the Bathurst areacould »never exterminate them«. The ›Sydney Gazette‹ reported on »ex-terminating war« in the Bathurst area and, in the context of the ›BlackWar‹ in Tasmania, the Hobart newspaper predicted that settlers and stock-keepers would feel forced – for their own protection – to »destroy theblack tribe even to utter extinction«.10

During these murderous encounters with the Aborigines, the convictsexperienced a social inclusion which they were otherwise denied in thesettler society. They were granted a concession of belonging in dissoci-ation from the Aborigines whom they could kill with impunity duringincidental encounters in the bush or on punitive expeditions. Since the»blackfellow was not a human being« shooting him was considered equalto »shooting a native dog«. The Europeans’ atrocities were recorded injournals as the »Sunday afternoon ›sport‹ of ›hunting the blacks‹«. Ittook more than fifty years of colonial settlement until the first major trialagainst Europeans for assaulting Aborigines took place.11

On 10 June 1838 twelve armed stockmen murdered twenty eightAboriginal men, women and children. The events following this MyallCreek massacre implicated an unprecedented ›white‹ consolidationwhich was based on the colonists’ refusal to treat the murder of Abo-rigines as a crime. It was also the squattocracy’s »highly unusual [. . . ]

9 Cf. Michael Pearson: Bathurst Plains and Beyond, pp. 71 f.10 Ibid., p. 74 (›troublesome‹ etc.); (Untitled), in: The Sydney Gazette and New South

Wales Advertiser, 14.10.1824 (›war‹); ›Hobart Town‹, in: Colonial Times and Tasma-nian Advertiser, 5.1.1827 (›extermination‹). For the ›Black War‹ 1823-1831 ending inthe infamous ›Black Line‹ see Ben Kiernan: Blood and Soil, pp. 274 ff., see also HenryReynolds: An Indelible Stain, pp. 62 f., 70.

11 Cit. in Ben Kiernan: Blood and Soil, p. 262 (›dog‹); Janeen Webb, Andrew Enstice:Aliens & Savages, p. 108 (›sport‹); see also Brad Hazzard in Legislative AssemblyHansard & Papers, 8.6.2000, p. 6897; John Rickard: Australia, p. 59. Andrew Marcus:Australian Race Relations, p. 47, tells about an executed convict in Newcastle in 1820.


concern for convicts«, which led to »a closing of the ranks, a solidarityon the crucial tests of race and skin colour«.12 At the time of the eventsthe prevailing opinion saw the Aborigines as »a set of monkeys [. . . and]the earlier they are exterminated from the face of the earth the better«,as »black animals« and as »murderous wretches« from whom the »set-tlers must be protected«, not vice versa. Due to the »lack of adequateexertion to protect« the colonists, the ›Sydney Herald‹, campaigning forthe acquittal of the accused, advised a resort to vigilante action againstAboriginals and »[s]hoot them dead, if you can«.13

The coverage of the trial which was »one of no ordinary importanceto the country« revealed the common opinion that the settlers had »aperfect right« to take possession of the Aborigines’ land« and was a sig-nal for the »solidarity of racial feelings« in an »alliance of all classes«.14

The calamitous assaults on Aborigines were ideologically and financiallysupported by the landed classes. Members of the squattocracy, interestedin the expansion of the colonial frontier and, with that, also in the trans-formation of Aboriginal into Crown land, formed the »Black Associa-tion«.15 Their desire to »exterminate the whole race« urged them notonly to finance the legal defence of the accused in the Myall Creek casebut express support for »all who may be charged with crimes resultingfrom any collision with the natives«.16

After the jury had returned a verdict of not guilty in the first trial,the public was in high spirits. The statement of one of the jurors that he»knew the men were guilty of the murder, but [. . . ] would never con-sent to see a white man suffer for shooting a black one« met with publicapproval.17

12 Alexander T. Yarwood, Michael J. Knowling: Race Relations, p. 107 (›concern‹, ›clos-ing‹); Andrew Markus: Australian Race Relations, p. 49.

13 ›The Jury System‹, in: The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser,11.12.1838 (›monkeys‹); ›The Blacks‹, in: The Sydney Herald, 5.10.1838 (›blacks‹etc.); (Untitled), in: The Sydney Herald, 14.11.1838 (›shoot‹).

14 ›Supreme Court Criminal Side‹, in: The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Ad-vertiser, 20.11.1838 (›importance‹); ›Crown Lands‹, in: The Sydney Herald, 7.11.1838(›perfect right‹); Alexander T. Yarwood, Michael J. Knowling: Race Relations in Aus-tralia, pp. 108 ff. (›solidarity‹, ›alliance‹); see also Jürgen Matthäus: Nationsbildung,pp. 33 f. and Wulf D. Hund: Die weiße Norm, pp. 191 f.

15 Richard Walsh: Australia Observed, p. 431; Alexander T. Yarwood, Michael J. Knowl-ing: Race Relations, p. 107 (›Black Association‹).

16 Bill Rosser: Aboriginal History in the Classroom, p. 206 (›exterminate‹); ›SupremeCourt Criminal Side‹, in: The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser,20.11.1838 (›collision‹).

17 Cit. in ›The Jury System‹, in: The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser,11.12.1838.


Admittedly, the racist solidarity the accused met with had varyingsources. They lay in the general feeling of pretension of the Europeansas well as in the ruthless interests of the settlers and squatters to useconvicts as their allies in the process of expanding into and expropriatingAboriginal land. But this solidarity also amounted to an inclusion into therealms of whiteness of the otherwise socially marginalized convicts.

In the context of the Myall Creek massacre this was manifested in theactions of the perpetrators. Since they were already aware of the racistconnotations of their murders they obviously counted on a tacit accep-tance of their deeds. Subsequently, this was conveyed in the readiness ofthose who otherwise took severe action even against the smallest mis-conduct of their forced labourers to support the accused through fundingtheir legal defence. Moreover, the support for the racist atrocity was dis-closed in the tenor of a print media, which did not denounce the deedsbut depicted them as necessary and exemplary and openly called for theircontinuation. Eventually jurors and judges conceded the act but deniedthe guilt, thereby sanctioning juridically the dehumanization of the Abo-rigines.

Even though this judgment was eventually quashed and in a secondtrial at least seven of the eleven accused were pronounced guilty, publicopinion remained unchanged and future assaults against Aborigines werenot prevented. They became »a more discreet affair« and were largely notreported – elimination of Aborigines was thus made a matter of »deathby stealth«.18

White Labour

Part of the few benefits bestowed upon the convicts, other than the racistsymbolic capital of whiteness,19 was the consumption of sugar. Until the1820s »no other article of luxury or indulgence than those of tea andsugar« was granted to the convicts.20

This sugar, however, had to be imported. Sugar cane did not growwell in the first decades of the settlement. After the climate around PortJackson was found to be unfavourable for sugar, experimental planta-tions closely followed the expeditions northwards. It was with the use of

18 Patricia Grimshaw, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath, Marian Quartly: Creating a Nation,p. 135 (›affair‹); Bruce Elder: Blood on the Wattle, p. 94 (›stealth‹).

19 For the concept of ›racist symbolic capital‹ see Anja Weiß: Rassismus als symbolischvermittelte Dimension sozialer Ungleichheit – see also her essay in this volume.

20 Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New SouthWales, p. 588.


convict labour at the Port Macquarie penal settlement that sugar was suc-cessfully grown to a large extent for the first time. Unfortunately, frostdestroyed the cane fields and sugar cultivation moved further north. Itwas not until 1862 that Louis Hope produced the first marketable amountof sugar and laid the foundation for the rise of the sugar industry.21 Tothe detriment of the emerging sugar industry, by that time the transporta-tion of convicts to New South Wales had already been abolished for overtwenty years.

After the end of convict transportation, the amount of tractable labourdecreased while wages rose. Constant opening up of new land createda large demand for labour but also offered job prospects. Shortagesof workers led to a recruitment of Chinese, Indians, and other non-Europeans.22 Already at this time the demand was made that Australiansugar, which was by now grown commercially on ever increasing planta-tions, should be produced »by means of European labour exclusively«.23

The anticipated influx of white workers to Queensland, however, did notoccur. As a consequence, in 1863 the first Pacific Islanders were intro-duced and employed in the sugar fields. The newspapers answered theirarrival with musings about the commencement of a slave trade in Queens-land.

This non-white labour was highly exploitable. In the hierarchicallabour segmentation it did not necessarily threaten white employmentbut resulted in enhanced wage rates for skilled European workers. In thecase of the sugar industry, the Pacific Islanders were increasingly con-fined to the cane fields. Positions as overseers and skilled occupations inthe sugar mills and refineries were taken by skilled white workers.

However, a realization of the tangible advantage of the ›wages ofwhiteness‹24 was not possible for the majority of the lower classes. Theywere prevented from the free selling of their labour power by laws likethe Masters and Servants Act, politically incapacitated by electoral lawand somewhat overawed by the social power of the ruling elites. Thegrowing social tension was discharged where many hoped to become richquickly – on the goldfields, where the protest voiced a fury against theruling classes. Above all, the fury was aimed at the allegedly racially infe-

21 Cf. Ian Duffield: The Life and Death of ›Black‹ John Goff, p. 32; Andrew Markus:Australian Race Relations, p. 55; Hugh Anderson: Sugar, p. 10.

22 Cf. Andrew Markus: Australian Race Relations, p. 56.23 ›The Sugar Cane‹, in: The Argus, 20.06.1849; see also ›Sugar Growing‹, in: The More-

ton Bay Courier, 2.6.1849; concerning the following, see ›The Slave Trade in Queens-land‹, in: The Courier, 22.8.1863.

24 Cf. David Roediger: The Wages of Whiteness – see also his essay in this volume.


rior competitors – the Chinese diggers. The protest is therefore describedas having an »irony with a somewhat bitter taste«: »what is often seen asthe first instance of an Australian rebellion against colonial authority, theEureka Stockade, also initiates the first organised racist campaign againstthe Chinese«.25

When the number of Chinese immigrations rose in the 1870s, ever-more racist allegations of immorality were emphasized. »One hundredof these Chinamen would do more to demoralise this community thana thousand Europeans« stated the trade unionist and politician AngusCameron. He saw the responsibility for the Chinese immigration as lyingwith the employers since the »influx of Chinese [. . . ] was favoured onlyby capitalists, who believed in cheap labour«.26

Many ex-convicts and workers came to realize that their racist sym-bolic capital was a vested right which was not convertible under thechanged conditions. It could be in their favour at the colonial frontier as ameans of distinguishing themselves from Aborigines and thereby effect-ing their inclusion into the settler society. But it proved to have no powerto secure higher wages or even employment, when the white workerswere in competition with Chinese and other non-European workers. Theemerging class consciousness of the ex-convicts and other white labour-ers solidified in dissociation from Chinese and other immigrant workers.Clashes between European and Chinese miners added to the conceptionof alien labour as unfair competition. Myths about their alleged corrup-tion of morals and culture justified the rejection of non-European work-ers. Consequently, the statutes of the newly-founded unions excluded allpersons who were »Chinese, Japanese, Kanakas, or Afghans, or colouredaliens« from membership.27

One of the earliest and most extensive agitations against the employ-ment of non-European labour was the Seaman’s Strike of the late 1870s.The seamen struck from November 1878 to January 1879 against thereplacement of Australian crews with Chinese crews by the AustralasianSteam Navigation Company (ASN). In July 1878 the ASN had once againreplaced European by Chinese sailors, thus cutting the wages of their em-ployees from six pound to (roughly) three pound a month. The Trade andLabor Council (TLC) called a public meeting in which they emphasizedthe necessity to oppose all Chinese immigration.28 Though the press usu-

25 Lars Jensen: Unsettling Australia, p. 141.26 ›Legislative Assembly‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 18.8.1876 (›Chinamen‹); Phil

Griffiths: Containing Discontent, p. 75 (›influx‹).27 Alexander T. Yarwood, Michael J. Knowling: Race Relations, p. 185.28 For the following see Ann Curthoys: Conflict and Consensus, pp. 48 ff.; cf. also Noel B.


ally was not »in the habit of advocating the cause of the working men«,in the case of the Europeans’ replacement, the ›Sydney Morning Her-ald‹ »had done all it could to show what the colony would suffer if the›yellow agony‹ were admitted into it« as the leading speaker of the TLCremarked.29

The ASN’s actions were seen as a tocsin to the working classes whowere to »realise the fact that Chinese labor is slowly but surely supersed-ing theirs«. The »presence of any considerable number of these peoplewould be most disastrous to the morals and health of our own country-men and women, and dangerous to the national character«. The unitingof the labourers and their emerging self-consciousness »indicated the de-velopment of a working class set of interests«.30 It led to the formal dis-crimination against non-whites in labour conditions by employers andfunctioned to validate the superiority of ›white‹ labour.

When in late 1878 more Chinese were employed, the Europeansailors broke into a strike. »As a rule strikes are bad things«, the ›Bris-bane Courier‹ claimed. »But, if anything can justify a strike, and a gen-eral exhibition of public sympathy with the strikers, the step taken by thecompany would do so«. In general, Chinese employment was objectedto on racist grounds rather than for economic reasons. Agitation againstChinese stressed their perceived moral inferiority, opposed their willing-ness to sell their labour for wages much below those of the white work-ers and frowned upon their supposed opium habits and associations withwhite women. Since the Chinese were held to accept conditions whichnecessitated »descending many steps in the ladder of humanity«, »[w]eAustralians [. . . ] are agreed that it is better for us to have a communitycapable of the highest civilisation« even without the advantages of lowlabour costs.31

The strike was seen as being founded on a »social principle which isshared by all classes« since it was »not a question of class against class,but a question of race against race« and supporting it meant to bring intothe public’s focus the question of immigration restriction. The seamen’sstrike was not considered a »fight of labor against capital, but a fight oflabor against a pest«.32 Australianness had become class-spanning. The

Nairn: Some Aspects of the Social Role of the Labour Movement in New South Wales,p. 11; Alexander T. Yarwood, Michael J. Knowling: Race Relations, p. 183; Charles A.Price: Great White Walls, p. 163; Andrew Markus: Fear & Hatred, pp. 82 f.

29 ›Influx of Chinese into the Colony‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 24.7.1878.30 ›Our Sydney Letter‹, in: The Brisbane Courier, 2.8.1878 (›fact‹, ›presence‹); Ben Mad-

dison: Day of the Just Reasoner, p. 15 (›set‹).31 (Untitled), in: The Brisbane Courier, 20.11.1878 (›strikes‹ etc.).32 (Untitled), in: The Townsville Herald, 30.11.1878 (›principle‹); (untitled), in: The


»struggle to save British Australia« was given a »national character« bythe public and media support and the involvement of other unions.33

Throughout December 1878 public meetings – representing »nearlyevery class of the community« – were held and petitions were signed ac-knowledging the »law of self-preservation« against moral and economiccompetition from abroad.34 Colliers and miners refused coal supplies tothe ASN vessels with Chinese crews, wharf labourers joined the strike,and the TLC participated in the agitation against Chinese immigrants.35

In mass meetings and petitions the public disapproved of the allegedlyunpatriotic actions of the ASN to replace white with Chinese workers.Furthermore, many businessmen and traders of Brisbane, Cooktown andMackay declared a boycott of the ASN steamers if they continued to em-ploy Chinese. Even the Brisbane Chamber of Commerce stood behind theseamen’s demands. Most decisively, the Queensland government with-drew from the mail subsidy contract it had with the ASN and stipulatedthat in the future these subsidies would only be granted if no Chinese orPacific Islanders were employed.36

The Seamen’s Strike against the ASN was the first intercolonial dis-pute for white workers’ racial rights. The collaboration of the strength-ening labour movement in the form of several trade unions with publicinstitutions and politicians was supported by the broad public. In this way,the Seamen’s Union members were able to utilize their racist symboliccapital in order to secure employment and public and political support.Still the ›wages of whiteness‹ were rather symbolical – only half of thedismissed seamen were reemployed and the company retained most ofthose who were hired as strike breakers, presumably at lower than unionwages.37 Eventually, the ASN dismissed of all their Chinese sailors and

Townsville Herald, 11.12.1878 (›question‹); (Untitled), in: Maryborough Chronicle,7.12.1878 (›labor‹); all articles cit. in Phil Griffiths: The heroic shameful role of labour,pp. 7 ff.

33 Ibid., p. 6 (›struggle‹); Queensland Branch: Federated Seamen’s Union of Australa-sia – Executive’s Address to Members, 1892, cit. in Norbert Ebbels: Australian LabourMovement, p. 155 (›national‹); Noel B. Nairn: Some Aspects of the Social Role of theLabor Movement, p. 12, emphasizes that no other strikes in nineteenth century Australiahave shown »such a complete identity of interest between a union and its society«.

34 (Untitled), in: The Age, 16.12.1878, cit. in Norbert Ebbels: Australian Labour Move-ment, p. 104 (›nearly‹); see also Andrew Markus: Fear & Hatred, p. 84; Myra Willard:White Australia Policy, p. 53 (›self-preservation‹).

35 Cf. Myra Willard: White Australia Policy, p. 55; Raymond Markey: Labor Party, p. 288;(untitled), in: The Brisbane Courier, 31.12.1878.

36 Cf. Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders, Kathryn Cronin: Race Relations, pp. 312 f.37 Cf. Andrew Markus: Fear & Hatred, pp. 86 f.; Raymond Markey: The Making of

The Labor Party, p. 288; see also ›The Seamen’s Strike‹, in: The Brisbane Courier,


any further attempt to replace local with cheap imported labour was dis-couraged for the time being.38

Factored into this racialized debate surrounding the employment ofthe seamen were also other economic sectors – not least the sugar indus-try: »The sugar planters say ›Without Polynesian labor sugar cultivationwon’t pay.‹ The squatters say ›We find Polynesian labor better than whitelabor, although it is more expensive.‹ (?) The ASN Company say ›Wecannot afford European seamen and firemen, we must have Chinese‹«.39

The sugar industry was by now firmly established; the acres un-der sugar had reached new heights, and in the early 1880s Australiansugar consumption per capita surpassed that of every other society of theworld.40 New technologies in the processing of sugar allowed for the pro-duction of a whiter-than-ever sugar. With the additional fall of the worldsugar prices sugar in the purest quality could be consumed in all milieusof society. As a Queensland parliamentarian observed in the 1890s, »eventhe working man would take nothing but purely white sugar«.

Curiously, the chemical purification of sugar occurred at almost thesame time as the Queensland sugar industry was to undergo a major socialchange. The employment of Pacific Islanders in Australia was confinedto tropical or semi-tropical agriculture by the Pacific Island LabourersAct of 1880 and the Amendment of 1884 further restricted the Islandersto manual labour in the cane fields, thus effectively banning them fromskilled or semi-skilled work in the sugar mills or as supervisors.41 In1885, an Act to introduce Indian labourers was repealed and an Act to endthe recruitment of Pacific Islanders was passed, effectively abolishing thePacific Island Labour Trade in 1890.42

With the prospect of replacing Pacific Islanders by European labour-ers growing dimmer due to the lack of interest on the part of the workers,the sugar planters turned to Chinese, Japanese, Indian and other ›alien‹labourers already present in the colony. When cheap European beet sugar

11.1.1879.38 Cf. Ann Curthoys: Conflict and Consensus, p. 48; Phil Griffiths: The heroic shameful

role of labour, p. 3.39 ›Chinese Seamen‹, in: The Brisbane Courier, 25.11.1878. The cited text is a letter to the

editor. Pacific Island labour is obviously not »more expensive« than European labour,hence the editor rightly annotated the passage with the here-cited question mark.

40 Cf. Peter Griggs: Sugar demand and consumption in colonial Australia, pp. 77 f.; thefollowing quote can be found loc. cit., p. 84.

41 Cf. Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880: Queensland, 44 Vic. No. 17; Pacific IslandLabourers Act 1880 Amendment Act 1884: Queensland, 47 Vic. No. 12.

42 Cf. Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880 Amendment Act 1885: Queensland, 49 Vic. No.17; see also ›The Queensland Parliament‹, in: The Argus, 30.9.1885.


collided on the Australian market with Queensland cane sugar, the miss-ing protection against imported sugar and the rising labour costs broughtthe industry to the brink of collapse. One consequence was the repeal ofthe Act that ended the introduction of Pacific Islanders and the reinstate-ment of recruitment for the next decade; the other consequence was thebreaking up of the large plantations into small farms and the erection ofcentral mills financed by the Queensland government.43

White Nation

Even though the reconstruction of the sugar industry was not explicitlynecessitated by the desire for a ›white Queensland‹ but by the finan-cial crisis in the sugar industry, it nonetheless enabled a racialized so-cial change. The subdividing of the large plantations into small farmswas the stimulus for white small farmers and their families to settle inNorthern Queensland. A fostering of settlement in the north was seen asa crucial part of protection against presumed foreign powers’ attemptsto ›invade‹ the country via the thinly populated Queensland. The trans-formation of the Queensland sugar industry into »a great white-labour in-dustry« was not least a cornerstone of the White Australia Policy becausethe »peopling of the vast empty spaces of country in the North by hun-dreds of thousands – aye, millions – of agriculturists, skilled workmen,&c.« could be used as a bulwark against »possible invasion by foreignfoes«, predominantly from Asia.44

Since »[n]o other industry possessed the same capacity to settle whitecultivators on the soil of Australia’s vast tropical areas« the conversion ofthe sugar industry »from a coloured to a white labour industry« was thesolution to the question of national defence. The »Commonwealth owesa moral debt to the Sugar Industry of almost immeasurable gravity«, thesugar industry concluded, since it provided the »tropical north with adefensive garrison of great present and potential strength«.45

Engagement in sugar cultivation now seemed more attractive basedon the possible upward social mobility from settler or worker to planter.

43 Cf. Pacific Island Labourers Extension Act of 1892: Queensland, 55 Vic. No. 38; TheSugar Works Guarantee Act of 1893: Queensland, 57 Vic. No. 18, ensured that theplantations controlled by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company were subdivided andrented to white settlers and families.

44 ›Alien Immigration: The Truth About Queensland and Coloured Races‹, in: The Bris-bane Courier, 2.2.1901 (›industry‹); Intelligence & Tourist Bureaus of Queensland:Queensland Sugar Industry, p. 10 (›peopling‹).

45 The Sugar Industry Organisations: The Australian Cane Sugar Industry, pp. 7 (›capac-ity‹), 20 (›debt‹ etc.).


Nonetheless, demand for cane cutters still exceeded the supply of Eu-ropean workers. The presumed unfitness of whites for employment inthe tropics was called on when Robert Philp, premier of Queensland,warned that white workers »would ›gradually sink below the level of thecivilization [ . . . and] to the level of [the Islanders] they were called todisplace‹«.46

Willing to engage in cane cutting during the depression, in bettertimes the European workers generally preferred to work in railroad workand on goldfields.47 The labour movement’s campaign for the engage-ment of white workers – supported by the legislation’s gradual restric-tions of Pacific Islanders to tropical agriculture – was at this stage pro-moted for merely ideological reasons. As a matter of fact, during the pe-riod of the first abolition of ›coloured‹ workers around 1890 and also atthe time of the final repatriation between 1906 and 1908, ›white‹ labourin Queensland’s cane fields was desperately searched for.

The white workers of Australia were not keen on engaging in thearduous, tropical labour – »the Queensland working-man firmly refusesto touch sugar« and would »not accept such wages as an agriculturalindustry can afford to pay«. The planters »would gladly employ whites«,stated Thomas McIlwraith, former Prime Minister of Queensland, »butthere is a prejudice against doing blackfellow’s work, even at more thantwice the blackfellow’s money«. Moreover, the employers feared a classconflict actually employing whites because not primarily of questions ofclimate or wages but because of the fear that »white labour would tryto virtually get control of the plantations by refusing to harvest the cropexcept upon their own terms«.48

In a broader perspective, the last decade of the nineteenth centurywas dominated by arrangements for, and negotiations about, possible fed-erations of the Australasian colonies which also involved New Zealandand Fiji. In the years 1890, 1891 and 1897 delegates from the coloniesdebated over the membership and conditions of the emergent Common-wealth of Australia, with four themes running through the conferences:defence of Australasia, fiscal union of the colonies, immigration restric-tions (especially of Chinese), and the relationship to Britain. While the

46 Lyndon Megarritty: White Queensland, p. 4.47 Cf. Vanda Moraes-Gorecki: ›Black Italians‹ in the Sugar Fields of North Queensland,

p. 315.48 ›Black Labour‹, in: The Graphic, 20.2.1892 (›touch sugar‹); ›White Labour in Queens-

land Canefields‹, in: The Brisbane Courier, 4.1.1894 (›such wages‹, ›get control‹);›An Interview with the Ex-Prime Minister of Queensland‹, in: The Brisbane Courier,24.9.1884 (›prejudice‹).


necessity of a united defence against an external foe was agreed upon,the unity seemed endangered by internal border duties.

The intra-Australian duties influenced the outlook of the sugar indus-try and the relationship of Queensland to the other colonies. Queenslandwas the pioneer zone of sugar production in Australia and by the end ofthe nineteenth century it produced almost enough cane sugar to supplythe rest of the Australian colonies, but if exports under a federal gov-ernment were taxed, Queensland would have to carry almost the wholeburden.49

Not surprisingly, during the debates over taxation of exports and theimposition of excise duties within Australia, the question of Queenslandsugar loomed large.50 It also had a bearing on the question of a ›whiteAustralia‹. James T. Walker, a representative from New South Wales, re-marked that »the employment of colored labor« had also fostered the em-ployment of white labour and that, without it, »many white people wouldnot have been where they are now«. At least one of his colleagues was ofdifferent opinion. Into a federated Australia, remarked Henry Dobson, arepresentative from Tasmania, Queensland could only be admitted on thebasis of the status quo achieved with »regard to her sugar plantations«,i.e. on the basis of the abolition of the Pacific Island labour trade.51

Prime Minister Edmund Barton was emphatic that the issue of thesugar industry was to be settled by a federal Australia since »[q]uestionswhich relate [. . . ] to the purity of race, to the preservation of the racialcharacter of the white population, are Commonwealth questions«, andthe »preservation of every inch of the shores [. . . ] from immigration«was »one of the most desirable powers to place into the constitution«.Charles C. Cameron from South Australia added that »in view of ourproximity to the crowded millions of the East« the question of »absoluteprohibition« should be discussed »in the interests of what is generallyand properly known as the white Australian«.52

The Federation, then, was based on a policy of restricting immigra-tion, i.e. Asian migration, and a policy of exclusion, i.e. the repatriation ofthe Pacific Islanders. Already at the first effective meeting of the Houseof Representatives on 10 May 1901, the necessity to design »Bills for

49 Cf. Australasian Federal Convention 1891, 11.3.1891, p. 252.50 See for example Australasian Federal Convention 1891, 13.3.1891, pp. 348 f.;

16.3.1891, pp. 354, 365 ff.; especially Australasian Federal Convention 1897,19.4.1897, pp. 840-858 and 6.9.1897, pp. 93 f.

51 Australasian Federal Convention 1897, 30.3.1897, p. 310 8 (›Walker‹), AustralasianFederal Convention 1897, 9.9.1897, p. 272 (›Dobson‹).

52 Australasian Federal Convention 1898, 27.1.1898, p. 232 (›Barton‹); Australasian Fed-eral Convention 1898, 28.1.1898, p. 248 (›Cameron‹).


the firm restriction of the immigration of Asiatics and for the diminutionand gradual abolition of the introduction of labour from the South SeaIslands« was asserted. During the following sittings, the Immigration Re-striction Bill and the Pacific Islands Labourers Bill were the frontrunnerbills to be passed.53

The deportation of the Pacific Islanders was supposed to force thesugar planters to resort to European labourers and thereby ›whiten‹ theQueensland sugar industry. A protective tariff was also placed on foreignsugar entering the Australian market.54 The Excise and Rebate Systemthat was created encouraged the sugar planters to replace the Pacific Is-landers with European labourers and helped to finance the higher costsof white labour.55 The Excise Tariff of 1902 stipulated that an exciseduty of three pound per ton on all sugar consumed in Australia was tobe charged. According to the Sugar Bounty Act of 1903, rebates wereonly paid for »›white‹ sugar«, meaning »›white grown‹ cane [. . . ] as theproduct of »›white labour‹«.56 When in 1904 the bonus for white growncane was about to be discontinued, farmers and millers foresaw the endof the desired ›white‹ sugar industry and a displacement of white labourby Asians, thus »taking away the black man simply to replace him by theyellow man«.57

By the end of 1908, more than seven thousand Pacific Islanders of thecirca ten thousand present in Queensland and northern New South Walesin 1901 had been returned to their respective home islands.58 Even beforethey had left the country, they had already been written out of the ›white‹success story of sugar cultivation when a Labor politician stated that »allthe pioneering work has been done by the whites« with the »undesirableimmigrants« entering the stage afterwards.59

In the first years of the Commonwealth, jobs for whites in the canefields were created with the help of legislation (excluding Pacific Is-landers from Australia), financial levies on the wider society (the Ex-cise and Rebate system paid for and enforced the transition from ›black‹

53 Cf. The Parliament of the Commonwealth, No. 10 Votes and Proceedings of the Houseof Representatives, 11. and 12.12.1901, pp. 271, 273.

54 Cf. Alan Birch: The Implementation of the White Australia Policy, p. 204; LyndonMegarrity: White Queensland, p. 9.

55 For the excise and rebate system, see Adrian Graves: Cane and Labour, pp. 59 f.56 See Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia 1911, p. 398. The payment

of bounties was extended until 1912 by the Sugar Bounty Act of 1905. The Advertiser,›Rebates on ›White‹ Sugar‹, 1.1.1903, p. 5 (›white grown‹ etc.).

57 Doug Hunt: Exclusivism and Unionism, p. 88.58 Cf. Clive Moore: The South Sea Islanders, pp. 167-181; id.: Kanaka, pp. 288 ff.59 Cit. in Henry Reynolds: North of Capricorn, p. 164.


to ›white‹ labour) and ideologically justified by the nationwide desire to»keep Australia white« and thus protected from supposedly hostile in-vasion.60 The ›wages of whiteness‹, however, were still confined to thepossibility of employment. For the newly-founded sugar workers’ unionsthe fight was far from over.61

White Wages

After 1907, the Islanders’ deportation had led to increasing numbersof European workers in the cane fields but predominantly these work-ers were Italians.62 With regard to them their right to the ›wages ofwhiteness‹ seemed uncertain to large parts of the British-shaped labourmovement. The cause of this was, without doubt, the fact that they werebrought to Australia as cheap labourers. Already in 1890 ›The Worker‹had bewailed: »First the coolie, then the kanaka, now the Italian! Isn’t ittime our own flesh and blood had a chance?«.63

›Flesh and blood‹, at that, was not only a figure of speech. In fact,both words symbolized the convolution of class and race elements in thewhite Australian struggle for fair wages. They ought to be high enoughto reproduce their own ›flesh‹. And, they ought to be distributed in dueconsideration of lineage and not benefit foreign ›blood‹.

The Italians were considered, as were non-white workers, in terms ofcheap labour. In 1901 this was reason enough for ›The Worker‹ to seethem as »coloured alien[s]« who have »driven the white worker almostout of the market«. In terms of sugar production, it was held that »Japsact at mills and lengthsmen on tramways, kanakas do the ploughing, andlow-grade Italians do the mill work«.64

This role of the Italians was not only considered to undermine ›white‹solidarity, it was also underpinned by arguments of race science whichled to doubts about the ›whiteness‹ of Italians altogether. Such argu-ments drew on Italy’s own race-ideological division of its peninsula intoa European north and an African south. This was made accessible to

60 Since no »black or piebald« Australia was to be allowed, »some hardship« in the sugarindustry with the »abolition of colored labor« was to be faced but »white Australia wasworth the sacrifice« – ›The Federal Elections‹, in: The Advertiser, 13.3.1901.

61 The first unions were formed in Mackay and Cairns in 1905; see Doug Hunt: Exclu-sivism and Unionism, p. 89.

62 Cf. Gianfranco Cresciani: The Italians in Australia, p. 45.63 (Untitled), in: The Worker, 13.12.1890 cit. after Kay Saunders: Masters and Servants,

p. 106.64 The Worker, 24.8.1901, cit. in Doug Hunt: Exclusivism and Unionism, p. 84.


Anglophone readers by – for example – William Z. Ripley’s character-ization of the ›Mediterranean race‹. This seemed obvious to the ›Aus-tralian Worker‹, and in 1925 it extended this ›theory‹ to cover the wholeof Southern Europe. There, in the east the Turks, and in the West theMoors, had supposedly »left a racial imprint«. After all, it was argued,many Italians originated from »the enormous slave population« of theRoman Empire.65

In the sugar industry the racialized wage question lead to a scurrilemelange. On the one hand, as late as the mid-twenties, sugar mills occa-sionally defamed Italian-produced sugar as »›black‹ sugar« and refusedto process it.66 On the other hand, even those who were denied theirracist symbolic capital earned tangible ›wages of whiteness‹. The unionshad to insist fiercely upon the maintenance of ›white‹ wages after it hadbecome obvious that the conflict between capital and labour persisted inthe ›white nation‹ of the Commonwealth. Many entrepreneurs wanted tosee the ›wages of whiteness‹ confined to their symbolic role, i.e. as abadge denoting membership of the nation. Numerous workers saw theirracist symbolic capital, however, as an assignment to them of a highershare of social wealth. A labour conflict was unavoidable.

The 1911 ›Sugar Strike‹ was the »first major, prolonged and acri-monious industrial dispute« in the Queensland sugar industry and wasdiscussed in newspapers nationwide.67 Even though the employment ofnon-European labourers in the sugar industry was discouraged by bothlegislation and unions, a number of planters still relied on the cheaper›coloured‹ labourers.68 The cane cutters demanded increased wages, aneight-hour day, and sustenance during the slack season; the employersconceded to all but the rates of wages.69

With the clamour for the complete exclusion of ›coloured‹ labourers,improvements in wages and working conditions and regulated workinghours, however, the strikers asked not only for economic improvementsbut also for full recognition as white Australians. The white workers

65 Cf. William Z. Ripley: The Races of Europe, pp. 246 ff.; Australian Worker, 21.1.1925cit. in Andrew Markus: Australian Race Relations, p. 146 (›imprint‹, ›slave‹) – see alsoWulf D. Hund: Mit der Weißheit am Ende, p. 604.

66 Vanda Moraes-Gorecki: Black Italians, pp. 315 f.67 See for example ›Sugar Strike‹, in: The Argus, 20.6.1911; ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The

Advertiser, 23.6.1911; Kay Saunders: Masters and Servants, p. 96 (›dispute‹).68 In 1902, less than fifteen per cent were European workers, in 1908 their proportion rose

to eighty-eight per cent, and three years later only six per cent of the workers werenon-whites – see William A. Douglass: From Italy to Ingham, p. 66; Jürgen Matthäus:Nationsbildung in Australien, pp. 277 f.

69 ›Sugar-Workers’ Strike‹, in: The Argus, 6.6.1911.


fought for »fair wages [. . . ] under fair conditions« just like the AustralianNatives’ Association strove to secure »fair wages, fair values, and fairprofits«.70 This served an ambiguous purpose: not only did the workerswant to be paid sufficiently to maintain their living standards, they alsowanted to be paid as white workers. The Sugar Growers’ Union, repre-senting the employers, argued that their position was hardly better thanthat of the employees since they only received a low price for their cane.Though they »recognized that the men were entitled to better conditions«they were unable to grant improvements.71

At the end of June 1911 the sugar workers of almost all cane sugarproducing districts were engaged in a strike which involved more than»the whole of the industry«. Railway and waterside workers joinedthe strike by refusing to handle non-union sugar, also called »scab« or»black« sugar, on the wharves of Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart.72 Thiswas backed by the Acting Prime Minister William M. Hughes.73 Fur-thermore, the Federal Parliament – the first parliament with a Labor Partymajority – stood »by the white worker« in this strike and criticized the po-lice magistrate’s dealing with the strikers. The ›Sydney Morning Herald‹declared the debate about payments to sugar growers and sugar workersto be »a large national question, in which the whole of Australia is aninterested party«.74 The workers were supported by the local people whorefused to rent out rooms to or serve strike breakers and received finan-cial support from other unions.75 To acquire labourers during the strike,

70 ›Strikers and Politicians‹, in: The Brisbane Courier, 20.6.1911 (›conditions‹); ›The Ref-erenda‹, in: The Advertiser, 7. 4. 1911 (›values‹); for a reflection on Australian ›fairness‹see the essay of Wulf D. Hund in this volume.

71 ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Advertiser, 1.7.1911.72 The first to go into strike were the men of the Lower Burdekin district on 4.6.1911;

›Sugar-Workers’ Strike‹, in: The Argus, 3.6.1911; ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Argus,17.6.1911 (›whole industry‹); ›Action by Wharf Labourers‹, in: The Argus, 1.7.1911;›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Advertiser, 4.7.1911 (›scab‹), ›The Sugar Strike‹, in:The Advertiser, 21.7.1911; ›Black Sugar‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 8.8.1911(›black‹), ›Sugar Strike‹, in: The Argus, 9.8.1911.

73 See William H. Hughes, also president of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, cit. in›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Mercury, 21. 7. 1911; see also ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: TheSydney Morning Herald, 1.8.1911 on Hughes’ »awkward position« between parlia-ment, employers, employees, unions and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company.

74 ›Queensland Sugar Strike‹, in: The Argus, 11. 7. 1911, p. 7 (›workers‹); ›The SugarStrike‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 1.8.1911 (›question‹).

75 ›Society of Free Workers‹, in: The Argus, 25.7.1911 (›free workers‹); Kay Saunders:Masters and Servants, p. 108. Among others the Australian Miners’ Association, theTobacco Workers’ Union, the Builders’ Laborers’ Federation, and the Cordalba railwayemployees donated money to the strikers – see ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Advertiser,29.6.1911, p. 11; ›Tobacco Workers‹, in: The Advertiser, 30.6.1911; ›Builders’ Labor-


the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) fostered the large scale in-troduction of Italians for field labour but also appealed for Australianworkers. These »free workers« were recruited from the southern statesvia advertisements in several newspapers.76

Throughout the strike, the white workers emphasized their distinc-tiveness by racistly stereotyping not only Japanese and Chinese but alsoSouthern European, in particular Italian, workers. British immigrants in-troduced as replacements for workers on strike were not perceived as›blacklegs‹ since they soon joined the trade unionists. Matters were dif-ferent with non-Europeans and Southern Europeans. These groups weredenied membership in the unions and kept from participating in the strikeaction.

Rather than on class solidarity the unions relied on the racist con-victions underpinning their wage expectations. In this regard they couldcount on the support of broad parts of the public. Recognizing »sugar[. . . ] as a household necessity«, the ›Sydney Morning Herald‹ was in»no doubt that the people of the Commonwealth are heavily penalised«by the excise and rebate system but nevertheless declared the protectionof the sugar industry to be »really a large national question, in whichthe whole of Australia is an interested party«.77 The ›Argus‹ questionedthe CSR’s »picture of the company in relation to white workmen« byquoting its director and chairman who expressed the company’s readi-ness to relocate to Fiji and there to produce »with the aid of its colouredbrother [. . . ] the good white sugar that the white Australian desires toeat«. Labor politician and future Prime Minister William M. Hughes, intaking a stand against the CSR, stated that »the people of Australia wantAustralian sugar and they are certainly entitled to have it«, not throughthe employment of ›coloured‹ workers but through the »employment ofwhite labour at white men’s wages in the industry«. The workers’ wagedemand lay slightly higher than the agreed daily minimum wage – thus,»if the sugar company cannot support married men it is not an industryfit for the white men, or fit for the white man’s country«.78

In August 1911 the Sugar Strike ended with conferences in severalsugar districts and the granting of an eight-hour day along with a min-

ers’ Federation‹, in: The Advertiser, 15.7.1911; ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Advertiser,8.7.1911; ›Assistance form Sydney Unions‹, in: The Mercury, 29.7.1911.

76 See for example ›Advertising‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 13.7.1911; ›Advertis-ing‹, in: The Argus, 24.7.1911; Kay Saunders: Masters and Servants, p. 104; ›Assistanceform Sydney Unions‹, in: The Mercury, 29.7.1911 (›free workers‹).

77 ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 1.8.1911.78 ›Sugar Strike‹, in: The Argus, 3. 8. 1911 (›picture‹ etc.).


imum wage of thirty shillings per week for workers at the mills.79 Inthe years following the Sugar Strike, several pieces of legislation werepassed which effectively reduced the numbers of non-European settlersand employees in the sugar industry. The last step in the non-Europeans’exclusion from the sugar industry was the Sugar Cultivation Act of 1913which made it unlawful to »engage in or carry on the cultivation of sugarcane« without the certificate of a dictation test and which imposed penal-ties on both the unlawful employer and employee.80

The Governor of Queensland, William MacGregor, was assured bythe Premier »that both Commonwealth and State Governments [are] de-termined to make Queensland sugar [an] exclusively white men industry,and already differentiate by giving [a] bounty on white persons only«.In his explanation as to who should be excluded he remarked that the»Premier stated that the object of the Bill was ›to absolutely excludecoloured labour from employment in sugar in field and mill‹«. Withregard to ›coloured‹ labour, it was predominantly »Kanakas, Japanese,[and] British Indians« who were of concern.81 The Prime Minister ad-vised that to facilitate a »white labour industry« it was not intended to»apply the Education test to white races [. . . ] unless there is some spe-cific reason for their exclusion«.82

For the first time in the sugar industry, the white workers success-fully demanded that their racist symbolic capital was transformed intotangible ›wages of whiteness‹. The whiteness that was established in thelaws of the newly-federated Commonwealth of Australia was now ex-pected to benefit the European workers of the sugar industry. They unitedto demonstrate to the sugar planters that they were no longer willing todo »nigger work for a dog’s pay« or be treated »like kanaka slaves«. Theachievements of the Sugar Strike and the consequent laws were to placethe last pieces in the puzzle of a thoroughly ›white‹ Queensland sugar in-dustry. Eventually, the »desire [. . . ] that it might be wholly a white man’sindustry« seemed fulfilled.83

79 Cf. Kay Saunders: Masters and Servants, p. 110; ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Mercury,15.8.1911; ›The Sugar Strike‹, in: The Argus, 16.8.1911, p. 14.

80 Cf. the Sugar Cultivation Act 1913 An Act to Prohibit the Employment of certain Formsof Labour in the Production of Sugar and for other incidental purposes, 4 Geo V No. 4.

81 MacGregor, 23.7.1913, Sugar Cultivation Act 1913 (Qld.), p. 23 (›industry‹); 12.7.1913,Sugar Cultivation Act 1913 (Qld.), p. 19 (›Premier‹ etc.); Harcourt, 22.7.1913, SugarCultivation Act 1913 (Qld.), p. 22 (›Kanakas‹).

82 MacGregor on the proceedings in Parliament on 17.6.1913, Sugar Cultivation Act 1913(Qld.), p. 17 (›white labour industry‹); Queensland Sugar Cultivation Act 1913, Dis-crimination Against Japanese, p. 134.

83 Kay Saunders: Workers in Bondage, pp. 63 (›dog‹), 182 (›slaves‹); ›Sugar Production‹,


White Sugar

At the beginning of the 1920s – after the physical, demographic and so-cial ›whitening‹ of the industry – sugar was, in itself and in the manner ofits production, ›white‹. During the first half of the twentieth century thesugar industry proved to be a model plant for the achievements for ›WhiteAustralia‹ and white sugar became a symbol for white consumerism act-ing as ›ethnic communal whiteness‹ put into practice. Nonetheless, theboundaries of whiteness remained a matter of debate.

In general, ›consuming‹ whiteness meant joining in the exploitationof non-whites. Following the lifestyle of the British Empire, white Aus-tralians consumed large amounts of tea. This tea often was not onlychemically black but, and this went without saying, it was also producedby non-white labour. While there were no objections to importing ›non-white‹ tea, the sugar added to the tea could not be white enough.84 In par-ticular therefore, in the Australian context, consuming whiteness more-over meant the financial support of ›white‹ sugar and its conjoinmentwith the ideology of ›White Australia‹: since the latter’s scope remaineddisputed, ›whiteness‹ had to be constantly re-appraised.

In consuming ›white‹ sugar the consumers supported the populationpolitics necessary to avert what was seen as the danger of an Asian in-vasion. Each teaspoon of sugar, however, was made bitter by the thoughtthat a high price had to be paid for this means of defence. Added to thecosts was the uncertainty regarding whether the producers, especially theItalians, could really be seen as ›white‹ Europeans. In an attempt to rebutthe accusations against them that they exploited the consumers, the canegrowers played down the high price of their commodity, using newspapercampaigns to draw on invasion fears and appeal to the consumers’ senseof nationality.

in: The Argus, 18.12.1909, p. 21 (›desire‹); see also Intelligence & Tourist Bureaus ofQueensland: Queensland Sugar Industry, p. 46.

84 In the case of Australia, this tea came from Ceylon, India, Java, but also from Japan,China and Hong Kong; see Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics: OfficialYearbook No. 13, pp. 585 ff.


Population politics had been a concern since the 1880s when the›Empty North‹ was recognized as a danger to the white occupation ofAustralia. The closeness of the thinly populated northern parts to highlypopulated Asian countries seemed to necessitate a population politics thatfostered the white settlement of the northern parts of the country. Thesugar industry after its transformation from a sector based on large plan-tations to one comprehending small, family-owned farms was seen asthe ideal foundation for European settlement in Queensland. The mainte-nance of »the standard of living and the general conditions that inducedpeople to come to the north« was to be ensured by »industries suitedto the climate, and one of the greatest of these industries was the sugarindustry«.85

Prime Minister Stanley Bruce suggested that the »continuance of thesugar industry was bound up with the very existence of Australia as anation« and that it »stood in a unique position« as the »first line of defenseand the bulwark of their most cherished policy of a White Australia«. Theprinted media of Queensland agreed: »Every intelligent person knowsthat the maintenance of a White Australia depends wholly and solelyupon populating the North with virile white people, just as every oneknows that that population can only be induced to settle there through theprosperity of the great, growing, and promising sugar industry«.86 PrimeMinister William M. Hughes claimed that the sugar industry »was theonly industry that could people the north« and expressed his belief »thatthe tropical north could be settled and occupied permanently by men andwomen of the British race« thus disproving the myth that »the far northwas unsuitable for white settlement«.87

For the cane growers the prosperity of Europeans in Queensland wasseen as an absolute necessity. Since »[p]ractical experience [. . . ] provedthat sugar is the only industry that can be successfully carried on alongour tropical coasts, it is essential to maintain it; a ›White Australia‹ is im-possible without such settlement, and ›White Australia‹ is the declaredpolicy of the Commonwealth«.88 The demands of the labour movement,though initially merely ideological due to the lack of white workers will-ing to commit themselves to Queensland sugar, took the same line withregard to this broad desire for a ›White Australia‹. For one part of theAustralian nation, it was the economic and social benefits of a possible

85 ›Mr. Hughes at Cairns: Sugar Growers’ Request‹, in: The Argus, 29.5.1922.86 ›Importance of Industry‹, in: The Argus, 7.6.1923 (›continuance‹ etc.); ›Struggling en

Bloc‹, in: The Brisbane Courier, 2.6.1922 (›intelligent‹ etc.).87 ›Mr. Huhes‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 30.5.1922.88 ›Sugar Position‹, in: The Brisbane Courier, 30.9.1922.


social upward mobility into the ranks of the planters that incited Europeansettlement. The sugar workers, meanwhile, were not only providing thenation with sweetness but also built the »great white walls« against hos-tile take-overs.89 Working in the sugar industry was thus not only work-ing for ›white‹ sugar against ›black‹ sugar but also working for whiteAustralia against alien invasion.

A high price of sugar was considered »adequate to maintain a ›WhiteAustralia‹«. It had to be paid unless the sugar industry was to be allowedto vanish and »the tropical North to revert to its primeval state«, declaredthe sugar lobby. ›The Argus‹ claimed that »›White Australia‹ and sugarbecame inseparably associated years ago« and any taxpayer objecting tothe subsidization »was denounced as a poor Australian«.90 Australian-ness was thus measured according to the willingness to support the sugarindustry as a truly Australian industry and consumption of expensivesugar became its symbol.

Even though Australia’s annual sugar consumption per capita madethe country one of the top ten consumers of cane sugar, with a nationalsugar price of »£ 20 a ton above the world’s parity«, support for theracist national sugar project was heading for a crisis.91 The legitimacyof ›white‹ wages, allegedly causing the high costs, was questioned and itwas argued that only the sugar industry as the »spoiled child of Australianpolitics« was provided with such special treatment. The Prime Ministerwas allegedly »spoonfeeding one industry at the expense of others, and[to] the detriment of the whole community« while the embargo of for-eign sugar maintained »an artificial rate of wages« and »imposed uponthe consumers an unnecessarily high price«.92 The public had to carrythis burden since it »must pay the piper in dear sugar for home consump-tion«. This was a »direct tax on the people« whereby »one industry [ . . .was] guarded by the Government and by the taxpayers against the ordi-nary vicissitudes of the season and the market«.93 For this mismanage-ment »[t]here would be no necessity«, argued ›The Argus‹, »if canefield

89 Charles A. Price: Great White Walls, p. xii.90 ›Sugar Position‹, in: The Brisbane Courier, 30.9.1922 (›price‹); (Untitled), in: The Ar-

gus, 28.10.1918 (›inseparably‹ etc.).91 Peter Griggs: A Natural Part of Life, p. 152; see also ›Price of Sugar‹, in: The Sydney

Morning Herald, 29.10.1921.92 ›Why Sugar is Dear‹, in: The Argus, 18.7.1922 (›spoiled‹); ›Sugar and White Aus-

tralia‹, in: The Argus, 10.6.1922 (›spoonfeeding‹); ›Sugar Agreement‹, in: The Argus,22.4.1922 (›artificial‹).

93 ›Suggestion to Save Crops‹, in: The Argus, 28.10.1922 (›piper‹); see also ›Sugar Ques-tion‹, in: The Argus, 25.9.1922; ›Northern Territory‹, in: The Argus, 29.4.1922 (›tax‹);›Big Business in Log-Rolling‹, in: The Argus, 1.5.1922 (›industry‹).


workers [. . . ] were not paid wages out of all proportions to the value oftheir services«.94

The high sugar prices were not only criticized as being to the detri-ment of the consumers. The jam-making company foresaw cut-backsin their employment and productions if the high price level was main-tained.95 The Fruitgrowers’ Association claimed that the »high price ofsugar [. . . ] was ruining the Australian export trade«, putting »thousandsof acres of fruit land [. . . ] in danger of going out of cultivation«. Queens-land was seen as »poisoned by the sugar interests« and the embargoagainst foreign sugar as the »most outstanding swindle in Australia to-day«.96

Repudiating the critics’ accusations with race-ideological justifica-tions, Prime Minister William M. Hughes declared that »Queenslandsugar was a matter of life and death, and an outward and visible sign intropical Australia of the White Australia policy«. He exhorted his coun-trymen of the necessity to carry the financial burden for the sake of thenation since »you cannot have a White Australia in this country unlessyou are prepared to pay for it. One of the ways in which we can pay for aWhite Australia is to support the sugar industry of Queensland«.97

In the light of the monetary impositions and the critique of the legit-imacy of both dear sugar prices and the allegedly inflated wages in thesugar industry, it was easy to address the doubts smouldering beneath thesurface of a supposedly united sugar consumption and call into questiononce more the ›whiteness‹ of the sugar. That was done by questioning the›whiteness‹ of the cultivators and producers – namely the Southern Euro-peans and especially the Italians – and the recalling of former stereotyp-ing and discrimination.

The Italians’ unsettled state of whiteness evidenced the contestedboundaries of racism as a social relation. In the international context,Australian sugar was produced by Europeans and was thus ›white‹.On the Australian national level, however, this assertion was fragile.When the Italians’ whiteness was questioned, the focus of discrimina-tion switched direction. No longer did it face outwards (against Chinese,Japanese and other Asians) but inwards (against Southern Europeans) and

94 ›Why Sugar is Dear‹, in: The Argus, 18.7.192295 ›High Price of Sugar‹, in: The Argus, 16.9.1921.96 ›Fruitgrowers’ Position‹, in: The Argus, 2.8.1921 (›price‹ etc.); ›High Price of Sugar‹,

in: The Argus, 22.1.1925 (›swindle‹).97 ›World Conditions‹, in: The Argus, 21.4.1922 (›sign‹); ›Mr. Hughes in Queensland‹, in:

The Argus, 11.11.1922 (›support‹).


shed light on the alleged contradiction between the payment of ›white‹wages and the employment of ›black‹ Italians.

This was based on the accusations that Italians were, if anything, only»marginally« white.98 The discussions surrounding the price of sugar al-legedly caused by high wages reflected this malleability of whiteness.For industrial and political critics of the sugar agreement, the wages paidwere so ›white‹ that they were groundlessly dear; for the British Prefer-ence Movement, a high standard of wages secured the maintenance of alabour force which could not be white enough; but for the Federal House-wives’ Association, concerned by the high price of sugar, the recipientsof these ›white‹ wages were not even white.

The British Preference Movement, fuelled by the Australian Workers’Union, attempted to enforce a rule that sugar planters who wanted to hirecane cutters first had to exhaust the roll of the Australian Workers’ Unionbefore they could contract newcomers.99 The fact that in the late-1920snon-British labourers in Queensland represented only eleven per cent ofthe workforce with eighty-nine per cent of this constituted by Britishand Australian labourers,100 is evidence of the predominantly ideolog-ical content of the allegations of a supposed Italian takeover of the sugarindustry. Nonetheless, the British Preference League – born out of the›Gentleman’s Agreement‹ between the Australian Workers’ Union andthe Employer Associations to privilege British employment – warned ofthe high percentages of non-British workers which allegedly caused the»foreignisation« of the main sugar districts by Italians and other SouthernEuropeans. The Italians in North Queensland »exhibit neither inclinationnor ambition to become readily assimilated with the inhabitants of Aus-tralia«, argued the president of the Innisfail branch of the British Prefer-ence League; he also argued that »Italian customs have become harmfulto Australia’s economic, cultural, and industrial welfare«.101

At the same time, the Federated Housewives’ Association threatenedto withhold the support for »an Italian industry« and rather preferred tohave the embargo on »black-grown sugar« lifted to ensure a sugar price»that would enable workers to live decently«. A member of the Rock-hampton Housewives Association complained about the numbers of Ital-

98 Warwick Anderson: The Cultivation of Whiteness, p. 159.99 Cf. William A. Douglass: From Italy to Ingham, pp. 147 f.; ›Italians in Queensland‹, in:

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11.6.1930; ›Preference League‹, in: The Sydney MorningHerald, 12.6.1930; ›Work on Canefields‹, in: The Argus, 18.6.1930.

100 Cf. Warwick Anderson: The Cultivation of Whiteness, p. 159.101 For the ›Gentleman’s Agreement‹ see Anthony Paganoni: The Pastoral Care of Italians

in Australia, p. 48; ›Foreigners‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 18.6.1930 (›foreigni-sation‹); ›The Sugar Embargo‹, in: The Canberra Times, 4.8.1930 (›assimilated‹ etc.).


ians who »are getting the preference of the employment, to the exclu-sion of [. . . ] our own Australian men«. At the same time she referred tothe »cry coming from Queensland for a White Australia«, thus imply-ing that the employment of Italians would oppose the ›whiteness‹ of thenation.102

These doubts about the producers’ whiteness were further reflected inthe ›quality‹ of sugar itself. When during the mill strikes at South John-stone in 1927 the millers refused to handle »›black‹ sugar produced byItalian farmers«, the ascribed colour functioned on two levels.103 Firstly,the denial of the Italians’ whiteness was transferred onto their product.Secondly, the alleged betrayal of the labour movement by ›non-white‹blackleggers hired during the strikes was also incorporated in this ›scab‹product. The ›blackness‹ of the sugar was hence both racistly and sociallydetermined.

Newspaper campaigns were supposed to smooth away the question-ing of the sugar industry’s subsidization and its allegedly not-white-enough employees. Critics and sceptics forced sugar growers time andagain to reassure their customers with justifications drawing on the›White Australia‹ ideology and to call up a uniting of sugar consumersagainst external foes until, when visiting the northern parts of the coun-try, it was »almost a matter of decency to fill one’s teacup with lumps ofsugar«.104

In the ›white‹ sugar promotion campaigns the sugar growers utilizedthe fear of invasion and the industry’s contribution to the defence of Aus-tralia. The newspaper articles of September 1922 on the benefits accru-ing to Australia from the sugar industry and the 1932 »Sugar Growersof Australia for the Information of the People« were mainly directed atconsumers in the southern states and appealed for their support in orderto maintain Australia’s ›racial‹ purity.105

In calling on the readers’ sense of nationality the sugar industry re-pudiated the criticism offered by other industries and warned of the con-sequences of a collapsing sugar industry, thereby heavily drawing on the

102 ›Housewives Oppose the Sugar Embargo‹, in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 22.9.1927(›Italian industry‹, ›black-grown sugar‹, ›decently‹); ›Cost of Sugar‹, in: The Argus,12.4.1923, (›preference‹, ›cry‹); see also Judith Smart: The Politics of Consumption,p. 24.

103 Vanda Moares-Gorecki: Black Italians, p. 315 (›black sugar‹).104 Cit. in Peter Griggs: A Natural Part of Life, p. 141.105 Six articles were published on a daily basis between 18.09.1922 and 23.09.1922 in the

Sydney Morning Herald and The Argus. For the Sugar Growers’ Information see forexample (untitled), in: The Sydney Morning Herald, 12.04.1932, or (untitled), in: TheArgus, 2.6.1932.


moral obligation of a ›good‹ Australian. »Vital to a White Australia« the»great national task« was to strengthen the northernmost industry againstan Asian take-over. »For the sake of nation and race« the sugar industrywas »worth the loyal support of every Australian who wants to see North-ern Australia occupied by white men instead of yellow or black men« andwho »loves his country and honours his race«.106

By the same token, another campaign by the Queensland sugar grow-ers in the 1930s again addressed the people of South Australia and NewSouth Wales to emphasize the importance of the northern industry asboth a »bulwark« against Asian invasion and a catalyst for the economy.To open the gates to cheap foreign sugar would not only mean to import»black grown« sugar but also to endanger North Queensland »happilysettled by a white people«.107 Not using Queensland sugar therefore alsoallegedly meant endangering the exclusively white society.

For much of the twentieth century Australians were global leadersin per capita consumption of sugar.108 Nonetheless, it seemed necessaryto constantly remind the consumers of the reasons why they ought toconsume ›white‹ Australian sugar in order to counter doubts about the le-gitimacy of its price as well as to counter attempts to discredit the ›white‹industry by the casting of aspersions regarding the whiteness of the labourforce. The campaigns which asked Australians to consume whiteness forthe sake of white supremacy in Australia, brought against the critique ofhigh sugar prices the pressure-group politics of ›racial purity‹ and uti-lized the prevalent invasion fears. It was thus able to bring about a moreexpensive employment of white labour as a sacrifice for a ›White Aus-tralia‹.

Ultimately, consumption of ›white‹ sugar and consuming ›Australian‹meant consuming for Australian ›whiteness‹: consumption against for-eign commercial competition within Australia, consumption against im-ports from outside Australia, consumption for the employment of whiteworkers, consumption for white settlement in the north of Australia andconsumption against hostile takeovers by non-whites from outside Aus-tralia. Moreover, consuming whiteness also meant sugar-coating the un-stable consistency of whiteness.109

106 ›Do Australians Know the North‹, in: The Argus, 23.9.1922, p. 30 (›support‹); ›Aus-tralia’s Wealth in Sugar‹, in: The Argus, 19.9.1922, p. 8 (›country‹).

107 ›The Tide Rises While Australia Sleeps‹, in: The Argus, 15.10.1930 (›bulwark‹); ›Thistalk of robbing you is all bunkum‹, in: The Argus, 22.7.1932 (›black‹ etc.).

108 Peter Griggs: A Natural Part of Life, p. 125.109 I wish to thank Wulf D. Hund and Jeremy Krikler for their helpful comments and ob-

jections.


References(Emphases in the originals are not included. All URLs have been revised on11.4.2010. Only select issues of the following newspapers have been cited. Datesare provided in the footnotes.)

Colonial Times and Tasmanian AdvertiserHobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land AdvertiserMaryborough ChronicleThe AdvertiserThe AgeThe ArgusThe Brisbane CourierThe Canberra TimesThe Courier (Brisbane)The GraphicThe MercuryThe Moreton Bay CourierThe Sydney Gazette and New South Wales AdvertiserThe Sydney HeraldThe Sydney Morning HeraldThe Townsville Herald

Australasian Federation Conference 1891; retrieved at http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/pubs/records.htm.

Australasian Federation Conference 1897-98; retrieved at http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/pubs/records.htm.

Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics: Official Yearbook of the Com-monwealth of Australia, No. 13. Melbourne 1920.

Legislative Assembly Hansard & Papers, 8.6.2000; retrieved at http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20000608005

Queensland Sugar Cultivation Act 1913. Discrimination against Japanese, 1920,A1/15 1920/5592.

Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New SouthWales (on Convicts), Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, XX/448,1822, p. 588.

Sugar Cultivation Act 1913 (Qld.). Exclusion of non-European labour from sugarindustry, 1914, A1/15 1914/3421.

The Parliament of the Commonwealth, No. 10 Votes and Proceedings of theHouse of Representatives, 1901; retrieved athttp://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fvoteshistorical%2F1901-06-05%22.

Anderson, Hugh: Sugar. Australian Industries Series No. 6. Melbourne: Lothian1974.

Anderson, Warwick: The Cultivation of Whiteness. Science, Health and RacialDestiny in Australia. 2nd ed. Carlton: Melbourne University Press 2005.


Bonilla, Eduardo S.: On the Vicissitudes of Being ›Puerto Rican‹. An Explorationof Pedro Juan Soto’s Hot Land, Cold Season. In: Melus, 6, 1979, 3, pp. 27-40.

Bradley, William: A Voyage to New South Wales. Dec. 1786-May 1792. Com-piled 1802; Facsimile copy at Mitchell Library, retrieved at http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/album/albumView.aspx?acmsID=412904&itemID=823591.

Carroll, Noël: Beyond Aesthetics. Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press 2001.

Clarke, Donovan: Robinson, Michael Massey (1744-1826). In: Australian Dic-tionary of Biography, Vol. 2. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press 1967,pp. 387-389.

Clarke, Kamari M., Deborah A. Thomas: Globalization and Race. Transforma-tions in the Cultural Production of Blackness. Durham: Duke University Press2006.

Cresciani, Gianfranco: The Italians in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press 2003.

Curthoys, Ann: Conflict and Consensus. The Seamen’s Strike of 1878. In: WhoAre Our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia, ed. by AnnCurthoys, Andrew Markus. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger 1978, pp. 48-66.

Douglass, William A.: From Italy to Ingham. Italians in Northern Queensland. StLucia: University of Queensland Press 1995.

Duffield, Ian: Martin Beck and Afro-Blacks in Colonial Australia. In: Journal ofAustralian Studies, 16, 1985, pp. 3-20.

—: The Life and Death of ›Black‹ John Goff: Aspects of the Black Convict.Contribution to Resistance Patterns During the Transportation Era in EasternAustralia. In: Australian Journal of Politics & History, 33, 1987, 1, pp. 30-44.

Ebbels, Norbert N.: The Australian Labour Movement, 1850-1907. Melbourne:Australian Book Society 1960.

Elder, Bruce: Blood on the Wattle. Massacres and Maltreatment of AboriginalAustralians since 1788. 3rd ed. Sydney etc.: New Holland Publishers 2002.

Ellingson, Terry J.: The Myth of the Noble Savage. Berkeley etc.: University ofCalifornia Press 2001.

Evans, Raymond, Kay Saunders, Kathryn Cronin: Race Relations in ColonialQueensland. A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination. 3rd ed.St Lucia: University of Queensland Press 1993.

Graves, Adrian: Cane and Labour. The Political Economy of the QueenslandSugar Industry 1862-1906.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 1993.

Griffiths, Phil: Containing Discontent: Anti-Chinese Racism in the Reinventionof Angus Cameron. In: Labour History, 94, 2008, pp. 69-88.

—: The heroic shameful role of labour. Mythology in the making of White Aus-tralia. Paper presented to the Legacies 09 conference, University of SouthernQueensland, February 2009.

Griggs, Peter: A Natural Part of Life. The Australian Sugar Industry’s Campaignto Reverse Declining Australian Sugar Consumption, 1980-1995. In: Journalof Australian Studies, 30, 2006, 87, pp. 141-154.


—: Sugar Demand and Consumption in Colonial Australia, 1788-1900. In: Food,Power and Community. Essays on the History of Food and Drink, ed. byRobert Dare and Anna E. Blainey. Kent Town: Wakefield Press 1999.

Grimshaw, Patricia, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath, Marian Quartly (eds.): Creat-ing a Nation. A Dramatic New History that Challenges the Conventional Viewof Australia’s Past as a Creation of White Men of British Descent, 1788-1990.Ringwood: McPhee Gribble 1994.

Hund, Wulf D.: Die weiße Norm. Grundlagen des Farbrassismus. In: CuerposAnómalos, ed. by Max S. Hering Torres. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional deColombia 2008, pp. 171-203.

—: Mit der Weißheit am Ende. Australien und das Erbe des Rassismus. In: Blätterfür deutsche und internationale Politik, 46, 2001, 5, pp. 600-609.

Hunt, Doug: Exclusivism and Unionism. Europeans in the Queensland Sugar In-dustry 1900-10. In: Who Are Our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class inAustralia, ed. by Ann Curthoys, Andrew Markus. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger1978, pp. 80-95.

Intelligence & Tourist Bureaus of Queensland: Queensland Sugar Industry. Bris-bane 1913.

Jensen, Lars: Unsettling Australia. Readings in Australian Cultural History. NewDelhi: Atlantic 2005.

Kiernan, Ben: Blood and Soil. A World History of Genocide and Exterminationfrom Sparta to Darfur. New Haven etc.: Yale University Press 2007.

Kitching, Gavin: Seeking Social Justice Through Globalization. Escaping a Na-tionalist Perspective. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press2001.

Markey, Raymond: The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1880-1900. Kensington: New South Wales University Press 1988.

Markus, Andrew: Australian Race Relations. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin 1994.—: Fear & Hatred. Purifying Australia and California 1851-1901. Sydney: Hale

& Iremonger 1979.Megarrity, Lyndon: ›White Queensland‹. The Queensland Government’s Ideo-

logical Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector1880-1901. In: Australian Journal of Politics and History, 52, 2006, 1, pp. 1-12.

Mitchell, Katharyne: Conflicting Geographies of Democracy and the PublicSphere in Vancouver BC. In: Transactions of the Institute of British Geog-raphers, 22, 1997, 2, pp. 162-179.

Moore, Clive R.: The South Sea Islanders of Mackay, Queensland, Australia.In: Endangered Peoples of Oceania. Struggles to Survive and Thrive, ed. byJudith M. Fitzpatrick. Westport: Greenwood Press 2001, pp. 167-181.

Moraes-Gorecki, Vanda: ›Black Italians‹ in the Sugar Fields of North Queens-land. A Reflection on Labour Inclusion and Cultural Exclusion in TropicalAustralia. In: The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 5, 1994, 1-2, pp. 306-319.


Morgan, Edmund S.: American Slavery, American Freedom. The Ordeal of Colo-nial Virginia. Reissued ed. New York etc.: Norton 2003.

Nairn, Noel B.: Some Aspects of the Social Role of the Labour Movement inNew South Wales in the 1870’s. In: Labour History, 1, 1962, pp. 6-15.

Nichol, William: Ideology and the convict system in New South Wales, 1788-1820. In: Australian Historical Studies, 22, 1986, 86, pp. 1-20.

Paganoni, Anthony: The Pastoral Care of Italians In Australia. Memory andProphecy. Ballan: Connor Court 2007.

Pearson, Michael: Bathurst Plains and Beyond. European Colonisation and Abo-riginal Resistance. In: Aboriginal History, 8, 1984, 1, pp. 63-79.

Price, Charles A.: The Great White Walls Are Built. Restrictive Immigrationto North America and Australasia 1836-1888. Canberra: Australian NationalUniversity Press 1974.

Pybus, Cassandra: Black Founders. The Unknown Story of Australia’s First BlackSettlers. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press 2006.

Reynolds, Henry: An Indelible Stain? The Question of Genocide in Australia’sHistory. Ringwood etc.: Penguin Books 2001.

—: North of Capricorn. The Untold Story of Australia’s North. Crows Nest: Allen& Unwin 2003.

Rickard, John: Australia. A Cultural History. London: Longman 1988.Ripley, William Z.: The Races of Europe. A Sociological Study. London: Kegan

Paul, Trench Trübner & Co 1900.Roediger, David R.: The Wages of Whiteness. Race and the Making of the Amer-

ican Working Class. Rev. ed. London etc.: Verso 1999.Rosser, Bill: Aboriginal History in the Classroom. In: History Workshop Journal,

36, 1993, pp. 195-208.Saunders, Kay: Master and Servant. The Queensland Sugar Workers’ Strike 1911.

In: Who Are Our Enemies? Racism and the Working Class in Australia, ed.by Ann Curthoys, Andrew Markus. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger 1978, pp. 96-111.

—: Workers in Bondage. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press 1982.Smart, Judith: The Politics of Consumption. The Housewives’ Associations in

Southeastern Australia Before 1950. In: Journal of Women’s History, 18,2006, 3, pp. 13-39.

The Sugar Industry Organisations: The Australian Cane Sugar Industry. Brisbane1938.

Walsh, Richard: Australia Observed. In: Daedalus,114, 1985, 1, pp. 421-438.Webb, Janeen, Andrew Enstice: Aliens & Savages. Fiction, Politics, and Preju-

dice in Australia. Pymble etc.: HarperCollins 1998.Weiß, Anja: Rassismus als symbolisch vermittelte Dimension sozialer Ungle-

ichheit. In: Klasse und Klassifikation. Die symbolische Dimension sozialerUngleichheit, ed. by id., Cornelia Koppetsch, Albert Scharenberg, OliverSchmidtke. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag 2001, pp. 79-108.


Willard, Myra: History of the White Australia Policy to 1920. 2nd ed. Melbourne:University of Melbourne 1967 [1923].

Yarwood, Alexander T., Michael J. Knowling: Race Relations in Australia. NorthRyde: Methuen 1982.

Re-thinking Race and Class in South Africa

Some Ways Forward

Jeremy Krikler

Abstract: This article emphasises that the phenomena of a racial order are so vari-ous and complex that the concept of class is inevitably limited in explaining them.Nevertheless, the analysis seeks to demonstrate where class, and more generallycapitalist development, were fundamental to the elaboration of racial discrimina-tion in South Africa. It reveals how master-servant relations – a much neglectedarea in South African scholarship – were not only intrinsic to the racial orderbut key to uniting the classes within white society. The article goes on to explorehow policies of racial discrimination, initially framed in the interests of particularclasses, could ultimately become divorced from their original functions and putto use in a racial-political project that was not originally envisaged. In re-openingthe debate over the relationship of race to class in South Africa, the article drawson the work of Tim Mason in another context, and offers a method for determin-ing the balance of class and other factors in the development of racial dominationin South Africa.

This article suggests some novel ways of considering the relationshipof race to class in twentieth century South Africa, more particularly byproposing that we take seriously two factors – the persistence of master-servant relations, and (following Tim Mason) ›the primacy of politics‹ –that have not hitherto been adequately integrated into the scholarship. Be-fore commencing the discussion, it would be well to stress the limitationsof an analysis set by the analytical frame suggested by the considerationof race in terms of its articulation with class. A racial order is an enor-mously complex phenomenon, one – for example – that breeds patholo-gies, and we should be careful about presuming that class necessarilyoffers the key to understanding them.

By way of illustration, consider two South African tragedies. In 1922,a Coloured man in Cape Town – the term Coloured in South Africa refersto people of mixed race or mixed race descent – beat his baby child todeath by smashing the infant’s head against the edging of a pavement. It

134 Jeremy Krikler

would appear that a great part in this tragedy was played by the man’srage and despair at what we might suppose was his white wife’s rejectionof him. The couple had evidently met during the War in England, fallenin love and got married. One presumes that she was of the same class asher husband, who was a plumber. It was reported that she believed himto be white until she got to South Africa, met his family and discoveredotherwise. On living in South Africa, it must have become evident to heras a white woman that the man she had married was despised for his raceand she as well for being attached to him. The operations of the racialorder, one imagines, brought unbearable pressures upon their marriageand were part of the context that led to the murder of the baby. This wasprobably the reason why the jury in this case in finding the man guiltynevertheless made a »strong recommendation to mercy«.1

The second tragedy took place in Cape Town in the 1950s. AColoured family hoped to pass for white. The problem was that one of thechildren in it was too dark to do so. The child committed suicide.2 Onesupposes that the power of the racial order was such that it could reachinto the psyche of a child, make him feel alien to the other members ofhis family, perhaps that he was somehow threatening to imprison themin a category from which they longed to escape. In both cases we haveentered the realm of intimate family life, of trauma, of violated emotionalworlds and extreme personal response. Class analysis could furnish onlyvery blunt, and perhaps wholly inappropriate, instruments with which toprobe them.

The same might be said with regard to the well-known place of sex-ual anxieties in racial consciousness. Factors related to shifting class po-sitions might have a place in triggering fears regarding sexual relationsbetween the races. It is noteworthy, for example, that the association ofblack men with sexual danger in the South of the USA was a feature ofthe world after slavery,3 a clear indication that so long as such men werelocked into the class status defined by the peculiar institution, white so-ciety was not especially prone to such fantasies of sexual threat. In early-twentieth century South Africa, meanwhile, there seems to have been acorrelation between economic recession leading to insecurity amongstwhite men and the emergence in their midst of hysterical fears that whitewomen would be raped by black men.4

1 ›Unhappy War Marriage‹, in: Rand Daily Mail, 26.1.1922.2 See Mohamed Adhikari: Fiercely Non Racial, p. 411.3 See Diane Miller Somerville: The Rape Myth in the Old South Reconsidered.4 See Timothy Keegan: Gender, Degeneration and Sexual Danger, pp. 474 f. Keegan’s

article stresses much more than class factors in explaining the hysteria of this time.

Race & Class in South Africa 135

At a certain point, however, the attempt to push a purely class-basedexplanation for the sexual fears breaks down. One can see how unem-ployment or the threat of it might make white men feel as if their abilityto provide for their wives and families was being put in question. At astretch, one might argue that this could lead to feelings of emasculationand worries that their wives would look to other men to provide for them.But why or how can this lead to a fantasy that their women were about tobe raped by men of a different race? The logic of a class-based explana-tion founders at a certain point. Class factors help us to explain a momentof insecurity. They do not explain why that insecurity should manifest it-self in hysterical sexual fear of black men. To explain this, one wouldhave to look to how and why the white male psyche, if one can use sogeneric a term, had come to associate the black male with a powerful anddangerous sexuality. We are really in the realms here of James Baldwin’s›The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy‹, an essay framed with respectto the relationship between race and masculinity in the USA, but whoseinsights apply to other places: »It is still true, alas, that to be an AmericanNegro male is also to be a kind of walking phallic symbol: which meansthat one pays, in one’s own personality [and in much else besides, it mustbe added], for the sexual insecurity of others«.5

To see the black male in white South Africa transformed into a »walk-ing phallic symbol« one may view not only the work of the hystericaljournalist and novelist of the early twentieth century,6 but that of a lib-eral psychoanalyst of the inter-war period. The analyst was well aware ofthe varieties of racism with which whites approached blacks – »maskedhostility [. . . ] unconscious aversion, or [. . . ] sentimental idealization anddemonstrative friendliness« – and was self-critical of his own »artificial«interactions with his black subject. But he was nevertheless prone to iden-tifying his African patient in ways that conformed with aspects of Bald-win’s postulation: thus the patient has »well-formed muscles rippling un-der the firm texture of his smooth purple-black skin« while his mouthis described as »thick and sensual, typical of his race«. Elsewhere welearn that the patient »was no novice in love-making [. . . ] and had hada woman ›properly‹ [. . . ] when he was only twelve years old« and weare treated to a somewhat graphic description of the patient’s confidentseduction of the young sister of his wife.7

5 James Baldwin: The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy, p. 290.6 See Gareth Cornwell: George Webb Hardy’s The Black Peril and the Social Meaning

of ›Black Peril‹ in Early Twentieth-Century South Africa, esp. pp. 449, 450 f.7 Wulf Sachs: Black Hamlet, pp. 12, 16, 19, 40, 46 f.

136 Jeremy Krikler

There is clearly something in such imagery and descriptions – all themore striking in that they come from a white man who was unusuallyopen, self aware and sensitive in matters of race – of an identification ofthe black male with hyper-sexuality and an exaggerated masculinity. Toexplore how and why the black male body came to be construed in thisway we have to move very far beyond the reach of class analysis.

If historians, then, should be very careful about claiming for class anoverweening ability to explain all phenomena related to race, it is equallyclear – in the South African case – that an emphasis on class can helpto explain much that was distinctive about relations between black andwhite people in the country. I shall at a later point sketch something ofthe consensus that has emerged in this regard amongst historians of SouthAfrica. However, I should like to direct attention first to that social re-lationship very much linked to class that has been somewhat neglectedin the understanding of race in twentieth-century South Africa: master-servant relations.

Master-Servant Relations

It is a well-known fact that for much of the twentieth century, black peo-ple generally addressed white men (and often white boys) as baas (mas-ter). This undoubtedly arose from the fact that master-servant relationsubiquitously shaped the relations between the races. To give a sense ofthe overwhelming importance of this, one needs to remember that theclosest and most widespread relationship between white and black peo-ple was that of master (or mistress) to servant on white domestic proper-ties. Significantly, this was a relationship from which whites across theclasses benefited.

Whites of substantial property or of the middle class obviously wouldhave had servants, but so did a great many of those whites below themin the social structure of the country. Thus, white working class house-holds routinely employed black domestic servants. On the Witwaters-rand, the country’s key economic zone, black servants were clearly beingemployed by white working class families in the early twentieth cen-tury.8 Half a century later, a social photographer could confirm the per-sistence of the phenomenon when he investigated the world of poorerwhites there.9 So when one finds, say, that the archival record of the

8 See Charles van Onselen: Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwaters-rand, pp. 9, 20, 22, 29, 32, 52.

9 See David Goldblatt: 55, pp. 24 f. The area referred to – Wheatlands Plots, Rand-fontein – was one of white poverty, as pp. 22 f. graphically suggests.


1920s discloses that Annie Masilo, an African woman, had been in theservice of a white miner,10 or that the widow of a white striker talkedof an African man whom she had employed,11 we must recognise thatthis would not have raised eyebrows. Such comments would merely havebeen unremarkable allusions to a ubiquitous phenomenon: the enmesh-ment of white working class people, along with whites from other classes,in master-servant relations with black people.

Unfortunately, this fact and its ramifications are largely neglected inthe study of race and class in South Africa. One leading scholar hasopined that the neglect arises from the isolation of domestic servants,from the fact that they are not producers of commodities in standard cap-italist enterprises, and from the sparseness of sources.12 But a much moreconvincing reason is that for most of the history of the academic profes-sions in Southern Africa, scholars have always themselves benefited frommaster-servant relations. At the very least, we remember them powerfullyfrom our childhoods. And the memories are often painful. It is not easyto write about relations in which one is (or has been) complicit.

It is arguable, however, that we will not be able to arrive at, say, asufficiently precise sense of the modern racial order in South Africa inrelation to that of the United States without looking at the world of mas-ters and servants. For one of the striking differences between the twocases is the place of white workers in master-servant relations betweenthe races. White workers in South Africa employed black people as amatter of course in a way that was generally not open to the white work-ers of the USA, whether in the South or elsewhere. The South Africanwhite workers were, literally, masters in their own homes, where theywould be called baas by black people in their employ. This is one ofthe reasons why white workers in South Africa would never use the termbaas to address their employers. Baas was so inescapably a term denotinga member of a master class and race that no white worker could possiblyuse it.

There is thus a nice comparison to be made with the case of the UnitedStates, where the term boss, derived from the Dutch baas, was taken upby white workers – generally not given the power or standing to com-

10 Typescript statement of Annie Masilo, 19.4.1922, in: Case concerning A. S. van Aswe-gen and M. Mulder (SAIF Papers). For Mulder’s status as a mineworker, see thepreparatory examination charge sheet relating to him in this case.

11 Testimony of Esther Jacoba van Wyk, in: Unpublished Minutes of the Martial LawInquiry Judicial Commission, 1922, pp. 1262-1263. For the fact of her late husbandhaving been a striker, see p. 1261.

12 Charles van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand,pp. 1 f.

138 Jeremy Krikler

mand black servants of their own – precisely in order to avoid the use ofthe term master, which was how black slaves referred to the people whoowned them.13 In the one case baas (or, rather, its anglicised versionboss) was used to emphasise that the employer should not confuse thewhite worker with the racially-despised black slave; in the other (SouthAfrican) case, baas became a word that was only to be used by people ofcolour and never as a form of address by whites. The difference betweenthe two cases arises, in part, from the fact that, unlike in the USA, whiteworkers in South Africa – whatever their relationship to their employers –habitually took on the role of master in their relations with black people.

Significantly, this could be absorbed into the structure of capital-ist production. Elaine Katz has shown how very early on in the SouthAfrican mines, all white workers – including the semi-skilled and un-skilled – would have black workers aiding them, with the white minersproper often having large teams of Africans under their command. Theunskilled white workers, such as those engaged in ensuring that exca-vated ore was moved through the tunnels and shafts, were also in chargeof squads of black labour.14 White workers must have felt their sense ofbeing masters over black people accentuated by this. And when ›scien-tific‹ management in South Africa insisted upon the necessity of placingwhite supervisors above black workers – this was the view of the consul-tant engineers on the mines15 – they were, in effect, tracing on to the mostadvanced economic sector in the country aspects of the master-servant re-lationship. It was, as one of these engineers noted, the order of things thatwhite men had to assume »the role of master«.16 There was thus a logicfor the black worker in South Africa for much of the twentieth century tocall every white in an industrial or mining enterprise – from the lowest-paid white worker to the company director – baas. This is why in the1920s, when Said Isindana, a black worker on a mine east of Johannes-

13 David Roediger: The Wages of Whiteness, pp. 53 f.14 Elaine Katz: The White Death, pp. 49 f., 51 f., 56, 58. I should note that Katz refers

generally to the supervisory role of the unskilled workers without specifically referringhere to the black workers under them (although this is obvious from the tenor of theanalysis in chapter 4 of her book). The unskilled white workers were called »gangers«(see pp. 56 and 58) precisely because of the groups (or gangs) of Africans whom theybossed underground.

15 For the consultant engineers’ views (and the quotation), see Elaine Katz: Revisiting theOrigins of the Industrial Colour Bar in the Witwatersrand Gold Mining Industry, pp. 80ff.

16 Quoted in ibid, p. 82.


burg, testified against John Morelee, a white miner with whom he hadworked, he could refer to him in court as »baas JACK«.17

It can be argued, then, that we require a comprehensive analysis of theplace of master-servant relations in the development of the racial orderin South Africa. These were the relations with which whites were mostcomfortable, and the relations – precisely because of their place in thehouseholds – that proved themselves extraordinarily durable in the twen-tieth century. It is striking how one may find traces of it from both theLeft and the Right even in the recent history of the country. This is why,even very late in the history of apartheid in South Africa, a black radicalcould tactically use the term baas (or rather baasie) in an encounter withthe white police who had arrived at his home, precisely in order to deflectthem from repressive action.18 This represented an acute sense of whatneeded to be appealed to in the mentality of these whites to stay aggres-sion on their part. And, even as late as 2010, when the white supremacistEugene Terreblanche was murdered, white mourners insultingly greetedthe arrival of a black woman politician at his funeral by referring to her asa maid.19 It was a statement of their preferred position for black people,as also emblematic of the fact that this is all too often how these whitesstill encounter people of colour.

If we consider that the master-servant relationship was the most fa-miliar one between the races for most of South African history, we canunderstand better why, when black people increasingly appeared outsideits framework, many whites became alarmed and sought measures of con-trol or exclusion for the purposes of social reassurance. This, in part,is what was expressed by the response in 1913 of the government, un-der pressure from white landowners, to the emergence of independent,sometimes prosperous black tenants on white-owned farms: for part ofthat response was specifically to bring tenants under the provisions of theMasters and Servants Law.20

Personal command of black people entered the psyches of mostwhites from a very early age, and if one is looking for a social experiencethat habituated all whites to the idea of the necessity for strong controls

17 Preparatory examination testimony of Said Isindana (mineworker) in: Rex v. M. Olivieret al (SCC, Case No. 3/1922). See also testimony of Dick Sheba, mineworker. Morelee’sstatus as a miner is confirmed in the Special Criminal Court charge sheet in this case.

18 I was informed of this by a black political activist from Alexandra township in the late-1980s. The police had left saying »Go well, go Shell« (a reference to the oil company)and the radical’s house was petrol-bombed shortly afterwards.

19 See the coverage of The Guardian (London) of the funeral in early April 2010.20 See, for example, Timothy Keegan: Rural Transformations in Industrializing South

Africa, pp. 181 f., 192 f.

140 Jeremy Krikler

over black people when they could not easily be identified as the servantsof particular whites – as, for example, when black agriculturalists weregaining independence or, indeed, when they were sweeping into the citiesin a general process of urbanisation – it may be that it is the enmeshmentof all whites within master-servant relations that is of relevance. This wasa template against which whites viewed black people, which is why wemay find an extraordinary confession in the private papers of a publicfigure like Brand van Zyl, a parliamentarian from Cape Town for manyyears and a man who ultimately became Administrator of the Cape and,later, Governor-General of South Africa. He was very close to Jim Papu,the black gardener whom he employed for decades, but when it came toPapu’s retirement, he insisted more than once that the man return to thecountryside or he would be deprived of his pension: »As he was gettingold I pensioned him on condition he returned to his kraal [i.e. settlementin the countryside]. When I became administrator he suddenly turned upat Leeuwenhof [. . . ] and set to work [. . . ] willingly giving up his pension[. . . ]. When we left Leeuwenhof I did not wish him to come under theinfluence of the Cape Town native so again pensioned him on conditionhe returned to his kraal«.21

The distinction here is between an African under the personal controlof a white man, and a more independent urban African, so generically-defined (»the Cape Town Native«) as to have lost identification with awhite master. It is intriguing that for Brand van Zyl, his servant shouldeither be under his personal control or that he should leave the city andreturn to the countryside. It is the policy of segregation writ small. Oneway of writing it large would be to consider not one Brand van Zyl, buthundreds of thousands of them, taking such a view.

To take this argument further – scholars have revealed how the firstemergence of industrial militancy amongst black workers could come toaffright whites, leading to a propensity to extra-legal, sometimes murder-ous action against black trade unionism and its supporters in the decadeafter the First World War.22 But what we do not have is any explorationof the possibility that whites responded as they did because they viewedthe unionised workers as particularly frightening because of the radicalway that they departed from the image of the black person as an obedientservant, the image derived from the place of black people on white prop-erties. An argument can even be made that elements of the ideology of

21 Papers and Manuscripts of Gideon Brand Van Zyl, BC 54 A1 (Holograph Reminis-cences, 7 vols), pp. 63 f. (vol. 4).

22 See Helen Bradford: A Taste of Freedom, chapter 6, esp. pp. 186 f., 207; and RobinBloch: The high cost of living, esp. pp. 40 ff., 50 f.


segregation that became widely accepted by whites in the inter-war pe-riod were related to phenomena intrinsic to master-servant relations. Asis well known, these breed paternalism and notions of the servant beinga child requiring discipline and protection.

This was the era in which black people were referred to as membersof the »child races«, with the prime minister himself stipulating that theywere to be seen as equivalent in maturity to an eight-year old white per-son.23 It is not difficult to see how this would chime with the attitudes ofwhite masters to the black servants in their employ. Master-servant rela-tions thus may well have created the attitudes upon which wider politicalideologies drew. It is a pity, then, that one of the most sophisticated anal-yses of the ideas of the segregation period – that of Saul Dubow – con-cedes the importance of the »lived relations of paternalism« in patterningthe attitudes of white South Africans, and yet makes no attempt to linkthese to the development of the ideology of inter-war segregation.24

While master-servant relations remained extremely important afterthe Second World War – the proportion of white householders who hadservants living on their properties was extremely high for much of thistime – it is likely that the ability of these relations to assert some kindof influence in the wider society diminished. The increasingly mass andradical nature of black politics from the 1940s onwards,25 as also theworld-wide struggle for decolonisation and racial equality, reduced theability of whites to think their society in terms of a wider racial paternal-ism. The recourse to repression became much more marked, leading toan increasing sundering of the possible connections between the regimein households and that outside it. At any rate, this is how the historywould look if it is seen from the perspective of the master-servant re-lations which were probably held by most whites to be the ideal set ofrelations between the races.

Race and Capitalism

Whatever might be gained from looking at how the world of masters andservants has shaped racial attitudes and policies, one must note this is nothow historians of South Africa have tended to explore the relationship ofclass to race. The emphasis has tended to lie elsewhere – in establishing

23 See Saul Dubow: Race, Civilisation and Culture, pp. 86 and 93 (note 78).24 See ibid., p. 75.25 See Tom Lodge: Black Politics in South Africa since 1945, the pioneering work in this

regard.

142 Jeremy Krikler

the importance of particular class actors in driving forward racial discrim-ination. It is a commonplace, for example, that those commanding miningproduction in South Africa were responsible for the creation of the com-pound system which controlled black workers (and their wages) whilstthey were under contract.26 Certain other forms of racial discriminationare likewise to be accounted for in terms of the interests and pressuresof white workers determined to protect or extend their rights to employ-ment on a racial basis.27 The tortured history of the destruction of theblack peasantry – subjected to an unremitting barrage of legislative andadministrative action – has, meanwhile, been linked to the labour needsof white employers generally and to the needs of white agriculturalists,in particular, to wipe out competitors.28

Aside from this, there is now something of a consensus that mod-ern segregation arose in South Africa, in great part, as a response to theresults of capitalist industrialisation and the commercialisation of agri-culture. These resulted in the creation of new classes (agrarian and in-dustrial capitalists, proletarians prised out of the peasantry or out of thefamilies of sinking landowners), and led also to the emergence of newprocesses and phenomena (mass urbanisation; the rise of new forms ofpolitics, some of them radical). All these placed unprecedented and com-plex pressures upon twentieth century South African society and the statecommanded by its whites.29 Segregation was a way in which these pres-sures and strains were negotiated, a way in which white South Africanswere able to order and control the momentous transition taking place. Onthis reading, segregation is a bridge to a new order, one dominated by amodern capitalist state and society.

26 See, for example, Rob Turrell: Kimberley; Frederick Johnstone: Class, Race and Gold,pp. 38 f. (in the context of chapter 1 more broadly).

27 See, for example, Frederick Johnstone: Class, Race and Gold, pp. 64-75; Elaine Katz:A Trade Union Aristocracy, pp. 23, 26, 55, 70, 114 ff., 139, 142 ff.; David Yudelman:The Emergence of Modern South Africa, pp. 144-149.

28 The classic work dealing with this theme is Colin Bundy: The Rise and Fall of the SouthAfrican Peasantry.

29 Thinkers who have contributed prominently to this interpretation of the rise and natureof South African segregation include William Beinart, John Cell, Saul Dubow, MartinLegassick, Shula Marks and Harold Wolpe. Key books include: William Beinart, SaulDubow (eds): Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa, whichusefully collects and introduces certain central papers; John Cell: The Highest Stageof White Supremacy; Saul Dubow: Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid.A sense of how this conception of the origins of segregation has been absorbed as acommonplace in the historiography is nicely conveyed by one of the finest general syn-theses of South African history, Nigel Worden: The Making of Modern South Africa,p. 84: »There is no doubt that segregation was the product of South Africa’s industrialrevolution«.


In many ways, this kind of analysis of the relationship of race to classis convincing and fruitful. There is no denying the dynamic impact ofparticular (often new) classes on the development of racial discrimina-tion of various kinds: the segregation of the land, for example, is infa-mously connected with the demands of commercialising white landlords,a point to which we will return later. As to the segregationist responseto the urbanisation and proletarianisation of black people, while mostwhites tended to demand strict controls over this process on the basisof hysterical fears (frequently clustering around the association of blackpeople with criminality, the spread of disease, or – more vaguely – witha demographic wave that threatened to submerge whites),30 somethingmuch more precise and focused on class fears could be expressed. Thathighly articulate ideologue of segregation in the inter-war years, the Na-tal politician George Heaton Nicholls, condemned the notion of »a com-mon citizenship« for all in South Africa, warning that this would lead tothe emergence of »a landless black proletariat; sullen, discontented andbolshevised«.31 Segregation – keeping Africans as far as possible in thecountryside – was a prophylactic against this. The choice, he declared,was between African »communalism« – what he took to be the organiccommunity of what anthropologists have miscalled the tribe – and »com-munism«.32

While I would not wish to deny the power of linking much modernracial discrimination to the forces unleashed by the advance of capitalismin a country with a colonial history like South Africa, there is a certaindanger in subscribing to it wholeheartedly. There is the possibility of as-suming that a phenomenon arising as a response to the development ofcapitalism is always functional to it. There is also the danger of assumingthat the project of racial domination is inseparable from the developmentof capitalism. The possibility that the political project itself might shape –or even fetter – capitalist development; that it might decide how classeswould be represented in the state; that it might force alliances betweenclasses that could otherwise be in conflict with one another; that it couldnecessitate policies that, from the perspective of capitalist development,were irrelevant, irrational or counterproductive – such possibilities are, if

30 For such allegations and their link to demands for discriminatory controls, see (re.disease) Maynard Swanson: The Sanitation Syndrome; (re. criminality) Hilary Sapire:African Settlement and Segregation in Brakpan, pp. 156 ff., 160 f.; (re. submergence)Dan O’Meara: Volkskapitalisme, p. 243.

31 Papers of George Heaton Nicholls, MS NIC 2.08.1, Folder 3 (›Bantu Affairs‹), KCM3336, Text of Speech on Native Policy, Native Bills (undated, probably 1935), p. 12.

32 See Saul Dubow: Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid, pp. 71, 16.

144 Jeremy Krikler

not foreclosed, then glossed over, by too close an identification of racewith class, of capitalism with segregation and apartheid.

For whites, racial supremacy in South Africa – unlike in the Southof the USA – was always challenged by the facts of demography: whiteswere a minority in a land conquered from black people. And we shouldnot underestimate the power of this sense of being in the minority toanimate policy and responses to developments. The politics of whitesupremacy need, to some degree, to be disaggregated from the dictatesof economic interests. I should like to propose that our understanding ofthe relationship of race to class, and more broadly of capitalism to segre-gation and apartheid, in South Africa would benefit from a notion of theprimacy of the politics of white supremacy.

Race, Class and the Primacy of Politics

I draw the notion of the »primacy of politics« from Tim Mason’s famousanalysis of how, ultimately, Nazi policy is to be analysed in terms of itsideological and political project, rather than in terms of the economic in-terests it may have served.33 The subtlety of Mason’s argument lies in thefact that it sees the rise to power of the Nazis in terms of a fundamentalcrisis in capitalist society and that it concedes that Nazi policy benefitedparticular business groups; however, it also shows that, in the end, ideo-logical and political dictates – dictates that cannot be explained largely interms of class interests – came to trump those of economics.

Let us begin with a consideration of these themes in a brief explo-ration of aspects of the place of the white working class in South Africanhistory. That class’s interests were undoubtedly strongly represented inthe state for much of the twentieth century. But was this necessarily be-cause of its power and undeniable early militancy, its ability to force itsagenda on to the governments of the day? At times, yes. In the mid-1920s,when the National and Labour Parties came to power in the Pact Govern-ment, white labour was able to secure areas of racially-protected em-ployment in manufacturing and public services, including the railways,while the judicial declaration of the illegality of job segregation on themines was overturned by statute.34 But long before this, legislation was

33 See Tim Mason: The Primacy of Politics. Politics and Economics in National Social-ist Germany, chapter two in Tim Mason: Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class (anearlier version of the essay was published in German in 1968).

34 See David Yudelman: Emergence of Modern South Africa, pp. 221 (alongside 89), 224f., 229, 237 f. Unfortunately, Yudelman’s analysis is weakened by a determination inhis chapter 7 to separate the interests of organised white labour from white labour as a


being tabled to protect the white workers. Indeed, the first governmentof a unified South Africa – that of General Botha and General Smuts – agovernment that proved itself extremely hostile to organised white labourmade an historic intervention on its behalf. This was the government, af-ter all, that passed the Mines and Works Act of 1911, a key statute in thehistory of job segregation and one which allowed for certain occupationsto be reserved for whites alone.

One cannot see this as decided by white labour. The Labour Party,the political representative of white workers, had no claim on govern-ment at this time; and the trade union movement – overwhelmingly amovement of white workers – was viewed askance by the government,a fact made abundantly clear by its deployment of troops against whitestrikers in 1907, 1913 and 1914.35 Something other than the interests ofwhite labour qua labour was motivating the government in 1911 when itdecided that the state should have the power to ensure that jobs presentlyheld by whites should be held exclusively for them in perpetuity.

One way of understanding the paradox hinted at above – a govern-ment unrepresentative of organised white labour nevertheless acting inits interests – is to look at it in electoral terms. The South African Partygovernment, which at that time had a constituency of landless Afrikan-ers making for the towns, had to look to maintain opportunities for theiremployment. But this, quite simply, is not the full story, not least becausemany of the jobs being protected were skilled ones and held by English-speaking workers – that is, jobs that the landless Afrikaners were notable to take. There is a case for considering the government’s interven-tion, then, in wider terms. Indeed, it is feasible to argue that where theinterests or dynamic of capitalism suggested the potential to weaken thepolitical project of white supremacy in South Africa, governments formost of the twentieth century would intervene to limit or counteract thispotential.

General Smuts – later to prove himself a very brutal opponent ofwhite labour militancy – set forth this idea with an admirable starknessin the early twentieth century in a discourse on the contradiction between

whole in the 1920s (see, e. g. 237). This fails to appreciate the degree to which organisedlabour (including members of trade unions rendered unemployed) would benefit fromthe creation of employment opportunities for whites more generally. It also diminishesthe contribution of the white labour movement to the policies and ethos of the PactGovernment of the 1920s.

35 See Jack and Ray Simons: Class and Colour in South Africa, pp. 87, 156 f., 167 f. andKeith Shear: The 1907 Strike, pp. 10, 12 f. It is legitimate to refer to the 1907 strikebecause, although it was the Het Volk party that was then in power, the South AfricanParty very much grew out it and was led by the same men: Louis Botha and Jan Smuts.

146 Jeremy Krikler

the needs of mining capitalists and those of white South Africa: »If theyget rid of the White workers the Mine owners would rid themselves ofstrikes, expense, and a lot of difficulties, and from that point of viewI understand them and sympathise with them [. . . ]. But must the Gov-ernment and the people of the country follow that policy [. . . ]. No, thatpolicy means, after a few years [. . . ] little black children playing roundthe graves of the White people. We want only a White Man[’]s Land, andwe shall do our duty and carry out that policy. It might be difficult to do,but we will do it«.36

Such comments suggest that, in part, when the Botha-Smuts gov-ernment later enshrined in legislation the power to protect white work-ers’ jobs, their rationale was the project of white supremacy. It was thatproject which gave white workers a reach far beyond that of their indus-trial and political power at that point. They could be viewed as providingdemographic ballast for the project of white domination in a country inwhich black people far outnumbered whites. This last fact weighed con-stantly on the minds of South African politicians which is why, duringthe first government of the newly-unified South Africa, its Deputy PrimeMinister, Smuts, could write to a friend in England that the country wasmaking remarkable progress »[e]xcept in her white population – and thatis the most serious question of all in this young country with its big na-tive population«.37 Racial demography – sometimes cast in terms of theentire black population of the continent of Africa looming over the whitecommunities established at its southern tip38 – was an ever present con-cern for white politicians. It also concerned business people, which iswhy the chairman of Rand Mines warned his company, at an annual gen-eral meeting in the early twentieth century, of the peril faced by »a smalland scattered white community surrounded and hemmed in by an aborig-inal race outnumbering them by about seven to one«.39 We need to buildthis concern more explicitly into our notion of the way in which race andclass articulated in South Africa.

This was undoubtedly a key part of the context of the place given tothe white working class in the ruling order of the country. It was calledupon to perform a racial-political function and, however fiercely the bat-

36 ›The Present Strike in the Industries of the Transvaal‹ (1922), p. 3. (SAIF Papers, refer-ence no. 3.32). This trade union document cited Smuts’s speech, delivered in 1907.

37 Smuts Papers, vol. 195 (old vol. no. 11), no. 81, Smuts to A. B. Gillett, 18.5.1913.38 See Papers of George Heaton Nicholls, MS Nic 2.08.1, Folder 1 (›Bantu Affairs‹), KCM

3286, The Problem of the Native in South Africa (Government Printers, Pretoria, 1937),p. 3.

39 Quoted in Belinda Bozzoli: The Political Nature of a Ruling Class, pp. 53 f.; see p. 295,note 91 for the identity of the speaker.


tles between white labour and white employers and governments couldwax, there was a ratchet-point below which the white working class couldnot be driven. Its interests had to be enshrined in the state to a consider-able extent. The political maintenance of a racial order required this, evenif it added to the costs of capitalists, which it did. This was an exampleof what we might call »the primacy of politics« in the history of raceand class in South Africa. Its longevity as part of the dominant consensusof white politics is undeniable, which is why – a full half century afterGeneral Smuts had emphasised that mining capital had to be politicallycompelled to find an appropriate place for white labour – the Ministerof Labour was still declaring that: »The European worker in this coun-try must be protected or else European civilization will go under. Eventhough it might intrude upon certain economic laws, I would still rathersee European civilization in South Africa being maintained and not beingswallowed up«.40

We can now also understand more clearly why so often white workersarticulated their grievances in terms of what employers’ policies meantfor the white population as a whole. They gestured rather often that whatwas proposed might reduce the white population of the country, or di-minish the capacity of the country to sustain the white population. Whiteworkers were aware that this was, at least potentially, an ideologicaltrump card of theirs. Changes in the production regime that threatenedto reduce or limit the number of whites who could be employed – for ex-ample, the attempt by the employers to force white miners to supervise alarger number of drilling teams of African workers in 1907 – could easilylead to an appeal by the white worker that the employers were threateningthe project of »white civilisation in South Africa«.41 When in 1922, themining companies proposed to replace a few thousand semi-skilled whiteworkers with black workers at lower wages, a thousand white women ina mining area to the West of Johannesburg petitioned the prime ministerto intervene in the bitter industrial dispute of that year, calling on him,inter alia »to uphold the right of existence of the White Population ofSouth Africa [om . . . die reg van bestaan van die Blanke Bevolking vanSuid Afrika te handhaaf ]«.42

40 Quoted in Charles Feinstein: An Economic History of South Africa, p. 158.41 Keith Shear: The 1907 Strike, pp. 5 f.42 Petition [›Versoekskrif‹]: enclosure of Magistrate of Krugersdorp to Secretary to the

Prime Minister, 8.2.1922 (PM, Vol. 1/1/422, File No. 3/22, vol. IV entitled ›IndustrialSituation: Strike 1922‹). A resolution of the women, also enclosed with the letter, shouldbe read with the petition since it makes clear that women intended the governmentalintervention requested to be decisively in favour of the strikers.

148 Jeremy Krikler

Note how the interests of the white workers are here being framedin terms of the white population as a whole. A leading trade unionist,likewise, could tell a crowded hall at this time, that the struggle of thewhite workers was one that all whites in the country should join: »If youfail to do so you fail to establish the recognition that the white races shallexist and shall remain in South Africa. Everyone who refuses to join inenforcing that recognition is the enemy of his own race and is preparedto hand back this country to the natives«.43

This was a political appeal, and the way it was framed suggests arecognition that the white workers had a place in the political schema ofensuring white supremacy. The violent militancy of this period was ex-tremely complex44 but, in one sense, it is to be understood in terms ofa perceived violation of the political compact that all whites, includingwage workers, had a part to play in maintaining the dominance of theirrace in the country. Capitalists would thus be cast in terms of a threat tothe white population as a whole. They could even be accused of trying toundo the history that had delivered the country into the hands of whites.Thus a white miners’ leader warned that the employers were threateningto overturn an historic victory over the Zulus in the nineteenth centurythat had been fundamental to »establishing the white race« in the coun-try. The employers, it was argued, now »sought to reverse this victorycompletely. The Chamber of Mines wanted to remove the colour bar andcompletely upset the position of the white race in the country«.45 Thecross-class political project of white supremacy had clearly been power-fully absorbed into the white labour movement. It is hard to believe that itwould have done so to the extent that it did in the absence of the implicitallocation to the working class of a role in this political project.

We need, I would argue, a much greater sense of the degree to whichthis project shaped the place and struggles of the white working classin South Africa. We may find that, in this regard, comparative illumi-nation is to be had not so much from the history of the white workingclass in the United States or even in a colonial country like Australia:in Australia, after all, the white working class had to fight to impose itsnotion of a White Australia on the country as a whole; in South Africa,white workers were always part of the long-term project of maintaining›the White Man’s Land‹. Perhaps we should think of them in terms ofthe French colon working class in that other country in Africa where a

43 ›Labour War Declared‹, in: Rand Daily Mail, 9.1.1922, quoting a speech of J. Thomp-son, one of the leaders of the South African Industrial Federation.

44 I have offered a full analysis of it elsewhere – see Jeremy Krikler: White Rising.45 ›Nurahs and the Colour Bar‹, in: Rand Daily Mail, 7.1.1922.


very substantial and racially-defined minority long sought to maintain itsdominance: colonial Algeria.

We may also find that if we view the white working class from theperspective advanced here – that is, as a class that was cut into the po-litical project of maintaining a racial order from the start – that we canunderstand better some of its electoral peculiarities. There are historianswho have argued that the striking ability on occasion of white workersto change the parties they supported is to be explained in terms of theirpragmatic calculation of what they might gain by shifting allegiances, orin terms of punishing those political organisations that were viewed ashaving let them down.46 This is plausible, even convincing. Even so, itis extraordinary that many white working class voters in a mining andindustrial area could strategically transfer their votes in the early 1930sto the party associated with a recent and bloody drive upon the organisedwhite working class.

This is what happened east of Johannesburg, in the industrial town ofGermiston in 1932, when the South African Party, led by General Smuts –the man reviled by white workers for his role in suppressing the Rand Re-volt – took the constituency.47 Pragmatic calculation is one thing; votingfor a party that ten years earlier had ordered the army and the air forceto crush a workers’ movement is another. It suggests that an organisationlike the South African Party, even after it had strongly supported a mili-tary drive upon white workers, still had the capacity and the space withinits political culture to draw in working class votes. It could do this be-cause, like all other political parties represented in the racially-exclusiveparliament, it conceded that the white working class – notwithstandingthis or that local battle with capital – had to be permanently supported ifthe facts of racial demography were not to run radically against the aimof keeping South Africa what Smuts called »a White Man’s Land«. Itwas, in part, white workers’ implicit recognition of this that allowed thissurprising shift in voting patterns.

By contrast, the fastest way to lose white working class support wasfor a party, no matter how opposed it was to capitalism, to range itselfexplicitly against the ideology of white supremacy. This was one rea-

46 See John Lewis: The Germiston By-Election of 1932, esp. pp. 101 ff.; and JonathanHyslop: Problems of Explanation in the Study of Afrikaner Nationalism, esp. pp. 375-378. Although Hyslop’s acute article deals with a constituency of Afrikaner nationalistsand their flooding towards and ebbing away from the ultra-right, the white populationhe analyses is described as »mainly lower middle class and working class« (p. 377). Itis therefore pertinent to my argument.

47 John Lewis: The Germiston By-Election of 1932, pp. 101, 108.

150 Jeremy Krikler

son why leading South African Communists in the late-1920s initiallyopposed the Comintern’s insistence that the Communist Party of SouthAfrica commit itself to a »Native Republic«.48 The problem for most rad-ical white workers with a slogan like a ›Native Republic‹ (the antithesisof a ›White South Africa‹ or a ›White Man’s Land‹) would have beennot only that it announced a different racial future for the state in whichthey lived, but that it immediately implied that they no longer had an im-portant political and social role in a national project. The power of thisproject for white workers is that it guaranteed livelihoods and gave thema role equal to the classes above them in securing the long-term futureof their state and society. It functioned permanently in the way that waroften does temporarily: in closing ranks between classes by honouring allthose called upon to do their duty, in this case a racial one.

Policing White Supremacy

If a ›primacy of politics‹ approach can help to explain the space givento the white working class, despite its numerous defeats, in the SouthAfrican order, is it helpful in considering other aspects of race and classin the country’s history? Is it feasible, for example, to offer a typology ofracially-based laws, one that specifies where class interests were supremein the promulgation of the laws, and where politico-ideological motivesthat cannot be explained in terms of class were decisive? Sometimes,one can make rather neat categorisations of this kind. The Native LabourRegulation Act of 1912, for example, which criminalised the breaking ofcontracts of employment by black people and allowed for fines or impris-onment for all manner of disobedience, negligence or resistance (includ-ing strikes),49 was obviously designed to ensure that employers of blackworkers would have their authority backed powerfully by the state.

By contrast, the law of 1926 which forbade sexual relations betweenthe races outside of marriage cannot easily be linked to forces related toclass. Indeed, it would be rather interesting to explore the degree to whichthe changing place of white women in the polity – their enfranchisementwas firmly on the agenda from the mid-1920s50 – was linked in somecomplex way with legislation which policed sexuality. Perhaps whitemen, unnerved by the prospect of women’s enfranchisement, needed a

48 See Allison Drew: Between Empire and Revolution, chapter 11, esp. pp. 152, 159 f.49 Peter Walshe: The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa, p. 31; George V. Doxey:

The Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa, pp. 129 f.50 See Cherryl Walker: The women’s suffrage movement, p. 334.


sense that social and sexual boundaries would be entrenched if controlover women in the political sphere was to be relaxed. Indeed, an investi-gation of the precise relationship between the enfranchisement of whitewomen and the drive to increased segregationist controls over black peo-ple, while it should not be pressed too far, could yield us some insightsinto the interconnections of gender and race. At any rate, we must re-member that segregationist legislation and the enfranchisement of whitewomen were considered at the same time, which is why the personal cor-respondence of a leading politician could refer to them jointly.51

However, the difficulty for the historian of South Africa investigatingthe relationship of race to class lies not so much in trying to determinewhere (and where not) racial policies and laws were linked to class needsbut in the fact that certain forms of racial discrimination that undoubt-edly arose from the pressures of class actors were later adapted to po-litical uses in a racial project. Aspects of racial discrimination that wereinitially enacted, in great part, because of the economic interests of par-ticular classes could thus become remote from their originating impulse.With respect to such discrimination, we might thus posit an initial closeconnection between race and class and yet concede a later disaggregationof them as the policy ceased to have its earlier purpose but was, never-theless, maintained or even enhanced for other purposes. Consider one ofthe greatest single struts of the racial order that came to prevail in SouthAfrica: the segregation of the land.

The Natives Land Act of 1913, with its subsequent amendment in1936, allocated around nine-tenths of the land in the country for exclu-sive white ownership. There is a wealth of evidence and analysis thatshows clearly that the segregation of the land, and the insistence that allblack people on land designated for whites be defined as servants underthe law, were driven forward by commercialising white landowners de-sirous of altering conditions of labour in their favour, of forcing black ru-ral folk into the clutches of white commercial production, and of cuttingoff the prosperity and independence of black peasants, a good number ofwhom were buying land collectively. Middling and poorer white agricul-turalists were also unnerved by the emergence of black producers whosestatus seemed to be rising beyond their own.52 In short, it is not difficult

51 See Smuts Papers, volume No. 210 (old vol. No. 46), no. 195, Smuts to M. C. Gillet,20.3.1930.

52 I have found particularly valuable the analyses of the Land Act and its historical contextprovided by Timothy Keegan: Rural Transformations, chapter 6; Colin Bundy: Riseand Fall of the South African Peasantry, chapter 7, section 2, esp. pp. 207 ff.; FrancisWilson: Farming, pp. 127 ff.

152 Jeremy Krikler

to reveal that the Land Act had its origins in particular class forces. Re-move commercialising white farmers and their threatened brethren fromthe equation, both desiring to act against independent or rising Africanpeasants for reasons flowing from their socio-economic position in thecountryside, and there is no pressure for the segregation of the land as itoccurred.

But once the segregation of the land was achieved, it ultimately cameto be used for purposes that were not inscribed in its origins. In the inter-war period, the portion of the land earmarked for black ownership (it ulti-mately came to constitute 13 % of the land in South Africa) now becamethe focus for the political project of white supremacy. It was to be used asthe place in which black social and political development (and, indeed,the black population as far as possible) would be monitored and con-tained. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the apartheid state thenused these territories in an attempt to create sham independent states, so-called homelands or bantustans, to which all black South Africans weremeant to be linked and in which they were supposed to exercise the rightsof citizenship of which they were utterly deprived in the country as awhole.

What begins primarily as part of the transition to capitalism in thecountryside ends as an essential part of the political project of maintain-ing white supremacy in a decolonizing world. Part of this project saw anobsessive rubbing out of what were called ›black spots‹, places in the ru-ral areas designated for whites where black communities had somehowheld out. When this terrible demographic erasure took place – part of theprocess by which more than three million people were forcibly relocatedin the name of apartheid53 – it no longer had much link to the originalcontext and motives of the Land Act: it was undertaken as part of a racialpolitical project, of which the bantustan policies were a part.

Those policies could militate against the needs of capital. For once theapartheid government was set on the course of creating the ›independent‹Bantustans, it attempted – as Stuart Coupe has shown – to skew factorydevelopment in their direction in order to prevent as much as possiblethe growth of the permanent black population in urban South Africa. ThePhysical Planning and Utilization of Resources Act, passed in the late-1960s, attempted to block further expansion of the black industrial work-force in the economic heartlands of South Africa, and was designed toforce companies into zoning any expansion of their operations into areas

53 See Elaine Unterhalter: Forced Removal, pp. 103 ff. and 142.


contiguous with the bantustans.54 This was not in the general interests ofcapital; it is to be understood as part of the demographic project of whitesupremacy – in other words, it is an expression of where the ›primacy ofpolitics‹ trumped the needs of economics in apartheid South Africa.

The proof of this is that business people agitated against the demandsof this law, which rapidly had to accommodate their concerns. Moreover,the industrial zoning policy of the apartheid state possessed no economiclogic: it encouraged the placing of industrial concerns in areas that simplydid not have the infrastructure to support them. Not surprisingly, failurewas often the result. Those business people (aside from those actuallyliving in the border areas, hardly significant elements of capital) whotended to profit from the industrial decentralisation policy were thosewho defrauded the apartheid state of development funds for the settingup of what, in the end, turned out to be sham enterprises.55 Moreover, inthe bantusans themselves, only in very rare instances can we see a majorbusiness opportunity arising from their existence: arguably, the colossalentertainment and gambling complex of Sun City – established in theBophutatswana bantustan (its ›independence‹ imposed in 1977) – wasthe most dramatic example of a company benefiting from the bantustanpolicy of apartheid. Its uniqueness in the economic history of the ban-tustans merely emphasises the degree to which South African companieshad no vested interest in their establishment.

An argument similar to the above may also be made with regard to thepass laws that controlled the movement of black people in South Africa.Initially, they were intimately connected with the needs of employers –police checks of the pass documentation, for example, helped to iden-tify those deserting from the enterprises of white employers. The rise ofthe pass laws is simply unthinkable apart from the rise of labour mar-kets. In the earlier twentieth century, a great deal of the demand for passlaws came quite specifically from white employers: it is notable, for ex-ample, that just after the establishment of the Union of South Africa in1910, the South African Party – then unquestionably the party that had byfar the largest support of white landowners – was faced with calls fromrural branches for a tougher administration of pass laws. As the partyarchives show, there were even specific demands for magistrates »to beprohibited. . . [from granting] travelling passes without the consent of the

54 Stuart Coupe: Apartheid in South African Industrial Relations, pp. 220-224, 226 f.55 I derive these points from Stuart Coupe’s doctoral findings.

154 Jeremy Krikler

master« and, as if this was not already a fact, for »no native to have theright to leave his master’s farm without a pass«.56

For much of the twentieth century, then, the pass laws can be shownto have been related to labour needs and discipline. But in the 1950s, say,when pass laws were foisted upon black women, such needs and disci-pline did not figure prominently in the motivation of the policy. Morecentral was the desire of the state, now firmly controlled by the NationalParty, to prevent the growth of the black population in the cities. Womenwould obviously be at the heart of this growth because it was their pres-ence around which households and families coalesced. And preventingthe growth of the permanent black population of the cities, the objectiveabove all to which the pass laws were now tethered, cannot easily be ex-plained in terms of class interest. For whose class interest was served bythis? Lowering costs of labour for urban employers does not hinge uponpolicies that make labour scarcer than it might have been. On the con-trary, it is intense competition for jobs – something that arises when thereis ›surplus‹ labour – that tends to lower wages. It has been established,in fact, that the pass law system, because it created a category of blackurban residents who were defined as having permanent resident rights inthe midst of the masses who did not, actually created upward pressure onwages and other difficulties for employers.57

Pass laws may once have been functional to employers. When labourwas relatively scarce, they would have aided employers in holding onto their workers – they could compel compliance with contracts whichmight have been broken more easily in the absence of documents thatwere incessantly checked by police. But there can be little doubt that thepass system came either to have no benefit to employers or that it actu-ally became disadvantageous to them. Why otherwise would there be thetestimony of employers implicitly complaining about the government’sdeportation of Africans deemed to be illegally present in the towns, orevidence of managements negatively affected by the endless imprison-ment of workers under the pass laws, or – finally – instances of employercollusion with workers who did not have legal passes to flout the law?58

One task for the historian interested in the relationship of class toracial discrimination is to find the point at which this key strut in thesystem of racial discrimination, one that had initially been framed withemployers in mind, came to have no or little purpose for them or militated

56 Minutes of the Second Annual Congress of the South African Party (November 1912),p. 23 (Papers of the South African Party, Ref. No. 1.3).

57 See Stuart Coupe: Apartheid in South African Industrial Relations, pp. 86, 139 f.58 Ibid., p. 141, 149 f.


against their interests: the point at which it came, then, to have a politicalfunction largely divorced (even antithetical) to its original purpose. It isthe hunt for the moment at which we may speak of a primacy of politicsin this regard.

The pass laws would be an extremely fruitful way of timing the emer-gence of a primacy of politics in their administration. To do this, wewould have to determine the point at which they became primarily a toolto control the size of the black urban population, rather than a tool todirect and control labour. This is not to say that the one function was ex-clusive of the other; one is talking about balance. Prior to the significanturbanisation accompanying the First World War, it is arguable that thelabour functions of the laws were pre-eminent; from the First World Waronwards, with the increasing white concerns about urbanisation, one canargue for the laws increasingly coming to have the social and politicalfunctions of preventing the growth of the urban black population. At acertain point, the socio-political functions came to outweigh the labourfunctions. The issue for those administering the laws became much lessdesertion from employers, or ensuring that employers had their comple-ments of labour, but – rather – policing the mere presence of black peoplein the towns.

This point was clearly reached in the inter-war period, so much sothat a writer in 1930 was warning that an obsessive and routine convic-tion of Africans under the laws was now undermining the legal culture ofthe country: he alluded to the praise recently given to a magistrate who,in a single day, rushed through more than 500 cases, a great number ofwhich he assumed related to the pass laws. His description of the enforce-ment of those laws captures starkly the increasing way that they were nowfulfilling a persecutory function, often without reference to cost: »theselaws are causing vast expenditure of public money, are congesting theMagistrates’ Courts, filling the prisons, demoralizing the police force inits contact with Natives [. . . ] and undermining [. . . ] respect for law andits agents [. . . ]. The enforcement of the Pass and other laws is carriedout by the Police in a way that calls for criticism. Quite an ordinary rou-tine carried out on a Sunday afternoon in the large towns of the NorthernProvinces is that Natives are stopped by every policeman they meet andtheir passes demanded. Extensive ›raids‹ have been embarked upon [. . . ].Doors have been burst open and Natives taken from their beds. Dozensof Natives have in such raids been arrested, against whom, after hoursof detention, no charge has been made. Perfectly innocent persons have

156 Jeremy Krikler

been dragged off to prison and not infrequently ›manhandled‹ in the pro-cess«.59

A recent black immigrant to South Africa in the inter-war period wasshocked by the evidence of mass imprisonment he found – with crowdsof prisoners (one imagines largely for infractions of pass laws) being lit-erally herded through the streets to prison.60 This persecutory zeal ad-vanced with the growing size of the urban black population. (Until passlaws were imposed on black women, a similar zeal in the administrationof the liquor laws – women were the brewers and sellers of beer in urbanSouth Africa – was used to police the presence of women).61 The pur-pose of that zeal was, in the end, political: to order urban South Africa inaccordance with the needs of white supremacy. So long as the black pop-ulation in the towns could be limited, white South Africans could preventthe critical popular mass from arising that threatened to transform the so-ciety as a whole; they could also be shielded from the meaning of beinga minority in a country which did not originally belong to them.

Under the apartheid policy of the National Party, the pass laws be-came very firmly linked to the policy of forcing back to the so-calledhomelands (those areas to be given a sham independence) of as much ofthe black population as could be removed from urban South Africa with-out seriously affecting the operations of white-owned enterprises. It is notaccidental that the single greatest work of art dealing with the pass laws inthe apartheid period, Atholl Fugard’s drama, ›Sizwe Banzi is Dead‹, caststhe state personnel as the enemy to be watched out for; it has nothing tosay about employers. By this time, the pass laws were somewhat remotefrom a regime of labour discipline commanded by employers. Those lawswere fundamental, however, to the political project of the National Party.

It is not to be denied that capitalism required racial discrimination toestablish itself and function effectively in South Africa – the panoply ofdiscriminatory laws required to prise a labour force out of black com-munities and then to hold and discipline this army of the low paid –is proof enough of that. In broad terms, one might argue that emerg-ing capitalism depended on racial discrimination in the period of whatMarx called ›primitive accumulation‹, the process by which people –in the main black peasants, whose communities enjoyed a basic socio-economic sovereignty – were deprived of their resources and indepen-dence so that they came to depend on wage labour for white employers.

59 Edgar H. Brookes: The Administration of Justice, pp. 384 ff.60 Wulf Sachs: Black Hamlet, pp. 81 f.61 This is pointed to in Philip Bonner: ›Desirable or undesirable Basotho women?‹


Once that was achieved, however, and once the work of dispossessionwas thoroughly completed so that the vast bulk of the population in SouthAfrica was dependent on wages and the market economy for its survival,did capitalism really need a racial order?

Some scholars were once rather fond of speaking of the notionof ›racial capitalism‹ with respect to South Africa, of insisting that tothreaten apartheid would mean also to call capitalism into question. His-tory proved this notion wrong. The end of apartheid occurred without ithaving any demonstrable effect on capitalism in the country beyond al-lowing that phenomenon to benefit from larger markets, more investment,and more security. This ultimately is the proof that the racial order, manyof whose struts were fashioned precisely because of the transition to cap-italism in the country, had ceased to have any essential link to the needsof capitalists. A vital task for historians seeking an accurate understand-ing of the movement of twentieth century South African history will beto identify how the politico-ideological juggernaut of white supremacy,to some degree given force and powerful instruments through the de-velopment of capitalism, became irrelevant or counterproductive to it.Exploring this paradox in all its complexity, and seeking to identify thechronology of its development, could refresh approaches to the history ofrace and class in South Africa.

References

Archival Sources

Papers of George Heaton Nicholls (Killie Campbell Library, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal).

Papers and Manuscripts of Gideon Brand Van Zyl (Historical Manuscripts sectionof the University of Cape Town).

Papers of the South African Party (part of the Archives of the United Party,held by the SANLAM Library of the University of South Africa, Preto-ria/Tshwane).

PM (Archives of the Secretary to the Prime Minister: Central Archives Depot,South African National Archives, Pretoria/Tshwane).

SAIF Papers (Papers of the South African Industrial Federation; part of theRecords of the Trade Union Council of South Africa: University of the Wit-watersrand Library, Historical Manuscripts, AH646)

SCC (Archives of the Special Criminal Court, 1922: Transvaaal Archives Depot,South African National Archives, Pretoria/Tshwane).

Smuts Papers (South African National Archives, Pretoria/Tshwane).

158 Jeremy Krikler

Unpublished Minutes of the Martial Law Inquiry Judicial Commission, 1922:K4 of the Central Archives Depot, South African National Archives, Preto-ria/Tshwane).

Literature

Adhikari, Mohamed: Fiercely Non Racial? Discourses and Politics of Race in theNon-European Unity Movement, 1943-1970. In: Journal of Southern AfricanStudies, 31, 2005, 2, pp. 403-418.

Baldwin, James: The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy (1961). In: The Priceof the Ticket. Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985, ed. by id. London: MichaelJoseph 1985, pp. 289-303.

Beinart, William, Saul Dubow (eds.): Segregation and Apartheid in TwentiethCentury South Africa. London: Routledge 1995.

Bloch, Robin: The high cost of living. The Port Elizabeth ›disturbances‹ of Octo-ber 1920. In: Africa Perspective, 19, 1981, pp. 39-59.

Bonner, Philip: ›Desirable or undesirable Basotho women?‹ Liquor, prostitutionand the migration of Basotho women to the Rand, 1920-1945. In: Women andGender in Southern Africa to 1945, ed. by Cherryl Walker. Cape Town: DavidPhilip, London: James Currey 1990, pp. 221-250.

Bozzoli, Belinda: The Political Nature of a Ruling Class. Capital and Ideology inSouth Africa, 1890-1933. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul 1981.

Bradford, Helen: A Taste of Freedom. The ICU in the South African Countryside,1924-1930. New Haven etc.: Yale University Press 1987.

Brookes, Edgar H.: The Administration of Justice. In: Coming of Age. Studies inSouth African Citizenship and Politics, ed. by Edgar H. Brookes et al. CapeTown: Maskew Miller 1930, pp. 380-394.

Bundy, Colin: The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry. London: Heine-mann 1979.

Cell, John: The Highest Stage of White Supremacy. The Origins of Segregationin South Africa and the American South. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress 1982.

Cornwell, Gareth: George Webb Hardy’s The Black Peril and the Social Mean-ing of ›Black Peril‹ in Early Twentieth-Century South Africa. In: Journal ofSouthern African Studies, 22, 1996, 3, pp. 441-453.

Coupe, Stuart: Apartheid in South African Industrial Relations. (UnpublishedPhD thesis), Oxford: Oxford University 1993.

Doxey, George V.: The Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa. Cape Town: OxfordUniversity Press 1961.

Drew, Allison: Between Empire and Revolution. A Life of Sidney Bunting, 1873-1936. London: Pickering and Chatto 2007.

Dubow, Saul: Race, Civilisation and Culture. The Elaboration of SegregationistDiscourse in the inter-war years. In: The Politics of Race, Class and National-ism in Twentieth Century South Africa, ed. by Shula Marks, Stanley Trapido.London: Longman 1987, pp. 71-94.


—: Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid, 1919-1936. London:Macmillan 1989.

Feinstein, Charles: An Economic History of South Africa. Conquest, Discrimi-nation and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005.

Goldblatt, David: 55. London: Phaidon Press 2001.Hyslop, Jonathan: Problems of Explanation in the Study of Afrikaner National-

ism. A Case Study of the West Rand. In: Journal of Southern African Studies,22, 1996, 3, pp. 373-385.

Johnstone, Frederick: Class, Race and Gold. A Study of Class Relations andRacial Discrimination in South Africa. Lanham: University Press of Amer-ica 1976.

Katz, Elaine: A Trade Union Aristocracy. A History of White Workers in theTransvaal and the General Strike of 1913. Johannesburg: University of theWitwatersrand 1976.

—: Revisiting the Origins of the Industrial Colour Bar in the Witwatersrand GoldMining Industry. In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 25, 1999, 1, pp. 73-97.

—: The White Death. Silicosis on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines, 1886-1910.Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press 1994.

Keegan, Timothy: Gender, Degeneration and Sexual Danger. Imagining Race andClass in South Africa, ca. 1912. In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 27,2001, 3, pp. 459-477.

—: Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa. London: Macmillan1987.

Krikler, Jeremy: White Rising. The 1922 Insurrection and Racial Killing in SouthAfrica. Manchester: Manchester University Press 2005.

Lewis, John: The Germiston By-Election of 1932. The State and the White Work-ing Class during the Depression. In: Working Papers in Southern AfricanStudies, ed. by Philip Bonner. Vol. 2. Johannesburg: Ravan Press 1981, pp. 97-120.

Lodge, Tom: Black Politics in South Africa since 1945. 2nd ed. London: Long-mans 1987 [1983].

Mason, Tim: Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class. Essays by Tim Mason, ed.by Jane Caplan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995.

Miller Somerville, Diane: The Rape Myth in the Old South Reconsidered. In:Journal of Southern History, 61, 1995, 3, pp. 481-518.

O’Meara, Dan: Volkskapitalisme. Class, Capital and Ideology in the Develop-ment of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934-1938. Johannesburg: Ravan Press 1983.

Roediger, David: The Wages of Whiteness. London: Verso 1991.Sachs, Wulf: Black Hamlet. The Mind of an African Negro Revealed by Psycho-

analysis. London: Geoffrey Bles 1937.Sapire, Hilary: African Settlement and Segregation in Brakpan, 1900-1927. In:

Holding Their Ground. Class, Locality and Culture in 19th and 20th CenturySouth Africa, ed. by Philip Bonner, Isabel Hofmeyr, Deborah James, Tom

160 Jeremy Krikler

Lodge. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, Ravan Press 1989,pp. 141-176.

Shear, Keith: The 1907 Strike. A Reassessment. Unpublished paper presented tothe African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg1994.

Simons, Jack, Ray Simons: Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850-1950. Lon-don: IDAF 1983.

Swanson, Maynard: The Sanitation Syndrome. Bubonic Plague and Urban Na-tive Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900-1909 (first published in 1977). In: Seg-regation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa, ed. by WilliamBeinart, Saul Dubow. London: Routledge 1995, pp. 25-42.

Turrell, Rob: Kimberley. Labour and Compounds, 1871-1888. In: Industrialisa-tion and Social Change in South Africa. African Class Formation, Culture andConsciousness, 1870-1930, ed. by Shula Marks, Richard Rathbone. Harlow:Longman 1982, pp. 45-76.

Unterhalter, Elaine: Forced Removal. The Division, Segregation and Control ofthe People of South Africa. London: IDAF 1987.

van Onselen, Charles: Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwa-tersrand 1886-1914. Vol. 2: New Nineveh. Johannesburg: Ravan Press 1982.

Walker, Cherryl: The Women’s Suffrage Movement. The Politics of Gender, Raceand Class. In: Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, ed. by id. CapeTown: David Philip, London: James Currey 1990, pp. 313-345.

Walshe, Peter: The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa. The AfricanNational Congress, 1912-1952. London: C. Hurst 1970, Berkeley: Universityof California Press 1971.

Wilson, Francis: Farming, 1866-1966. In: The Oxford History of South Africa,ed. by Monica Wilson, Leonard Thompson. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press 1971, pp. 104-171

Worden, Nigel: The Making of Modern South Africa. Conquest, Apartheid,Democracy. 4th ed. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell 2009.

Yudelman, David: The Emergence of Modern South Africa. State, Capital, andthe Incorporation of Organized Labor on the South African Gold Fields. West-port etc.: Greenwood Press 1983.

›A White Man’s Country‹?

The Chinese Labour Controversy in the Transvaal1

Dagmar Engelken

Abstract: Between 1904 and 1910, more than sixty thousand indentured labourersfrom China worked on the goldmines of the Transvaal, South Africa. The Chi-nese labour scheme gave rise to much controversy in the colony as well as in otherparts of the British Empire. Though the Chinese were introduced to supplementthe unskilled African workforce, skilled white mine workers feared that the Chi-nese, thought to be superior to the Africans, would ultimately replace the whites.›White labour‹ ideologists of both middle class and working class backgroundsdemanded the employment of whites in both skilled and unskilled positions, todevelop the Transvaal as a ›white settler society‹ along the lines of Australia.However, the ›whitening‹ of the workforce was opposed by many rank-and-filewhite mine workers who saw unskilled white labour as a greater threat to theirown status and livelihood than Chinese labour. Due to the particularities of thepolitical economy of the Rand’s gold mining industry, and the deeply ingrainedracial division of labour in the Transvaal, Australian-style ›white labourism‹ didnot appear to be a realistic option in the colony. Furthermore, divisions amongwhite workers, between miners and artisans, skilled and unskilled, and Britishand Afrikaners, prevented the emergence of a united and coherent policy on thelabour question. Nonetheless, the Chinese labour controversy had a crucial influ-ence on the formation of political parties and alliances during the Reconstructionperiod after the South African War, helping to bridge divisions both of class andethnicity, and contributing to the formation of a white labour movement and theprocess of nation building.

When the Union of South Africa was founded in 1910, Australia could al-ready look back on ten years as a nation state within the British Empire.For both countries, whiteness was at the heart of the national project,defining the boundaries of belonging. But both countries had more incommon than their proclaimed status as ›white men’s countries‹. Both

1 The article is based on Dagmar Engelken: The Labour Movement and the ChineseLabour Question in Britain and South Africa. I would like to thank Jeremy Kriklerfor many helpful comments on my work, as well as for help in matters of style.

162 Dagmar Engelken

covered large geographical areas diverse in climate and ecological condi-tions, and both had developed extensive pastoral economies on land takenfrom earlier inhabitants.

Two commodities played a central role in the economic developmentof both Australia and South Africa: sugar and gold. Sugar plantationswere developed in Queensland and Natal from the 1860s on the basisof introduced indentured labourers, Pacific Islanders in the first case, In-dians in the second. Australian gold rushes from the 1850s onwards at-tracted immigrants from different parts of the world, including Britain,continental Europe, north America and China. But the Chinese were notwanted on the gold fields and suffered widespread hostility from the otherdiggers. The first anti-Chinese exclusion acts, constituting the precedentsfor the ›White Australia‹ policy, were introduced in Victoria in 1855 andNew South Wales in 1861.2

The Witwatersrand gold fields in the Transvaal were discovered in1886, but unlike in Australia, the period of the independent digger didnot last long. Large companies soon dominated the industry, extractingthe gold with the help of expensive technologies and large workforces.A division of labour emerged in which Africans occupied most of themenial and unskilled jobs, while the skilled workforce was mostly com-posed of British-born workers (but also included a significant numberof Australians). While Australia’s aboriginal population, small in num-bers, were at the margin of society, Africans, who formed a majority ofthe population in most parts of South Africa, played a crucial role in thecountry’s economy, albeit at a subordinate level.

As Stefanie Affeldt shows in her article in this volume, in the latenineteenth century Queensland embarked on the ›whitening‹ of her sugarindustry. The introduction of Pacific Islanders, seen as a peril to theproject of white nation-building, was halted and the labourers were fi-nally repatriated, while incentives were introduced to encourage whitesto work in the industry. In contrast, the Indians who had arrived in Na-tal as indentured labourers were allowed to stay after the expiry of theircontracts, forming a permanent presence in South Africa, alongside otherIndians who had arrived as ›free‹ immigrants.

In 1899, a year before the federation of the Australian colonies,Britain went to war against the two Boer republics of the Transvaal andthe Orange Free State. The war, for which a significant number of Aus-

2 On the Chinese in Australia, and reactions towards them, see, amongst others: KathrynCronin: Colonial Casualties; Andrew Markus: Fear and Hatred; Raymond Markey:Race and Organised Labour in a White Settler Society.

›A White Man’s Country‹? 163

tralians had signed up, ended in 1902 with the defeat of the two formerlyindependent republics and their incorporation into the British Empire,paving the way for the Union of South Africa in 1910. The Transvaal,with the Witwatersrand gold fields at its heart, occupied a central po-sition in South Africa’s post-war ›reconstruction‹. The aim of the newBritish administration was to create a British-dominated society, and thegold mines were crucial to this endeavour. But the industry was sufferinga shortage of African labourers, hindering a quick resumption of produc-tion and causing a severe post-war economic depression. Labour had tobe found; and the Transvaal took a very different route from that of thenew ›White Australia‹, resorting to the introduction of more than 60 000indentured Chinese labourers into the colony between 1904 and 1906.The announcement of this scheme triggered widespread protest not onlyin the Transvaal, but also in the Cape, in Australia, New Zealand andBritain, in which the labour movement and the working classes played acrucial role. In portraying the Chinese as a threat to white workers, andto white society in general, protests echoed the anti-Chinese movementsin Australia and North America during the nineteenth century.3

This article analyses the controversy surrounding the introduction ofChinese labour in the Transvaal, focusing on the colony’s English speak-ing population. As the article will show, Australian ›white labourist‹ ideashad an important influence on the labour movement’s ideological orien-tation, and more generally on the political debate in the Transvaal. How-ever, local conditions were crucial and there were limits to which Aus-tralia’s model could be applied to conditions on the Rand. Indeed, labourpolicies in the Transvaal developed on very different lines from those inAustralia, highlighting the complexities of whiteness.

Race and Labour in the Witwatersrand Gold Mining Industry

Gold has to be at the heart of any history of race and labour in theTransvaal from the late nineteenth century onwards. Discovered in 1886,the Witwatersrand (or Rand) gold reef was the largest in the world. Theindustry, soon dominated by large companies dependent on foreign cap-ital, drove the transformation of the Transvaal from a rural into an in-creasingly urban and industrialised society that became the centre of in-ternational attention during the South African (Anglo-Boer) War of 1899-

3 It is thus essential to view the Chinese labour controversy in an international context –cf. Jonathan Hyslop: The Imperial Working Class Makes Itself ›White‹, p. 399; the term›white labourism‹ is borrowed from Hyslop.

164 Dagmar Engelken

1902. Gold attracted immigrants from across the world, turning the cityof Johannesburg into a bustling cosmopolitan centre.4

The large majority of the industry’s workforce on the eve of the SouthAfrican War, around 100 000 or seven-eighths of the total, were migrantlabourers recruited from different parts of southern Africa, and in somecases from tropical Africa. These workers stayed on the mines for dif-fering lengths of time, ranging from a few months to one or two yearsor even longer, but virtually all of them retained a connection to the ru-ral subsistence economy. Wages on the Rand were too low for familiesto survive on, preventing the emergence of a permanent African work-ing class. The vast majority of Africans were employed on jobs classedas ›unskilled‹ even though over time they acquired skills and experienceand many were in fact employed on semi-skilled jobs. The African mi-grant labourers were an ultra-exploitable workforce, whose low, semi-free status was secured by legislation such as the Master and ServantsLaw, which criminalised acts such as strikes and desertions, as well asthe racist pass laws which restricted their freedom of movement.5

Around one-eighth of the workforce were whites, the vast majorityof them British-born.6 They were skilled artisans and miners, attracted tothe Rand by the high wages. Like the Africans, most of them were youngmen who had not come to stay. The high cost of living on the Rand (inaddition to the ›rough‹ character of its pioneer society), acted as a disin-centive for the workers to bring wives or children along with them. Theseworkers retained close connections to their homeland, sending back re-mittances and letters and planning to return after a few years’ work on theRand. This dream never came true for many, as the deadly lung disease ofsilicosis took the lives of a large proportion of mine workers, particularlythose employed underground.7

4 For an overview of the development of the gold mining industry, see Peter Richardson,Jean Jacques Van-Helten: The Gold Mining Industry in the Transvaal.

5 On the history of African mine workers on the Rand, see Patrick Harries: Work, Cultureand Identity; Alan H. Jeeves: Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy. Fora useful summary of the South African peasantry’s relationship to migrant labour seeWilliam Beinart: Twentieth Century South Africa (chap. 1). On the division of labourin the mines, see Elaine Katz: The White Death (chap. 4); id.: The Underground Routeto Mining; id.: Revisiting the Origins of the Industrial Colour Bar.

6 Cf. Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristocracy; see also Jack and Ray Simons: Class andColour in South Africa (chap. 3-5); for a good overview, see also Jeremy Krikler: WhiteRising (chap. 1).

7 Elaine Katz: The White Death. Of course, silicosis took the lives of Africans and whites(and Chinese) alike but, as white workers tended to work on the mines for longer peri-ods, they were more likely to become ill. However, given their poor living conditions,Africans were likely to die from other diseases.


›Skill‹ and ›colour‹ were closely identified on the Rand gold-mines,with skilled and supervisory jobs reserved for whites and unskilled jobslargely the preserve of Africans. While this racial division of labour hadoriginally developed as a result of the different skill levels of the recruitedworkers, it also fitted in neatly with the predominant norms of the set-tler society of the Transvaal, which were based on the notion of whitesupremacy, confining Africans and other non-whites to menial labour andan inferior social status. But in the area of semi-skilled labour, the racialdivision on the mines was less clear-cut. A small number of fully prole-tarianised ›long-service Africans‹ as well as Cape Coloureds and Indianswere classed as ›semi-skilled‹, receiving wages that were far higher thanthose of the ›unskilled‹ Africans but still significantly lower than those ofwhites, even of whites employed on jobs requiring low levels of skill.8

It was in the field of semi-skilled jobs that white and non-whiteworkers were most likely to compete with each other. Whites-only tradeunions were concerned with specific protection of such jobs, resulting inthe introduction of a legislative ›colour bar‹ for winding engine drivers in1896. The very first legislative colour bar introduced in 1893, which ex-cluded »persons of colour« from blasting, was, however, not the result ofwhite workers’ demands but was due to the initiative of the State MiningEngineer, a German who believed that work safety would be maintainedif blasting was exclusively a white preserve. After the South African War,the State Commissioner for Mines, in consultation with the unions, in-troduced new colour bar regulations for a few further job categories.9

But only the Labour Importation Ordinance of 1904, which regulated theimportation of the Chinese labourers, introduced extensive colour bars,excluding the Chinese from some 55 jobs.10

The Post-War Labour Crisis

After the South African War, the gold mining industry experienced a se-vere shortage of African labourers, which hampered the recovery of theindustry and, as a result, the entire economy of the Rand. Problems oflabour recruitment had already existed before the war, as mines were ex-tremely dangerous, unhealthy and unpleasant workplaces and thus exer-cised little attraction for Africans. Most migrant labourers came to the

8 Elaine Katz: Revisiting the Origins of the Industrial Colour Bar in the WitwatersrandGold Mining Industry, pp. 74 f.; concerning the following see ibid., pp. 83-91.

9 Cf. Jack and Ray Simons: Class and Colour in South Africa, p. 78.10 Cf. Arthur A. Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, p. 457.

166 Dagmar Engelken

mines out of economic necessity, as land loss due to war and conquest,and taxes imposed by colonial and settler states, forced them to seek cashincome. But the South African War had led to the dispersal of the work-force and interrupted the recruitment networks. It had also allowed manyAfrican peasants in the Transvaal to improve their economic situation byoccupying their masters’ land, thus decreasing the necessity to seek paidemployment. The decision by the Chamber of Mines during the war todecrease Africans’ wages (which was only reversed at the end of 1902)was another disincentive for the workers to return to the mines, especiallyas more attractive and better paid opportunities opened up after the warin the construction and transport sectors.11

The post-war administration took some steps to improve conditionson the mines and reduce mortality.12 It also sought to improve the laboursupply through changes in pass laws, the control of the supply of al-cohol to Africans, and through the increased regulation of recruitment.The British High Commissioner for South Africa, Lord Milner, also in-troduced a new, harsher and more efficient, tax regime which he saw asa way of teaching Africans »habits of regular and skilled labour«. How-ever, in a situation in which Africans still had considerable access to land,and were able to meet fiscal demands by increasing agricultural produc-tion, there were »limits« to the degree to which taxation could function»as an engine of proletarianization«.13

The shortage in unskilled African labour contributed to the unem-ployment among skilled white workers as the resumption of mining wasdelayed. But at the same time, there was also significant unemploymentamong unskilled whites, many of whom were British servicemen whostayed in the colony after the end of the war. In addition, partly as a resultof the devastation the war had caused in the countryside, partly due tolonger term economic changes, increasing numbers of poor Afrikaans-speaking whites moved from the countryside to the city of Johannes-burg.14 As in all colonial or settler societies based on institutionalised

11 See Donald J. N. Denoon: The Transvaal Labour Crisis; Alan H. Jeeves: MigrantLabour in South Africa’s Mining Economy (chap. 1); John Ambrose Reeves: ChineseLabour in South Africa, pp. 17 ff.; Peter Richardson: Chinese Mine Labour in theTransvaal, pp. 15 ff.; Jeremy Krikler: White Rising, p. 23; for the changes in the sit-uation of African peasants in the Transvaal during and immediately after the war, seeJeremy Krikler: Revolution from Above, Rebellion from Below.

12 Cf. John Ambrose Reeves: Chinese Labour in South Africa, pp. 40 ff. (there also thefollowing quote); Alan H. Jeeves: Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy,pp. 50 f.

13 Jeremy Krikler: Revolution from Above, Rebellion from Below, p. 174.14 For the social history of Johannesburg’s Afrikaner poor in this period see: Charles van


›white supremacy‹, the existence of ›poor whites‹ in the Transvaal wasregarded by the authorities as a serious social problem, not only due toinstances of militancy among the white unemployed in Johannesburg,but also because their existence threatened to undermine the establishedracial order.

Immediately after the war, the administration’s main concern was toprovide relief for demobilised British servicemen. It was in response totheir unemployment and economic destitution that the British High Com-missioner, Alfred Milner, with the help of the mining industry, initiateda programme of employment known as the ›white labour experiments‹,in which whites were to be employed on unskilled jobs that were usuallythe preserve of Africans. These unskilled whites received wages that wereseveral times higher than those of Africans employed on the same jobsyet significantly lower than those of skilled whites. The scheme provedunpopular among its target group, as many ex-servicemen were unpre-pared to work under such harsh conditions for wages that, in the contextof the high cost of living on the Rand, were deemed inadequate for whitemen to keep up a ›civilised‹ standard of life. In contrast, many workingclass Afrikaners, previously excluded from mining jobs due to lack ofskill and the restrictive policies of the British unions, took up the op-portunity offered by the ›white labour experiments‹ to acquire skills andexperience, ultimately gaining blasting certificates and obtaining jobs as›skilled miners‹.15

The leaders of the mining industry never intended the experiments tobe a long-term solution either to the problem of white unemployment orthe problem of the shortage of African labour. Primarily, this was due tothe fact that they considered unskilled white labour to be too expensive.Indeed, due to the low grade of ore characteristic of the Witwatersrandgold reef, the exploitation of most gold mines was only profitable on thebasis of an extremely low paid workforce such as the African migrantlabourers.16 But political considerations also influenced the employers’views of unskilled white labour, as many of them feared the develop-ment of a large class-conscious working class which would organise intrade unions and exercise political influence, turning the Transvaal intoanother Australia or New Zealand. Thus, in a letter to the London com-pany owner, the Rand mining leader Percy Fitzpatrick alluded to »the

Onselen: Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, vol. II,pp. 111-170; Lis Lange: White, Poor and Angry.

15 Cf. Elaine Katz: The Underground Route to Mining.16 Frederick A. Johnstone: Class, Race and Gold, pp. 19 ff., 32, 34, 47 f., 82-87; Richard-

son: Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal, chap. 1.

168 Dagmar Engelken

appalling position that we should be in if we were to work towards MrSeddon’s New Zealand ideal or the ›working man’s paradise‹ and havethis industry throttled by labour unions. [. . . ] Nothing will persuade methat white labour can displace black here«.17

However, the manager of one mine, Frederick H. P. Creswell, cameto prominence by promoting the ›whitening‹ of the mining workforce,i. e. the employment of whites on unskilled jobs. When carrying out›white labour experiments‹, Creswell sought to prove that, in contrastto the claims of his colleagues, unskilled white labour could indeed bemade profitable. This he did by trying to offset the increased expenses onwages by changes in the production process, particularly by increasingthe supervisory duties of the skilled miners. However, Creswell failed toconvince his mining manager colleagues.18

Creswell’s scheme was also resented by the skilled white miners onhis mine. The miners specifically opposed the changes in the productionprocess which would lead to an intensification and further fragmenta-tion of their work and shorten their life expectancy by increasing theirexposure to the dust that caused silicosis.19 More generally, white min-ers resented the employment of unskilled white labour in positions theyregarded as ›Kaffir labour‹, fearing that this would lead to the degrad-ing of the wages and status of all white miners.20 Hence, the founderof the Transvaal Miners’ Association (TMA), William Mather, declaredthat »any man is not worthy of his name if he will accept the position andremuneration that have always been secured to the nigger« and called thesystem employed by Creswell »absolute slavery«.21

Another TMA representative warned that white workers would notaccept being »converted into white slaves, and the Rand to degener-ate into a white compound«.22 Thus, the skilled white miners perceivedCreswell’s scheme not only as an economic but also as a racial threat;Creswell, in their eyes, was undermining the racial solidarity between the

17 Quoted in Shula Marks, Stanley Trapido: Lord Milner and the South African State,p. 66.

18 Robert Davies: Mining Capital, The State and Unskilled White Workers in SouthAfrica, pp. 53 f.; Arthur A. Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, p. 373.

19 Jack and Ray Simons: Class and Colour in South Africa, p. 79; Elaine Katz: The WhiteDeath, pp. 112 f.; Robert Davies: Mining Capital, The State and Unskilled White Work-ers in South Africa, p. 53.

20 Cf. David Roediger: The Wages of Whiteness (chap. 3 and 4), for an analysis of howwhite workers in the early to mid-nineteenth century United States constructed theiridentity by comparing themselves to black slaves in the South.

21 Transvaal Leader, 23.6.1903, p. 3, quoted in David Ticktin: White Labour’s Attitude,p. 68.

22 ›The Labour Dispute‹, in: The Star, 6.10.1902, p. 6.


employers and their white workforce and thus questioning the miners’very whiteness. Furthermore, Creswell’s long term vision included theintroduction of unskilled European workers from overseas, and such im-portation schemes were generally met with hostility by the labour move-ment.23 Finally, white workers feared that these ›cheap‹ whites mightultimately become skilled miners who would replace them.

Despite his claims that unskilled white labour could be made prof-itable, Creswell’s main reasons for advocating the ›whitening‹ of themining workforce were not of an economic but of a political nature. Forhim, ›white Australia‹ provided a model that should be adopted for thefuture development of the Transvaal as a British dominated ›white set-tler society‹. Only if whites replaced Africans in the unskilled miningjobs could sufficient jobs be provided for mass immigration from Britainupon which a new society could be built.

Milner, one of the most prominent imperialists of his age, sharedthe aim of transforming the Transvaal into an ›Anglicised‹, British-dominated society by means of large scale immigration from Britain.To meet these goals, he supported land settlement schemes and schemesto encourage immigration of groups such as female domestic servantsand other female workers who, it was hoped, would marry British work-ers, and thus »contribute to the development of a stable and loyal Britishworking class in the Transvaal«.24 Milner clearly saw the crucial role ofthe gold mining industry in guaranteeing the future of the colony. Butwhile initially supporting the white labour experiments as a temporaryrelief for ex-servicemen, he rejected the idea of the long-term develop-ment of the mines on the lines of unskilled white labour. He did »notwant a white proletariat in this country«, arguing that »[t]he position ofthe whites among the vastly more numerous black population requiresthat even their lowest ranks should be able to maintain a standard of liv-ing far above that of the poorest section of the population of a purelywhite country«. Such a development »requires a large amount of roughlabour. And that labour cannot to any extent, be white, if only because,pending development and the subsequent reduction in the cost of living,white labour is much too dear.«25

Thus, unlike the recently federated Australian colonies, the develop-ment of the Transvaal as a British colony was to be based on a caste-like

23 ›Warning to intending emigrants‹, in: Labour Leader, 23.8.1902, p. 271.24 Charles van Onselen: Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand,

vol. II, pp. 10 f.25 Quoted in Shula Marks, Stanley Trapido: Lord Milner and the South African State,

p. 66.

170 Dagmar Engelken

system, in which whites, including working class whites, would forman ›aristocracy‹ above a majority of non-whites who, as ›cheap labour‹,would make up the bulk of the workforce.

However, as not enough African labour was available for the mines,other cheap non-white labour had to be found, and it was in this contextthat the proposal to introduce labourers from China was made and ul-timately gained the support of the majority of mining leaders and fromMilner. Chinese labour, in spite of the initial high expense of its introduc-tion, far from being a last resort from the industry’s perspective, provideda number of advantages. The fact that the Chinese would be employedconstantly for a number of years meant that they would form a more sta-ble workforce than the Africans, leading to greater efficiency. Further,Chinese workers were widely regarded to be superior in intelligence andcapacity to any other non-white workers.

This view was expressed, for example, by the former British consulfor North Borneo, who argued that »viewed solely from a commercialpoint of view Chinese labour is by far the best. The Chinaman is not tur-bulent like the Arab, nor is he rebellious under pressure like the Kaffir.[. . . ] In physique he is at least equal to [. . . ] any of the others«.26 Sim-ilarly, the Chamber of Mines delegate, sent on a fact finding mission toNorth America, the East Indies and China, found the Chinese working onthe Union Pacific Railway to be »docile, willing and obedient« and con-cluded that Chinese labour »was the best kind of unskilled labour theycould possibly obtain«.27 It was these positive images in particular thatled white mine workers to fear and resent the introduction of the Chinese.

The Anti-Asiatic Movement

When the Chinese labour scheme was publicly announced, it met withfierce opposition from a wide section of white British society on theRand. Hostility against Asian immigrants in South Africa pre-dated theChinese labour debate, and partly shaped the response to the scheme.Indian indentured labourers, referred to as ›coolies‹, had first arrivedin the British colony of Natal in the 1860s, to be followed by Muslimtraders from Gujarat, commonly known as ›Arabs‹. Since the 1880s, both›Arabs‹ and ex-indentured Indians entered the Transvaal to engage in re-tail business, as traders, shopkeepers or hawkers. They were joined bysmaller numbers of Chinese, most of whom were shopkeepers, while

26 ›Chinese Labour for the Rand‹, in: The Star, 5.3.1902, p. 8.27 Quoted in: ›Chamber of Mines‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 20.6.1903, p. 27.


some also ran laundries.28 These Indians and Chinese were subject todiscrimination under the laws of the Transvaal republic, and also facedhostility from sectors of the local white population.29

After the war, in the context of white insecurity about the future statusof these Asian immigrants in a British-ruled Transvaal, a racist movementemerged, which was led by the White League, an organisation of whiteshopkeepers and retail traders that had several branches in the urban areasof the Transvaal. Members of the White League feared undercutting byIndians and Chinese, who, »[i]t was said [. . . ] could live on the smell ofan oil rag«,30 and demanded that they be denied licenses and segregatedin specifically designated »locations«.31 Apart from economic competi-tion, another issue that fuelled the anti-Asian hostility was a series of epi-demics sweeping across southern Africa after the war. In a racist frameof reference, Indian ›coolies‹ were associated with disease.32 Thus, ›TheStar‹, one of the Rand’s leading newspapers, referring to experiences inNatal, warned that »[w]e have already more Indians on the Rand thanwe can comfortably ›digest‹«.33 Racial segregation, in this line of think-ing, would protect the white community from becoming ›polluted‹ bythese non-whites. For the white retail traders, in particular, segregationpromised economic as well as ideological and psychological benefits.

It is significant in this context that not all white inhabitants of theRand were hostile to Asian traders. Unlike the retailers who were thebackbone of the anti-Asiatic movement, wholesalers, who did not di-rectly compete with Asian traders but had business relationships withthem and would suffer economic disadvantages if Asian trade was cur-tailed, petitioned for Indians to be allowed to hold trading licenses.34

Poor whites also benefited from the presence of Asian traders in theirneighbourhoods, who often seem to have sold goods at lower prices thanwhite traders. Both before and after the war, several petitions in sup-port of Chinese traders were sent to the government by this constituency,

28 Maureen Swan: Gandhi, pp. 19 ff.; Bill Freund: Insiders and Outsiders (chap. 1 and 2);Robert A. Huttenback: Gandhi in South Africa, pp. 39 ff.; Melanie Yap, Dianne LeongMan: Colour, Confusion and Concessions, pp. 75, 81 ff.; Charles van Onselen: Studiesin the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, vol. II, p. 97.

29 Robert A. Huttenback: Gandhi in South Africa, pp. 102 ff.; Melanie Yap, Dianne LeongMan: Colour, Confusion and Concessions, pp. 76 ff.

30 Quoted in ›The White League‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 17.1.1903, p. 21.31 Alexander Macfarlane, the president of the White League, at its second meeting, as

quoted in ›The White League‹, in: The Star, 8.11.1902, p. 6.32 Maynard W. Swanson: The Sanitation Syndrome, pp. 26 ff.33 ›Notes and Comments‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 7.2.1903, p. 14.34 Donald Denoon: A Grand Illusion, p. 121.

172 Dagmar Engelken

demanding that the Chinese be allowed to live and trade in areas inhab-ited by whites, and to hold their own trading licences.35 Indian vegetablehawkers, on the lowest rung of the ladder of retail traders, also provideduseful services in white working class neighbourhoods. Even the presi-dent of the White League conceded: »Certainly they were useful to soci-ety as vendors of vegetables, etc., but they [the White League] objectedto coolies, etc., having shops and houses in the centre of the town.«36

The opposition to the introduction of Chinese labourers could read-ily draw upon these already widespread anti-Asian sentiments, and hintat the perceived results of the introduction of Indian labourers into Na-tal. Thus, ›The Star‹ predicted that »if the Chinese are once introducedthey will over-run the whole country«, because it was »not practicable toimport Chinese for the mines and forbid their employment in agricultureand the general industry of the country«.37 Members of the White Leaguewere particularly worried that the Chinese labourers »drifted into pettytrade at the first opportunity«, as »manual labour was not their strongpoint«.38

Working Class Opposition to Chinese Labour

The activities of the White League attracted some interest from whiteworkers who feared undercutting by Indian labourers. The chairman ofthe Johannesburg branch of the White League warned the white work-ers that: »In Natal the coolie had already taken over, to a great extent,the working of the railway lines, and if that was going to happen in theTransvaal it would be a serious matter for the white man«. Indeed, headded, »[a]part from the railways, the Asiatics, as carpenters, smiths, far-riers, joiners, etc. could compete in the matter of workmanship on equalterms with the white man; and seeing that they could live so much cheaperthan the white man, the latter would be cut out absolutely.«39 Evidently,the reference to »Asiatic workmanship« contradicted the claim made byother White League members that Asians were no good at manual labourat all, but were only interested in trade. This contradiction may serve as

35 Melanie Yap, Dianne Leong Man: Colour, Confusion and Concessions, p. 82; DonaldDenoon, A Grand Illusion, p. 121.

36 ›The White League‹, in: The Star, 8.11.1902, p. 6. See also ›Notes and Comments‹,in: The Star (weekly edition), 28.2.1903, p. 13; ›Notes and Comments‹, in: The Star(weekly edition), 11.4.1903, p. 14.

37 ›Labour and Taxation‹, in: The Star, 30.9.1902, p. 6.38 Quoted in ›The White League‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 17.1.1903, p. 21.39 ›The White League‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 17.1.1903, p. 21.


an illustration that ideological consistency is not a precondition for thepopularity of racist movements.

The Chinese labour question generated much more concern amongwhite workers than the question of Indian labour did at that time. Themine workers, forming the largest section of the white working class onthe Rand, were worried that the Chinese, in spite of being officially intro-duced to supplement unskilled African workers, would ultimately replacethe whites as skilled workers. This fear was based on the racialised per-ception of the Chinese as inherently superior to Africans. Thus, accord-ing to the radical journalist R. L. Outhwaite, »Chinese were not kafirs«.They »had a higher intellectual development, and were capable of im-itating the white man in every possible pursuit, they would, indeed, be›skilled‹ men«.40 Or, as the secretary of the miners’ union, Mather, ex-plained: »The kafir was [. . . ] reliable [. . . ] because he had never soughtto usurp the white man’s work«. In contrast, »[t]he moment the yellowman was brought into competition with themselves so soon would theybreak through any stipulation that might have been imposed, and seek tooust the whites from their position«.41

Thus, trade unionists and their supporters held many similar views ofthe Chinese as the employers who for the very same reasons, i.e. the al-leged superior ability and intelligence of the Chinese, advocated the useof Chinese labour. For skilled white mine workers, in contrast, these per-ceived qualities constituted a threat as they meant that the Chinese werelikely to ›usurp‹ positions that had hitherto been reserved for whites andthus threaten white workers’ status as a labour aristocracy. Those fearsalso need to be seen in the context of anti-capitalist sentiments amongsections of the white working class. Already before the war, some lead-ers of the labour movement had warned that a Transvaal under Britishrule would in fact be a country dominated by the mining companies, andthese predictions seemed to be confirmed by developments after the war,notably the Chinese labour scheme.42

Opponents of the Chinese labour scheme invoked not only Natal’sexperience with Indian immigrants but also North America’s and Aus-tralia’s experience with Chinese immigration. Already in 1901, when the

40 Quoted in: ›The Labour Question‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 4.4.1903, pp. 13-14.Similarly in the words of one trade unionist, »John Chinaman is clever and the best im-itator born in this troublous world.« Quoted in Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristocracy,p. 136.

41 ›The Labour Question‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 4.4.1903, pp. 13-14.42 For anti-capitalist sentiments on the Rand after the war, see ›Our South African Letter‹,

in: Labour Leader, 25.4.1903, p. 184.

174 Dagmar Engelken

introduction of the Chinese was a remote possibility, the South AfricanTypographical Union hinted: »Australia and America curse the ›yellowagony‹ which they suffer, and what occurred there should be a lesson toSouth Africa as it could easily be repeated.«43 And a resolution by theWitwatersrand Trade and Labour Council from January 1903 warned that»the experience of Australia and Natal shows us that the introduction ofIndian and Chinese coolies has been a step they have bitterly regretted«.44

Australian-born men, or men with at least some work experience inAustralia, played a prominent role in the agitation against Chinese labour,invoking their experience and injecting Australian ›white labourist‹ ideasinto the debate.45 These included some trade union leaders, most promi-nently Peter Whiteside, who was at that time general secretary of theTransvaal Engine Drivers’ and Firemen’s Association and president ofthe Witwatersrand Trades and Labour Council. Out of five presidents ofthe Council between 1903 and 1908, one was born in Australia and outof the other four, who were British-born, two had work experience inAustralia.46

Middle-class professionals with Australian background were also atthe forefront of the agitation against Chinese labour, including the jour-nalist Outhwaite, who, speaking to mine workers, claimed that duringhis time in Australia he had tried »to save a district from the ruin anddegradation brought about by the introduction of these Chinese«.47 An-other agitator, who had spent time in Australia as well as in the UnitedStates and New Zealand, invoked »Chinese foetid dens, with their crudeopium« and explained that »the Chinese were on a different plane fromthemselves« and that »[t]o meet Chinamen in competition they wouldhave to cancel ten centuries of civilisation«. His conclusion was that »[i]twould be better to let the grass grow in the streets of Johannesburg« thanto work the mines with Chinese labour.48

43 South African Typographical Journal, July 1901, p. 10, quoted in David Ticktin: WhiteLabour’s Attitude, p. 66.

44 ›Trades Council Deputation‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 24.1.1903, p. 20.45 Cf. Jonathan Hyslop: The Imperial Working Class Makes Itself ›White‹.46 Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristocracy, p. 485. See also Ernest Gitsham, James F.

Trembath: A First Account of Labour Organisation in South Africa, pp. 159-179, whoprovide brief biographical sketches of many important trade unionists; Jonathan Hys-lop: The Imperial Working Class Makes Itself ›White‹, p. 408.

47 ›The Labour Question‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 4.4.1903, pp. 13-4; on Outhwaite,see David Ticktin: White Labour’s Attitude, p. 72.

48 ›Asiatic Labour‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 4.4.1903, p. 22; see also ›Notes andComments‹, in: The Star, 7. 10. 1902, p. 6.


White Labour Policy and the Building of a White Settler Society

Australian influence was also evident in the discussion about possiblealternatives to Chinese labour. This question became more urgent as itbecame obvious that even a year or so after the end of the war Africanshad not returned to the mines in sufficient numbers. In July 1903, Mil-ner appointed the Transvaal Labour Commission to investigate the labourshortage. The public debate in this period increasingly focused on thetwo alternatives of Chinese or white unskilled labour. Towards the endof the year, the Commission produced two reports. The majority report,signed by ten commissioners, found a shortage of over 129 000 Africanlabourers in the industries of the Transvaal and concluded that »whitelabour cannot profitably compete with black« in »the lower fields of man-ual industry«. The minority report, authored by two commissioners, thetrade unionist Peter Whiteside and the baker and municipal politician J.W. Quinn, by contrast, advocated the increased employment of unskilledwhites on the mines to supplement or even replace Africans, and held thatthere was only a shortage of less than 35 000 African workers.49

The defenders of unskilled white labour included middle class profes-sionals, such as the mining manager Creswell and the Transvaal Commis-sioner for Mines, W. J. Wybergh, as well as trade union leaders such asWhiteside and Alexander Seaton Raitt, the latter the branch president ofthe Amalgamated Society of Engineers. A white labour policy was also,to some extent, advocated by the African Labour League, an organisationformed by large retailers from Johannesburg (including Quinn who be-came its president) but soon expanding beyond its original constituentsto incorporate professionals as well as trade union leaders. All these menhelped turn the question of Chinese labour versus unskilled white labourinto an essentially political question about the future development of thecolony as a ›white man’s country‹.

Most of the advocates of unskilled white labour were imperialists ofsome sort. Wybergh had been the president of the imperialistic SouthAfrican League before the war. Whiteside and Raitt, rather exception-ally among trade union leaders, had supported the British war effort andserved in the British army.50 The imperialist rhetoric with which theBritish war against the Boer republics had been legitimated was invoked,

49 Report quoted in Jack Simons, Ray Simons: Class and Colour in South Africa 1850-1950, p. 80. See also Robert Davies: Mining Capital, The State and Unskilled WhiteWorkers in South Africa, 1901-1913, p. 47; David Ticktin: White Labour’s Attitude,p. 72.

50 Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, p. 141.

176 Dagmar Engelken

for example, by Creswell when he affirmed the aim of the recent war toturn the Transvaal into »a British colony«, clarifying that »[b]y ›BritishColony‹ he did not mean a plantation« but »a colony of Englishmen doingtheir own work and dependent on their own labours for their own prosper-ity«. While conceding that the Transvaal’s »native population [. . . ] hadbeen and was of great help to develop our country«, Creswell warned of»the danger [. . . ] that we should depend on it«.51

Similarly, Whiteside felt that »the encouragement of Englishmen set-tling in this country [. . . was] of the very greatest importance [. . . ] fromthe point of view of making this a valuable portion of the British Em-pire [. . . ], and not allowing it to sink into the position of [. . . ] subtropicalcountries where the white man was the taskmaster and the bulk of thepopulation little better than slaves«. Therefore, according to Whiteside,»it was of the highest importance that they should make the bulk of thepopulation here white men, and white men who would do the work ofthe country«.52 Thus, Whiteside and Creswell viewed the alternative be-tween Chinese and white labour as one between the future developmentof the Transvaal as either a ›tropical plantation society‹ or a ›white settlersociety‹. The main model for the latter was the recently federated ›whiteAustralia‹.

In spite of the hostility Creswell’s white labour scheme had evokedamong the skilled white miners on his mine, and in spite of some scep-ticism about the economic feasibility of running the mines entirely withunskilled white labour, most trade unions on the Rand (with the notableexception of the Transvaal Miners’ Association) came to endorse a whitelabour policy as the alternative to the introduction of the Chinese. Thiswas partly because »Chinese labour [. . . ] became the immediate threat,and white labour was transformed [. . . ] into a rather abstract policy whichwas associated with opposition to the mining leaders«.53

Meanwhile, the meaning of the white labour policy came to be inter-preted more loosely, referring not only to Creswell’s scheme, but moregenerally to an expansion of white labour, not necessarily including un-skilled white labour. Thus, Raitt affirmed that »there was a good deal ofwork which could be done by [semi-skilled] white labour«, while con-ceding that »it was impossible to dream of working the mines with whitelabour at the present time«.54 In Raitt’s vision, Africans had a role to play

51 ›Mr. Creswell’s Departure‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 21.11.1903, p. 14; see alsoFrederick H. P. Creswell: The Chinese Labour Question from Within.

52 ›Native Labour Commission‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 3.10.1903, p. 25.53 Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, p. 409.54 Quoted ibid., pp. 408 f.


in industry, albeit at a subordinate level. For him the Cape Colony, where»the white race is boss and the native a willing worker«, provided a posi-tive example, in contrast to Natal, »a coolie warren; the white race drivento the wall, the native idle and sullen; the Colony regarded as an eye-sore in South Africa, by reason of the overflow of the parasitical cooliepopulation into the adjoining Colonies«.55

Another reason why the white labour policy became acceptable totrade unionists was that the question of white labour versus Chineselabour was increasingly transformed from a predominantly economic intoa political question.56 The true aim of the mining leaders in introducingChinese labour was, it was alleged, to establish a capitalist dictatorshipin the colony. As Raitt characterised the mining captains’ thinking: »thewhite man cannot be coerced, and the black man cannot be enslaved, sothey advocate the solution that is simple itself – ›Let’s get rid of themboth‹. Let us flood the country with Chinese, who will toil late and earlyfor next to nothing, who can be controlled, who want no vote [. . . ]. Thuswe drive the white man into poverty, and the black man to his kraal, andwho shall make us afraid?«57

Creswell played an important role in the politicisation of the Chineselabour question. He produced more evidence to support the claim that themining companies were resentful of unskilled white labour because theyfeared the emergence of a strong labour movement and the influence ofthe working class, by publishing a letter written to him by the Londonchairman of the mining house which controlled the mine that employedCreswell as manager. The letter relayed the widespread worries amongmining leaders that if large numbers of white labourers were employedon the mines »the same troubles will arise as are now prevalent in theAustralian colonies, viz. that the combination of the labouring classeswill become so strong as to be able to more or less dictate, not only onthe question of wages, but also on political questions by the power oftheir votes, when a Representative Government is established.«58 Afterthe publication of this letter, it was clear where Creswell’s sympathies lay,and consequently he retired from his job at Village Main Reef. This wasthe beginning of a rapprochement between himself and the labour move-ment, which ultimately resulted in Creswell joining the South AfricanLabour Party in 1910, and even becoming its parliamentary leader.59

55 ›The Chinese Labour Question‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 15.8.1903, p. 24.56 Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, pp. 409-412.57 ›The Chinese Labour Question‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 15.8.1903, p. 24.58 ›Native Labour Commission‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 26.9.1903, p. 21.59 Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristocracy, p. 152.

178 Dagmar Engelken

The aim of the African Labour League was to promote »by everypossible constitutional means, the use of white and African labour in themines and on the railways of this country«.60 Unlike the small retailersof the White League, the large Johannesburg retailers who founded theAfrican Labour League, rather than fearing possible economic competi-tion from Chinese immigrants, were concerned that if the Chinese were tobe housed in compounds and subjected to many restrictions, they wouldbe prevented from coming into town and spend money locally. WhileAfrican labour had a sure place in the vision of the League, its politicalaims were similar to those of white labour advocates such as Creswelland Whiteside, based on notions of democracy and relative equality – forwhites.61

The Shift in Public Opinion

While opposition to the Chinese labour scheme gradually built up in thefirst few months of 1903, from the middle of the year a shift in the publicmood was detectable. Partly, this shift may be attributed to the immensepolitical pressure exercised by the mining industry. A campaign in favourof Chinese labour was organised by the Labour Importation Association,a formally independent body which received financial backing from themining houses. This campaign was much criticised by trade unionists andothers, who claimed that workers feared to express their view at meetingsorganised by the Association, and that mine managements pressurisedtheir workers into signing petitions in favour of the importation of theChinese.62 While no doubt there is some substance in these criticisms,trade union representatives did have the chance speak up against Chineselabour at these meetings, and results of public votes showed a division ofopinion, suggesting that at least some workers dared express their viewsopenly.63

Mining companies were also blamed for the disastrous end of a massmeeting organised by the African Labour League in Johannesburg at the

60 ›African Labour League‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 30.5.1903, p. 13.61 Cf. ›The African Labour League‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 29.8.1903, p. 5.62 ›The African Labour League‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 29.8.1903, p. 5; ›To The

Editor of ›The Star‹‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 15.8.1903, p. 24; David Ticktin:White Labour’s Attitude, pp. 75 f.

63 Cf. David Ticktin: White Labour’s Attitude, p. 71; ›Labour Importation Association‹,in: The Star (weekly edition), 15.8.1903, p. 24; ›Labour Importation Association‹, in:The Star (weekly edition), 22.8.1903, pp. 21 f.; ›The Labour Question‹, in: The Star(weekly edition), 17.10.1903, p. 15; Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I,p. 423.


end of the year, which was heavily disrupted by what were believed tobe hired rowdies. There was indeed evidence that mining companies hadsanctioned or supported the interruption of the meeting. But at that timea large number of mine workers had already made up their minds thatChinese labour should be introduced to the Rand, and mine managementhad given their workers a half-holiday and organised trains to allow themto take part in the meeting. This event signified the end of the publiccampaign against Chinese labour for the time being.64

Probably more important in the shift in public mood than overt po-litical pressure was the deteriorating economic situation across the Rand.While initially many opponents of Chinese labour may have believed thatthe labour crisis was but a temporary phenomenon and that soon Africanswould be returning to the mines in sufficient numbers, in mid-1903 it be-came clear that this was not the case. Many skilled white workers werestill out of work or threatened with unemployment; furthermore, a largenumber of them had invested some of their savings in shares in the min-ing houses, which were falling due to the economic situation. The crisisin the industry also affected the wider economy of the Rand, leading in-creasing numbers of whites to believe that the introduction of the Chinesewas a ›necessary evil‹ to save them from economic ruin.65 The Cornishmine worker Joseph Tucker, who was working on the mines as an en-gine driver but became temporarily unemployed as a result of the crisis,probably spoke for many when he wrote to his son in February 1904: »byhaving chinees or other cheap coloured will make work for a lot of whites[. . . ] so which is best to employ 50 whites & 500 chinees on a mine orlet that mine remain Idle & them 50 white men starving«.66

The public acceptance of Chinese labour was facilitated by the re-strictions that were to be imposed upon the labourers, which wouldseverely curtail their freedom of movement and economic opportunities.The Chinese were to be excluded from a long list of mining jobs and werenot allowed to trade or engage in other economic activities; furthermore,they were to return to China at the end of their stipulated work period(with the possibility of renewing their three year contracts for up to three

64 David Ticktin: White Labour’s Attitude, p. 76; see also Arthur Mawby: Gold Miningand Politics, vol. I, pp. 428 f., who somewhat plays down the role of political bullyingtactics used by mining companies.

65 David Ticktin: White Labour’s Attitude, pp. 78 f.; Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristoc-racy, p. 112; Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, p. 415; ›Our TransvaalLetter‹ (letter by ›Kopje‹, dated Johannesburg, 15.7.1903), in: Labour Leader, 12. 9.1903, p. 291.

66 Norman E. Hannan (ed.): Letters of a South African Miner, p. 29.

180 Dagmar Engelken

years).67 They were also housed in compounds, which they were onlyallowed to leave during Sundays and holidays, and even then their ab-sence was strictly regulated. These restrictions, which distinguished theChinese labour scheme from the indentured Indian migration to Natal orthe Chinese immigration to North America, were intended to reassure thewhite population that the Chinese would not compete with them in anyarea of the economy, that contacts between whites and Chinese outsidethe mines would be minimised and that the Chinese would not form a per-manent presence in the colony after the end of their contracts. A speakerat a meeting organised by the Labour Importation Association summa-rized the belief that was underlying those restrictions: »The unfortunateexperiences of California and Australia were due to the fact that the Chi-nese were admitted without any restrictions.«68

In attempting to persuade white settlers of the necessity for Chineselabour, the Chamber of Mines president George Farrar emphasised thealleged common interest of all whites in restricting the rights of Asianimmigrants, thus seeking to separate the two issues of ›free‹ Asian im-migrants and indentured Chinese labour. Having »been in this country25 years, and [. . . ] seen the evil of the Indians holding land and tradingin competition with white people«, Farrar declared that »on no accountwhatever would I be a party to any legislation that permitted this«.69 Thisline of argument indeed seems to have persuaded many Rand Britons,who came to accept Chinese labour without giving up their general op-position to Asian immigrants.

Thus, at the end of June it was reported that »leading citizens« on theEast Rand, though they had »not wavered in the slightest« in their gen-eral hostility »to the Asiatic as citizen«, now held the opinion that, to getthe mines running, »Asiatics« should be imported, because the attemptsto obtain local labour had not been successful.70 In an example of ›inclu-sion by exclusion‹, harmony across different sections of the white Britishcommunity was restored by emphasising the common opposition to theAsian ›other‹.71 Unlike in Australia, however, the white community thusconstituted was not based on the exclusion of all non-white immigrant›others‹; on the contrary, some of these non-whites were even deemed

67 Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, pp. 458 f.68 Quoted in ›Labour Importation Association‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 22.8.1903,

pp. 21 f.; see also ›Chamber of Mines‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 20.6.1903, p. 27.69 ›The Labour Question‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 4. 4. 1903, pp. 13 f.70 ›Chinese Labour‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 27.6.1903, p. 14.71 For the functionality of inclusion by exclusion with regard to processes of racist soci-

etalisation see the essay by Wulf D. Hund in this volume.


necessary for the functioning of society and economy, but they had to beconfined to ›inferior‹ spaces in order not to threaten the system of whitesupremacy.

For many white workers the colour bar restrictions that formed anintegral part of the Chinese labour importation scheme acted to reassurethem that the Chinese would not directly compete with them. In negotia-tions with the Chamber of Mines, the trade unions successfully gained anextension of the originally proposed list of 30 jobs from which the Chi-nese were to be excluded, to 55, meaning that the Chinese were barrednot only from skilled but also from many semi-skilled occupations.72 Yet,white workers’ fears about Chinese ›encroachment‹ into ›white‹ domainsdid not cease altogether, and throughout the Chinese labour episode, tradeunions kept a close eye on possible infringements of the colour bar regu-lations.

The ›Cheap White Bogey‹ or the Chinese as ›Lesser Evil‹

Apart from economic crisis and unemployment, another reason whymany white mine workers came to accept or even advocate the intro-duction of Chinese labour was that they regarded the possible alterna-tive, unskilled white labour, as a much greater threat to their status andlivelihood. In 1902, miners launched a strike against Creswell’s whitelabour experiments. Many workers remained suspicious of his motives.As Tucker wrote to his son in September 1903: »Mr Creswell is no friendof the working man. He want to bring down wages & working men dontwant that.«73 Conceiving of themselves as sojourners rather than settlers,most overseas mine workers were more concerned with their immedi-ate economic situation than with the future of the colony as a ›whiteman’s country‹; they did not share the wider political outlook of men likeCreswell or Whiteside, or, indeed, Milner. Some workers may also havebeen suspicious of the political credentials of some of the ›anti-Chinese‹spokespersons, a number of whom had been prominent imperialists be-fore and during the war.74

Leaders of the mining industry were able to exploit white miners’fears of unskilled white labour in their agitation for the Chinese labourscheme. Thus, Chamber of Mines president Farrar told his audience that,

72 Arthur Mawby, Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, p. 459.73 Letter dated 12. 9. 1903, printed in: Norman E. Hannan (ed.): Letters of a South African

Miner, p. 32.74 ›The Socialist Outlook in the Transvaal‹, in: Labour Leader, 16.1.1904, p. 19.

182 Dagmar Engelken

if »unskilled white labour were to be largely used« it would be nec-essary to »find the cheapest class of unskilled white labour [. . . ] fromall the sources of Europe«, with the »inevitable result [. . . ] that thisunskilled labour would very soon become skilled labour and competeagainst you.«75 Evidence suggests that this line of argument was verysuccessful in making white mine workers assent to the importation of theChinese as the lesser of two evils. Thus Outhwaite attributed any existing»pro-Chinese sentiment« to the »cheap white bogey«.76 And a ›LabourLeader‹ correspondent suggested that »[t]he average miner rather prefersto be safe from competition by having Chinese under legislative enact-ments, than by having a huge number of unskilled whites gradually be-coming skilled, to step into his shoes«.77

The underground miners, rather than the artisans, appear to have beenparticularly hostile to the white labour policy. Indeed, unlike most of theartisans’ unions, the TMA did not endorse a white labour policy in anyform. Creswell attributed the miners’ hostility towards the employmentof unskilled whites to a »slave making instinct« which »chiefly affectsthe miners [. . . ] who like the system which enables them to sit down andsmoke their pipes while niggers earn money for them«.78 Elaine Katz hasconvincingly criticised the widely held contemporary view that the whiteunderground miners were idle and unproductive,79 and it is more persua-sive to attribute the miners’ hostility towards unskilled white labour totheir particularly vulnerable situation within the industry. The artisans,making up about sixty percent of the white workforce on the mines,had a high level of job protection through a system of apprenticeship,whereas the underground miners, about thirty percent of the white work-force, were in a much more precarious position. In their country of origin,and in mines around the world, they had worked as ›all-round men‹, buton the Rand they were subject to a process of job fragmentation in whichthey were increasingly confined to supervisory tasks while most of themanual tasks, apart from blasting, were delegated to Africans. As a re-sult of this, overseas miners were particularly fearful that ultimately theywould be replaced altogether by cheaper workers.80

Initially the miners’ union had been prominently involved in the

75 ›The Labour Question‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 4.4.1903, pp. 13 f.76 ›Why the Chinese are coming to the Transvaal‹, in: Labour Leader, 20.5.1904, p. 81.77 ›The Socialist Outlook in the Transvaal‹, in: Labour Leader, 16.1.1904, p. 19.78 Quoted in Robert Davies: Capital, State and White Labour in South Africa, p. 89.79 Elaine Katz: The White Death, pp. 67 ff.80 Elaine Katz: The Underground Route to Mining; id.: A Trade Union Aristocracy, pp. 71

ff.


protests against the Chinese labour scheme, fearing that the Chinesewould become skilled and replace the overseas miners, but ultimatelymost miners seem to have regarded unskilled white labour as the greaterthreat. Indeed, the ›white labour experiments‹ started after the war ledto some Afrikaners acquiring blasting certificates and thus being allowedto work as ›skilled‹ miners. And at the end of 1903, some Italians werebrought in under contract to be employed in the same positions as theskilled British miners – an action which nearly resulted in a miners’strike.81 In 1906, mining companies would make a more systematic at-tempt to train Afrikaners, in order to replace the more expensive overseasminers. It is unlikely that the British miners would have been replaced bycheaper whites altogether, because, due to the high death rate from sili-cosis, there was a constant shortage of skilled miners. However, British-born miners perceived such actions as a serious threat and they wereready to fight every such attack militantly, not least because they »re-garded their wages as danger money«, compensating them for the mortaldanger of silicosis.82

The miners’ fear of unskilled white labour helps to explain why theleaders of the TMA became advocates of Chinese labour as the ›lesserevil‹ sooner or later (though the TMA itself remained opposed to the in-troduction of the Chinese).83 But opposition to unskilled white labourwas not entirely confined to the underground miners, as the example ofthe engine driver Joseph Tucker shows. It appears that due to the specificracial division of labour on the Rand, a ›white labour policy‹ accordingto the Australian model did not have the support of many, perhaps a ma-jority of white mine workers, and the fate of the Transvaal’s anti-Chinesemovement turned out to be quite different from that of its Australian orCalifornian predecessors.

The Revival of the Chinese Labour Controversy

Chinese labourers started arriving on the Rand in June 1904. In 1906their numbers had reached over 50 000, most of whom were employedunderground. The labourers did not prove as ›docile‹ as they had beenexpected to be; labour conflicts, often violent in nature, were common,

81 ›Italian Miners on the Rand‹, in: The Star (weekly edition), 7.11.1903, pp. 10 f.82 Elaine Katz: The White Death, p. 112; for the preceding see id.: The Underground Route

to Mining, pp. 470, 477 ff.83 See Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. I, p. 416, for a list of the different

TMA leaders and their positions on Chinese labour at particular times.

184 Dagmar Engelken

particularly in the early period, as were ›desertions‹.84 Nonetheless, dur-ing the initial period after the arrival of the first Chinese, there was littlepublic criticism of the scheme. The economic situation improved, creat-ing more jobs for skilled white workers. The employment of unskilledwhite labour was gradually phased out, leading to a rapid decline in theratio of white to non-white workers.85 Yet at the end of 1905, there werestill over 2 000 unskilled whites employed on the mines.86

At the forefront of the renewed protest against Chinese labour werenot the Rand British, but the rural white Afrikaner population, repre-sented by their party Het Volk which had been founded in 1904.87 Theirprotest was triggered by the desertion of the Chinese and resulting inci-dents in the countryside such as burglaries, and particularly the murderof a white farmer in August 1905, which led to much anxiety amongthe farming population.88 Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister Bal-four resigned and the government called a halt to any further importationof Chinese labourers until the granting to the Transvaal of responsiblegovernment, which would make the final decision about the future ofthe scheme. However, it emerged that an extra 14 700 licences had al-ready been granted, which the government, for legal reasons, chose notto revoke.89 During the British election campaign of December 1905 andJanuary 1906, opposition to what was called ›Chinese slavery‹ on theRand figured prominently, significantly contributing to the Liberal land-slide victory.

Insecurity over the future of Chinese labour generated by the LiberalParty’s policy led to a fall in the mining companies’ shares on the stockmarkets, contributing to an economic crisis in the Transvaal. As a result,

84 There is no space in this article to discuss the experience and agency of the Chineselabourers. For this aspect, see Gary Kynoch: Controlling the Coolies; id.: ›Your Peti-tioners are in Mortal Terror‹; Peter Richardson, Coolies and Randlords; Melanie Yap,Dianne Leong Man: Colour, Confusion and Concessions (chap. 5). The relationship be-tween white supervisory miners and their Chinese or African subordinates was oftencharacterised by violence. See T. Dunbar Moodie: Maximum Average Violence; KeithBreckenridge: The Allure of Violence; Jack Simons, Ray Simons: Class and Colour inSouth Africa, p. 86; Melanie Yap, Dianne Leong Man: Colour, Confusion and Conces-sions, pp. 118 f.; Elaine Katz: The White Death, p. 58; John Higginson: Privileging theMachines, pp. 20, 23 f.

85 From 1:5.3 in July 1904 to 1:8.5 in June 1905 – cf. John Ambrose Reeves: ChineseLabour in South Africa, p. 201.

86 Cf. Peter Richardson: Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal, p. 177.87 See Noel G. Garson: ›Het Volk‹: The Botha-Smuts Party in the Transvaal.88 Cf. John Ambrose Reeves: Chinese Labour in South Africa, pp. 214, 231, 221, 223.89 Samuel Ian Gordon: The Chinese Labour Controversy in British Politics and Policy-

Making, pp. 257-264.


thousands of white workers, alongside Rand Britons of all classes, joinedprotests meetings and delegations to attack Liberal policies and defendthe Chinese labour scheme. However, opinion among Rand Britons aboutthe future of Chinese labour was divided and the economic crisis seemsto have led to an increase in anti-capitalist sentiment.

With impending elections in the colony, the Chinese labour questionplayed a significant role in the formation of political parties and coali-tions. Labour organisations, which had remained steadfast in their oppo-sition to Chinese labour but tended to avoid the issue in public from early1904, started voicing their critique again in 1905. Yet, until mid-1906labour leaders had to be careful in mentioning the issue when addressinga wider audience, as many white workers continued to believe that theirjobs depended on the continuous employment of the Chinese. The moodchanged in the third quarter of 1906 when the stock market collapsed andthe number of jobs for white workers declined, while gold productionand the number of Chinese labourers continued to rise. This developmentlent credibility to the argument »that the increased gold production wasbeing achieved by Chinese replacing whites and thus that Chinese labourwas reducing white employment opportunity, and generally that the entireeconomic depression was being engineered by the mining houses«.90

Indeed, the longer the Chinese worked on the mines, the more skilledthey became, and trade unions were concerned that Chinese were in-creasingly employed on skilled jobs, in breach of the Labour ImportationOrdinance, and indeed that ultimately the Chinese would replace whiteworkers altogether.91 Changes in the production process also led to a de-crease in the ratio between white and non-white workers, and at leastfrom 1907, Chinese ›boss boys‹ were taking on supervisory tasks, tech-nically complying with the law as the white miner continued to be thegeneral supervisor.92

The labour movement’s opposition to the prolonged employment ofChinese labour was an important issue in its electoral cooperation withthe Boer party Het Volk, helping to bridge the ethnic division amongthe Transvaal’s white population and undermining imperialistic hopes forBritish political domination of the colony.93 In 1906, both groups sought

90 Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. II, pp. 769 f.; for the preceding see ibid.,pp. 773 f., 805 ff.

91 John Ambrose Reeves: Chinese Labour in South Africa, pp. 231 f.; Elaine Katz: A TradeUnion Aristocracy, pp. 136 ff.

92 Peter Richardson: Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal, pp. 180 f.; Elaine Katz: ATrade Union Aristocracy, p. 127.

93 Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. II, pp. 779 f. This cooperation was pre-

186 Dagmar Engelken

cooperation on a common anti-mining houses and anti-Chinese platform,helping Het Volk to assert its anti-capitalist image.94

The alliance was joined by the white labour ideologists Creswell andWybergh, who founded a new political organisation, the Reform Club,in 1906. The Responsible Government Association, a party of influentialRand Britons, turned away from its advocacy of Chinese labour, pavingthe way for an alliance with Creswell’s Reform Club and another smallerorganisation to form the National Association. This party not only calledfor an end to importation and repatriation at the end of the labourers’original three year period, but also provided a platform for Creswell andWybergh to promote their white labour policy and attack the mining lead-ers.95

In spite of this cross-ethnic and cross-class political alliance, attemptsto rally public opinion around the issue during the election campaign ul-timately proved unsuccessful, at least as far as the English-speaking pop-ulation was concerned. Again, as in 1903, a counter-campaign was ableto convince a majority of the Rand British public of the necessity of Chi-nese labour. This time it was organised by the Progressive Association,the largest of the Rand British political parties, which had the backingof most mining houses. In leaflets and public meetings, the Progressivesargued that before the Chinese could be repatriated, a substitute had to befound, and that otherwise their repatriation would be economically disas-trous and would even result in the closing of mines so that »thousands ofwhite men would be thrown out of employment«.96 In addition to thesealarmist claims, mining companies seem to have found other ways of ex-erting political pressure, and did not shy away from employing bullyingtactics.97

Creswell, alongside his allies Wybergh and Outhwaite, came underattack at public meetings, as hostility against the British government, heldto be responsible for the economic crisis on the Rand, was transferredonto them. Creswell, who had helped the British opponents of Chinese

ceded by some mutual understanding in the 1890s between the republican governmentof the Transvaal and sections of the labour movement.

94 Noel G. Garson: ›Het Volk‹, p. 127.95 Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. II, pp. 812 ff., 816 f.96 ›Progressive Campaign‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 11.12.1906, p. 7; ›Springs Progres-

sives‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 1.12.1906, p. 8; ›On the East Rand‹, in: The RandDaily Mail, 17.12.1906, p. 3; ›The Independent Labour Party in the Transvaal‹, by A.Crawford, in: Labour Leader, 4.1.1907, p. 522.

97 ›A Lively Meeting in South Africa‹, by W. Wallace Lorimer, Labour Leader,21.12.1906, p. 486; ›Business and Politics‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 13.12.1906, p. 5;›Mr. Pim’s expulsion‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 17.12.1906, p. 5.


labour both in 1904 and during the British election campaign, was at-tacked for his role in the British election, and particularly for allegedlyjoining British Liberals in denunciating the Chinese labour scheme as asystem of ›slavery‹.98 Again, Creswell’s white labour policy caused con-troversy, and in spite of his evident sympathy with trade unionism and hisalliance with prominent labour leaders, many white workers continuedto believe that his aim was to decrease white workers’ wages. At pub-lic meetings he was »hailed with cries of ›Five bob a day‹, and a minercalled him »one of the enemies of the industry and of this country«, al-leging that Creswell’s policy, if implemented, would force the miners toemigrate.99

Again the tactics of influencing public opinion in favour of Chineselabour worked, and as the election campaign progressed, the other partiesgradually modified their policies on the future of Chinese labour, movingever closer to the Progressive party’s position of ›substitute first‹. At theend of December 1906, a Het Volk candidate speaking to »a large andfavourably inclined audience« on the West Rand, declared that »[i]n re-gard to Chinese labour, he would not tell the mine-owner to get rid ofthem until he saw his way to replace them. That would kill the goose thatlaid the golden egg«.100

Within the National Association there had been dissent about Chi-nese labour all along, but at the end of the year even a candidate who was»against the principle of Chinese in this country«, declared that »he wasgoing to keep his mind open if sufficient labour could not be found«.101

Even the candidates of the Labour Representation Committee, who hadpreviously been steadfast in their opposition to Chinese labour, shiftedtheir position, calling »the immediate repatriation of the Chinese« with-out a »satisfactory substitute« »suicidal«.102 Rather than being »shippedoff at once«, the Chinese should gradually be replaced with Africans whowould return to the mines in greater numbers if conditions and pay were

98 ›Reformers Run Riot‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 14.12.1906, p. 3; ›Reaping the Whirl-wind‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 22.12.1906, p. 8; ›Labour and Lies‹, in: The RandDaily Mail, 24.12.1906, p. 8.

99 ›Reaping the Whirlwind‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 22.12.1906, p. 8; ›On the WestRand‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 7.12.1906, p. 4.

100 ›On the West Rand‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 29.12.1906, p. 8.101 ›Election Campaign‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 31.12.1906, p. 8.102 Quoted in Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. II, p. 884; see also ›On the

East Rand‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 29.12.1906, p. 8.

188 Dagmar Engelken

improved.103 By the end of the year, ›The Rand Daily Mail‹ declared the»Chinese labour question« to be »dead«.104

The End of Chinese Labour and the Future of White Labour

The election of 20 February 1907 brought a comfortable victory for HetVolk, but on the Rand the Progressive Association won a large majorityof the seats albeit only a minority of the votes. Unsurprisingly, Labourdid best in areas inhabited by large numbers of workers of British ori-gin, yet even in those districts the Progressives gained a considerableproportion of the vote, exposing the strong political divisions among theRand Britons which only partially reflected divisions of class.105 Thenew cabinet, composed of four Het Volk and two National Associationmembers, soon after coming to office confirmed the end of the Chineselabour scheme and the repatriation of all Chinese at the expiry of theircontracts, so that the number of Chinese on the Rand would graduallydecline and the last labourers would leave the colony in 1910. The gov-ernment was also committed to securing a stable labour supply and thusaided the industry with the establishment of an effective recruitment sys-tem for African workers. Chinese labour had already contributed to theundermining of Africans’ bargaining power, so that Africans’ wages werelower than before the war.106

But with the end of the Chinese labour scheme in sight, mining com-panies became concerned with finding new ways to cut costs. Proposalswere now voiced, even publicly, to reduce the proportion of white minersand decrease white workers’ wages.107 The fragmentation of the jobs ofthe white overseas miners was accelerated by the employment of the Chi-nese, who stayed on the mines for longer periods than the Africans andwere hence more likely to acquire the skills and experience to take overincreasingly skilled tasks. According to Archie Crawford of the local In-dependent Labour Party, the mining leaders intended »to teach the art ofmining to the Kaffirs and Chinese with a view of dispensing ultimatelywith the white man as a factor in the production of the mineral wealth of

103 ›Independent Labour‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 6.12.1906, p. 8.104 ›Commonsense and Chinese‹, in: The Rand Daily Mail, 29.12.1906, p. 6.105 Arthur Mawby: Gold Mining and Politics, vol. II, pp. 914-930.106 Alan H. Jeeves: Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, p. 72; John Am-

brose Reeves: Chinese Labour in South Africa, pp. 263 f.; Melanie Yap, Dianne LeongMan: Colour, Confusion and Concessions, p. 131; Peter Richardson: Chinese MineLabour in the Transvaal, pp. 176 ff.

107 David Yudelman: The Emergence of Modern South Africa, p. 71.


this country. The miner has evolved from the actual worker to the meresupervisor, and is now becoming superfluous«.108

In May 1907, a strike broke out among white miners at Knights’ Deepmine, which was triggered by changes in the production process whichincreased the supervisory duties of the white miners. The miners’ unionclaimed these changes had been made possible thanks to Chinese labour,and regarded them as part of a »freezing-out process« against them-selves. Apart from this, silicosis was at the heart of the strike, as minersfeared that an increase in supervisory duties would further shorten theirlives, »which [. . . ] is only from five to seven years on average« from themoment of commencing underground work on the Rand.109 The strikespread across the Rand and lasted until July. The employers showed anuncompromising stand, by keeping the mines running and letting Chineseand Africans do skilled work without the usual white supervision, and byintroducing between 2 000 and 3 000 unskilled Afrikaners as strikebreak-ers, to act as supervisors. The strike was defeated with the help of the HetVolk-led government, which called in British imperial troops and policeforces. The strike provided a convenient road into mining for Afrikaners,many of whom continued to be employed on the mines after its end, andin the following years the number of Afrikaner supervisors, less skilledand on lower wages than the overseas miners, increased further.110

Initially, Het Volk had sympathised with the idea of unskilled whitelabour on the mines as a solution to the high unemployment amongAfrikaners. To placate the advocates of a white labour policy, in May1907 the government appointed the Transvaal Mining Commission, to beled by Creswell. The majority report advocated Creswell’s white labourscheme, but it was never implemented. However, as during the post-war›white labour experiments‹, some unskilled whites were employed onmines between about 1907 and 1910 in another temporary scheme of un-employment relief.111 Yet, ultimately Het Volk came to accept the viewthat unskilled white labour on the mines was not a long-term realistic op-tion, being too expensive and inefficient. In any case, the white labourpolicy »was never a serious possibility and was more important for itsrhetorical than its actual impact«.112

108 ›Letter from the Transvaal‹, in: Labour Leader, 14. 6. 1907, p. 891.109 Ibid.110 Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristocracy, pp. 137 f.; Alan H. Jeeves: Migrant Labour in

South Africa’s Mining Economy, p. 69.111 Robert Davies: Capital, State and White Labour in South Africa, p. 103.112 David Yudelman: The Emergence of Modern South Africa, p. 62. On the commission,

see also Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristocracy, pp. 146 ff.

190 Dagmar Engelken

In September 1907, the Het Volk government created the office of In-spector of White Labour, appointing the trade unionist Raitt to the post,thereby partially incorporating the labour movement into the state. Thetask of the Inspector was to »make known any case in which employersor trade unions hinder the use of white labour«.113 The ›solution‹ to the›poor white problem‹, however, was to lie outside the mining industry.In reaction to large scale protests by both British and Afrikaner unem-ployed, early in 1907 Johannesburg Town Council, subsidised partly bythe new Het Volk Government, created hundreds of jobs for unemployedwhites by replacing blacks on public works.114 From this period onwards,the state’s attention turned towards creating jobs for ›poor whites‹ in in-dustries other than mining – at the expense of non-whites, who were ex-cluded from these jobs – while the ratio between whites and non-whitesin the mining industry continued to decline.

While ›colour‹ was no doubt the most important signifier of socialstatus in the Transvaal, and all white workers shared a concern with pro-tecting their position from ›encroachment‹ by non-white workers, the di-visions within the white working class between different occupations,between skilled and unskilled, and between British and Afrikaners meantthat white workers remained divided in their perspective towards the›labour question‹. The important role of Africans in the country’s econ-omy, the deeply ingrained racial division of labour, and the specific eco-nomic constraints of the gold mining industry meant that Australian-style›white labourism‹ had no chance of being implemented in the Transvaalor, indeed, in South Africa as a whole. Nonetheless, the Chinese labourcontroversy left a significant political and ideological legacy. Occurringduring the crucial period of post-war Reconstruction, the issue helpedcatalyse the formation of political parties and alliances. Of particular sig-nificance for the history of the white labour movement was the alliancethat was formed during the campaign between middle class professional›white labour‹ advocates such as Creswell and Wybergh, and the artisans’unions. Both Creswell and Wybergh joined the South African LabourParty in 1910 and assumed important positions within it, Creswell evenbecoming its parliamentary leader; and the Mining Commission Reportof 1908 »formed the basis of the white labour policy of the South AfricanLabour Party«.115

113 Quoted in Robert Davies: Capital, State and White Labour in South Africa, p. 103.114 Charles Van Onselen: Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand,

vol. II, pp. 137 f.115 Elaine Katz: A Trade Union Aristocracy, p. 151.


References

The Labour LeaderThe Rand Daily MailThe StarThe Star (weekly edition)

Beinart, William: Twentieth Century South Africa. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2001.

Breckenridge, Keith: The Allure of Violence. Men, Race and Masculinity on theSouth African Goldmines, 1900-1950. In: Journal of Southern African Stud-ies, 24, 1998, 4, pp. 669-693.

Cammack, Diana: The Rand at War 1899-1902. The Witwatersrand and theAnglo-Boer War. London: James Currey 1990.

Creswell, F. H. P.: The Chinese Labour Question From Within. Facts, Criticisms,and Suggestions. London: P. S. King & Son 1905.

Cronin, Kathryn: Colonial Casualties. Chinese in Early Victoria. Carlton: Mel-bourne University Press 1982.

Davies, Robert: Capital, State and White Labour in South Africa 1900-1960.An Historical Materialist Analysis of Class Formation and Class Relations.Brighton: The Harvester Press 1979.

—: Mining Capital, The State and Unskilled White Workers in South Africa,1901-1913. In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 3, 1976, 1, pp. 41-69.

Denoon, Donald J. N.: A Grand Illusion. The Failure of Imperial Policy in theTransvaal Colony During the Period of Reconstruction 1900-1905. London:Longman 1973.

—: The Transvaal Labour Crisis, 1901-1906. In: Journal of African History, 7,1967, 3, pp. 481-494.

Engelken, Dagmar: The Labour Movement and the Chinese Labour Question inBritain and South Africa, 1900-1914. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Colchester:University of Essex 2010.

Freund, Bill: Insiders and Outsiders. The Indian Working Class of Durban 1910-1990. London: James Currey 1995.

Garson, Noel G.: ›Het Volk‹. The Botha-Smuts Party in the Transvaal, 1904-11.In: The Historical Journal, 9, 1966, 1, pp. 101-132.

Gitsham, Ernest, James F. Trembath: A First Account of Labour Organisation inSouth Africa. Durban: E. P. & Commercial Printing Co 1926.

Gordon, Samuel Ian: The Chinese Labour Controversy in British Politics andPolicy-Making. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Coleraine: New University of Ul-ster 1987.

Hannan, Norman E. (ed.): Letters of a South African Miner, 1898-1904. Writtenby Joseph Tucker to His Son, Joseph Wherry Tucker. Romford: N. E. Hannan1981.

Harries, Patrick: Work, Culture and Identity. Migrant Laborers in Mozambiqueand South Africa, c. 1860-1910. London: James Currey 1994.

192 Dagmar Engelken

Higginson, John: Privileging the Machines. American Engineers, Indentured Chi-nese and White Workers in South Africa’s Deep Level Gold Mines, 1902-1907. In: International Review of Social History, 52, 2007, 1, pp. 1-34.

Huttenback, Robert A.: Gandhi in South Africa. London: Cornell UniversityPress 1971.

Hyslop, Jonathan: The Imperial Working Class Makes Itself ›White‹. WhiteLabourism in Britain, Australia, and South Africa Before the First World War.In: Journal of Historical Sociology, 12, 1999, 4, pp. 398-421.

Jeeves, Alan H.: Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy. TheStruggle for the Gold Mines’ Labour Supply 1890-1920. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press 1985.

Johnstone, Frederick A.: Class, Race and Gold. A Study of Class Relations andRacial Discrimination in South Africa. London: Routledge & K. Paul 1976.

Katz, Elaine: A Trade Union Aristocracy. A History of White Workers in theTransvaal and the General Strike of 1913. Johannesburg: University of theWitwatersrand 1976.

—: Revisiting the Origins of the Industrial Colour Bar in the Witwatersrand GoldMining Industry, 1891-1899. In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 25,1999, 1, pp. 73-97.

—: The Underground Route to Mining. Afrikaners and the Witwatersrand GoldMining Industry from 1902 to the 1907 Miners’ Strike. In: Journal of AfricanHistory, 36, 1995, 3, pp. 467-489.

—: The White Death. Silicosis on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines 1886-1910.Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press 1994.

Krikler, Jeremy: Revolution from Above, Rebellion from Below. The AgrarianTransvaal at the Turn of the Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993.

—: White Rising. The 1922 Insurrection and Racial Killing in South Africa.Manchester: Manchester University Press 2005.

Kynoch, Gary: Controlling the Coolies. Chinese Mineworkers and the Strug-gle for Labor in South Africa, 1904-1910. In: The International Journal ofAfrican Historical Studies, 36, 2003, 2, pp. 309-329.

—: ›Your Petitioners are in Mortal Terror‹. The Violent World of ChineseMineworkers in South Africa, 1904-1910. In: Journal of Southern AfricanStudies, 31, 2005, 3, pp. 531-546.

Lange, Lis: White, Poor and Angry. White Working Class Families in Johannes-burg. Aldershot: Ashgate 2003.

Markey, Raymond: Race and Organised Labour in a White Settler Society. TheAustralian Case, 1850-1901. In: Racism and the Labour Market: HistoricalStudies, ed. by Marcel van der Linden, Jan Lucassen. Berlin: Peter Lang 1995,pp. 345-372.

Marks, Shula, Stanley Trapido: Lord Milner and the South African State. In: His-tory Workshop, 8, 1979, pp. 50-80.

Markus, Andrew: Fear and Hatred. Purifying Australia and California 1850-1901.Sydney: Hale & Iremonger 1979.


Mawby, Arthur A.: Gold Mining and Politics – Johannesburg 1900-1907. 2 vol.Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press 2000.

Moodie, T. Dunbar: Maximum Average Violence. Underground Assaults on theSouth African Gold Mines, 1913-1965. In: Journal of Southern African Stud-ies, 31, 2005, 3, pp. 547-67.

Reeves, John Ambrose: Chinese Labour in South Africa, 1901-1910. Unpub-lished MA Thesis. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand 1954.

Richardson, Peter: Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal. London: Macmillan1982.

—: Coolies and Randlords. The North Randfontein Chinese Miners’ ›Strike‹ of1905. In: Journal of Southern African Studies, 2, 1976, 2, pp. 151-177.

Richardson, Peter, Jean Jacques Van-Helten: The Gold Mining Industry in theTransvaal 1886-99. In: The South African War, ed. by Peter Warwick. Har-low: Longman 1980, pp. 18-36.

Roediger, David: The Wages of Whiteness. Race and the Making of the AmericanWorking Class. London: Verso 1991.

Simons, Jack and Ray: Class and Colour in South Africa 1850-1950. London:International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa 1983.

Swan, Maureen: Gandhi. The South African Experience. Johannesburg: RavanPress 1985.

Swanson, Maynard W.: The Sanitation Syndrome. Bubonic Plague and UrbanNative Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900-09. In: Segregation and Apartheid inTwentieth-Century South Africa, ed. by William Beinart, Saul Dubow. Lon-don: Routledge 1995, pp. 25-42.

Ticktin, David: White Labour’s Attitude, 1902-1904, towards the Importation ofChinese Labourers by the Transvaal Chamber of Mines. In: Africa Seminar:Collected Papers, ed. by the University of Cape Town, Centre for AfricanStudies. Cape Town: Centre for African Studies, 1978, pp. 64-93.

van Onselen, Charles: Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwa-tersrand 1886-1914. 2 vol. (1: New Babylon; 2: New Nineveh). Johannesburg:Ravan Press 1982.

Yap, Melanie, Dianne Leong Man: Colour, Confusion and Concessions. The His-tory of the Chinese in South Africa. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press1996.

Yudelman, David: The Emergence of Modern South Africa. State, Capital and theIncorporation of Organized Labor on the South African Gold Fields, 1902-1939. London: Greenwood Press 1983.

Racializing Transnationalism

The Ford Motor Company and White Supremacyfrom Detroit to South Africa

Elizabeth Esch

Abstract: By the end of the 1920s, the Ford Motor Company had become oneof the largest transnational U.S. firms, manufacturing and assembling cars on sixcontinents. This article considers one dimension of Ford’s globalization: it con-siders the relationship of the company’s race-making practices in Detroit to theembrace of its arrival in South Africa by modernizing elites there. In additionto Ford, the U.S.-based Carnegie Commission offered its services to the SouthAfrican state in the process of researching and resolving concerns over a socialpanic named the ›poor white problem‹. This article challenges the idea that Fordoperated as a universalizing force on workers in the emergence of mass societies,and instead argues for the centrality of race and white supremacy in the organi-zation of mass production and consumption before World War Two.

In a short but provocative 2008 article Laura Briggs, Gladys McCormickand J.T. Way argue that historians wishing to work from the framework oftransnationalism should use it as Joan Scott suggested more than twentyyears ago that scholars use gender: as a useful category of historical anal-ysis. These authors argue »first for a genealogy that centers some mean-ings of transnational and displaces others« and, second, for a way of con-ceptualizing the »transnational leaning on an analogy with the intellec-tual work of feminists in thinking gender«. They »want to suggest thattransnationalism can do to the nation what gender did to sexed bodies:provide the conceptual acid that denaturalizes all their deployments, com-pelling us to acknowledge that the nation, like sex, is a thing contested,interrupted and always shot through with contradiction«. And they con-clude: »the notion of the transnational enables us to center certain kindsof historical events as the emphatically non-national but indisputably im-portant processes that they are«.1

1 Laura Briggs, Gladys McCormick, John T. Way: Transnationalism, p. 628 f.

196 Elizabeth Esch

Here the authors include as examples colonialism, liberalism, inter-national divisions of labor including sexed labor and other frequentlysite specific – yet also dynamic and border crossing forms of organizingpower, labor and economy. Still, what are called transnational histories oractors tend to be also subnational – groups of socially categorized peopleor interests – whose actions are propelled in often quite direct ways bythe imperatives of ›the national‹ even as they have far more specific ma-terialities. In this sense, the call to not merely decenter the national butto deconstruct it allows us to consider how so-called national character-istics like civility and development are used to rank peoples and places inglobal hierarchies. Examining the peculiar, particular and potent role thatrace and white supremacy have played in bringing such hierarchies intoexistence is essential.

Briggs, McCormick and Way further endorse the legitimacy of con-sidering politics as not only a category of investigation that shapes howwe think about the past but also as a guide to how we make use of thehistory we write today. In this sense, we can think about the work of W.E. B. Du Bois – arguably one of the first transnational scholars of U.S.history – and imagine our own work as consistent with the kind of callto arms present in his work. When in 1903 Du Bois wrote »The problemof the 20th century is the problem of the color line« he was making anargument about history and trying to carve out space for social change (ifnot actual social justice).

The connection Du Bois made between the history he wrote and hisvarious engagements with struggles against white supremacy shaped thereception of his work in both the United States and in the world. Equallyimportant but less well known is the second part of the »color line« sen-tence: »the relation of the darker to the lighter races in Asia and Africa,in America and in the islands of the sea«. In describing it as a »prob-lem« Du Bois meant not merely that the color line was an institution tobe attacked – though of course he argued for the necessity of fightingracial segregation and colonial rule. Du Bois was also asserting that thestructural role of race in organizing human social, economic and politicalexistence in the world needed to be understood as a central paradigm of20th century relations of power. He understood the color line as an inter-national divide, ordering a hierarchy in which whites ruled over so-called›lesser races‹ in a fully colonized world.2

How that color line worked in concert with, inside of and dialecticallywith what we might call the globalizing commercial and industrial mar-

2 W. E. B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk, p. 11.

Racializing Transnationalism 197

ketplace frames this analysis of the Ford Motor Company, transnation-alism and white supremacy in the years between the World Wars. Ford’stechniques, given the stature of being both scientific and socially progres-sive, played a vanguard role in the spread of not only U.S. capital but alsoits cultural influences. Ford is the perfect site from which to bring race tobear on the study of transnational capital because of its precocious globalsweep but also because the ›Fordist‹ project was often seen as the mostperfect expression of a universalizing system. That Ford actively workedto racially designate, separate, and segregate workers should change howwe think about whether the system called Fordism really existed in itscelebrated form in this period.

Such analysis can be difficult, as company ideology and practice wascontradictory in many ways. On one hand, Henry Ford spoke often aboutthe possibility of creating globally interchangeable workers. »An opera-tion in our plant in Barcelona has to be carried through exactly as in De-troit«; »a man on the assembly line in Detroit ought to be able to step intothe assembly line at Oklahoma City or São Paulo, Brazil«, Ford wrote in1926.3 On the other hand, Henry Ford and the men with whom he ranhis company practiced and promoted viciously divisive ideas about race,gender, national and cultural difference, viewing some people as deserv-ing of industrial jobs, of access to consumer goods and the ›civilization‹those goods represented and others as being not ready, temporarily or per-manently, for such things. For Ford, only some men from Detroit shouldbe able to step into the assembly line in Oklahoma City or São Paulo.4

In Detroit, Ford was credited as being a progressive employer forcreating the five-dollar-day, for his commitments to Americanizing im-migrant workers and, later, for hiring African American workers in largenumbers. Yet it is precisely the different ways he thought about and re-lated to these groups of workers that most reveal the limits and contra-dictions of what gets called Fordism. Described by various scholars as a›paternalist‹ for his efforts to improve his workers,5 Ford records insteadreveal how frequently the terms ›colony‹, ›colonize‹ and ›empire‹ wereused in both metaphoric and literal ways in the company’s internal dis-

3 Henry Ford with Samuel Crowther: Today and Tomorrow, p. 84.4 Most well-known is (Henry Ford): The International Jew – concerning his share in the

realization of the text see Leo P. Ribuffo: Henry Ford and the International Jew; NeilBaldwin: Henry Ford and the Jews. For more examples of Ford’s analyses of race andnation can be found in the pages of his Dearborn Independent; cf. also August Meyer,Elliot Rudwick: Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW.

5 See Greg Grandin: Fordlandia; August Meyer, Elliot Rudwick: Black Detroit; HuwBeynon: Working for Ford; Steven Watts: The People’s Tycoon; Douglas Brinkley:Wheels for the World.

198 Elizabeth Esch

course.6 Centering the dynamics of empire and colonialism – and thus oftransnationalism and racialization – not only more correctly shapes ourhistorical understanding of how Ford operated in the United States, it al-lows us to understand the complex reasons why national elites outsidethe U.S. would have invited this already deeply powerful, American firminto their national economies.7

The international arena in which Ford operated from its very begin-ning is not treated by scholars as having much impact on the company’ssuccess, strategy and self-image. Yet in both practice and propaganda thecompany constantly embraced its globality: Ford’s exports went from 152000 units in 1923 to 303 000 in 1925 and the manufacture and assemblyof cars, trucks and tractors was expanding in social and political contextsas diverse as South Africa, Brazil, Ireland, Japan, England and Mexico.8

By 1927, more than half the cars on the planet were Model Ts.9 Suchsuccesses buttressed profits and furthered the sense that whatever Fordwas doing in Detroit was a generalizable and exportable model. Seeinghis River Rouge Complex as the center of an emergent empire, HenryFord imagined he would »make the Rouge [River] a harbor for craft thatwill [. . . ] carry the Rouge cargoes of motors direct to England, France,Germany, South America, Australia and the Orient«.10

This sensibility was reflected in the frescoes of ›The Rouge‹ DiegoRivera was commissioned to create at the Detroit Institute of Art in 1932.Rivera clearly imagined the Rouge as a great center of industry that wouldbring the world’s people, resources and ideas together through produc-tion. Detroit Industry consists of two main panels depicting the assemblyline at the Ford Rouge Plant. These large frescoes reveal the intimacy, in-tricacy and intensity of the work process; they are surrounded by twenty-five other, smaller frescoes depicting the bounty and beauty of the naturalworld; the worlds of science and invention, and several characters thatrepresent what Rivera called the four elements of the world.11

These elements formed the basic ingredients in steel, the key to mod-ern manufacturing possibility, which Rivera believed was most well rep-resented through the invention of the skyscraper and the mass production

6 Cf. Allen Nevins, Frank Hill: Ford. See also materials published in support of Ford’sexhibit at the 1939 World Fair, Ford Research Center.

7 Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Notebooks: Notebook 22. offerred the earliest and mostsearching exploration of the meaning of Ford for interwar capital and human society.

8 Allan Nevins, Frank Hill: Ford, p. 540.9 The Great Depression: A Job at Ford’s.10 Allan Nevins, Frank Hill: Ford, p. 542.11 Cf. Diego Rivera: My Art, My Life; concerning the paintings see Linda Bank Downs:

Diego Rivera.


of cars. Of these differently colored elements Rivera said: »The yellowrace represents the sand, because it is most numerous. And the red race,the first in this country, is like the iron ore, the first thing necessary forthe steel. The black race is like the coal, because it has a great native aes-thetic sense, a real flame of feeling and beauty in its ancient sculpture,its native rhythm and music. So its aesthetic sense is like the fire, and itslabor furnished the hardness which the carbon in the coal gives to steel.The white race is like the lime, not only because it is white, but becauselime is the organizing agent in the making of steel. It binds together theother elements and so you see the white race as the great organizer of theworld«.12

By centering his description of steel production in a discussionof racial types, Rivera engages in a dialogue that was very commonamong the Ford Motor Company’s leaders. While Rivera was not a whitesupremacist he made use of widespread racial stereotypes. Especially theproposition that the »white race [is] the great organizer of the world« issuggestive of the political and social commitments the Ford Motor Com-pany made in the United States and then exported to the world. And aswe will see, the industrial metaphor of forging men was one Ford turnedto time and again.

This essay thus starts from a consideration of how Ford’s treatmentof immigrant and African American workers both embodied and contra-dicted the idea that the company sought to create interchangeable work-ers – on local or global scales. It moves from the Ford Rouge Plant inDearborn, Michigan to the village of Inkster seven miles down the roadand from there to the Eastern Cape of South Africa and Ford’s Port Eliza-beth Assembly Plant. It argues that white supremacy was not just centralto company practice but a goal of many of those elites who embracedthe company outside the United States, as demonstrated here by eventsin South Africa. In considering how Ford and American social scientistsshaped what Anne Stoler has called »racial rationalization«13 in the ser-vice of nation building in the United States and South Africa, the essayalso intends to demonstrate the uneven, but nonetheless potent, culturaland political impact of so-called Fordist organization on race, in Detroitand in Port Elizabeth, the ›Detroit of South Africa‹. In contradictory yetpowerful ways, Ford promoted the idea of whiteness having added value,a psychological or other kind of wage: contradictory, because the contentof that whiteness differed across global social contexts; powerful because

12 Quoted in George F. Pierrot: An Illustrated Guide to the Diego Rivera Frescoes.13 Anne Laura Stoler: Tense and Tender Ties, p. 829.

200 Elizabeth Esch

Ford has been thought of for nearly a century as the capitalist who equal-ized wages.

The Melting Pot and Segregation at Home and Work

Sometime in the early to mid 1920s Henry Ford scribbled a note to him-self. In pencil, on one side of a piece of paper, he wrote: »What is the bestway to handle the Negro?« On the back of the same page, Ford answeredhis own question: »Colonize the Negro«.14

While literally fragmentary, Ford’s personal musing is neverthelessrevealing of an enormous difference between his treatment of immigrantworkers from European countries to the U.S. and African American mi-grants from the U.S. south. By the time he wrote this note, when Blackworkers were arriving in Detroit in significant numbers, thousands ofimmigrant workers had gone through Ford’s Americanization schools.From 1914 until the early 1920s, workers at the Ford Motor Companyin Highland Park, Michigan attended and graduated from the Ford En-glish School. Attendance at the school was compulsory for those whowished to be eligible for the five-dollar-a-day-wage, launched in 1914.In addition to participating in the English schools, immigrant workersalso endured visits at their homes from representatives of Ford’s new So-ciological Department which engaged »sociologists as agents of socialcontrol«.15 The mission of the Sociological Department was clear: to in-sist that the behavior of workers outside of the workplace conformed tocompany standards. Workers were to be clean, sober, married, or, if sin-gle, not living in crowded quarters with other men.16 They were to belearning English and speaking it even when they were among other na-tive speakers of their home languages.17

Upon graduation from the English school, workers participated in›The Melting Pot Pageant‹. Designed to symbolize the process throughwhich immigrant workers at Ford had become American, the pageant wasa shining example of the pathos of patriotization. Processing down an an-gled walkway reminiscent of a ship’s gangway, workers then climbed into

14 Henry Ford: Personal Notes, np.15 Yehouda Shenhav: The Historical and Epistemological Foundations of Organization

Theory, p. 195.16 In particular, Ford was against the tradition of the ›hot bed‹, so named because three

workers shared one bed to save money. One person was always sleeping in the bed, onewas at work and the other was elsewhere. Thus the sheets never cooled. Ford thoughtthat this practice contributed to all other vices and bad habits among men.

17 Cf. Stephen Meyer: The Five Dollar Day.


a giant cauldron labeled ›Melting Pot‹. Upon climbing in they wore the›traditional‹ dress of their country of origin. While in the pot, workersquickly discarded their clothes, changing into an ›American‹ suit, andthen emerged from the other side of the cauldron as full Americans.Starting out as Italian-American, or German-American, or Irish Amer-ican, through the process of learning English, the value of Protestant tra-ditions, sobriety, good housekeeping and disciplined work habits, theseimmigrants dropped the hyphen when they climbed out of the cauldron,having been taught by Ford to »view it as a minus sign«.18

The industrial imagery of the melting pot was extended by Ford andits propagandists to construct those who participated as being not justmelted but reconstituted in the pot. This new working class, the firstto earn the five-dollar-day wage at Ford, was increasingly describedas having gone through a forging process. Like the component partsof steel, they had started as distinct and unfinished individuals, liter-ally raw materials, now refined through work, education and the perfor-mance of American-ness. While the Melting Pot Pageant at Ford tookthis metaphor to absurd extremes, the industrial comparisons associatedwith it were by no means singularly Ford’s. Rivera had after all evokedracial specificities to describe the forging process. Rivera’s idea, that thestrength of steel was to be found in the bringing together of distinct ele-ments, may have reified racial difference, but it also suggested that differ-ence should not imply inequality. At Ford, however, the goal of forging,or melting, was to eliminate differences, suggesting that strength was theresult of standardization, of making just one thing out of many: an Ameri-can. Also true of melting pot ideology as symbolized by Ford’s pageantrywas that many of those who would have been included in Rivera’s pro-cess – the so-called red, yellow and black races – were not consideredforge-able at Ford.

Indeed, Black workers at Ford represent the starkest challenge to themyths of the melting pot. Arguably the »most American« of all work-ers in Detroit if looked at in any rational (and non-racial) way, BlackAmericans were never Americans as Ford meant it. Black workers hadthe longest history in the U.S., the longest record of contributing to theeconomy, the longest connections to Protestantism, the longest history ofspeaking English; not even the so-called »old stock« immigrants in theplant could boast this level of national coherence. But at Ford, Americanmeant white. Ford distinguished between those workers who could be

18 Cf. Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex; see also Joe R. Feagin: Old Poison in New Bottles,pp. 25 f.

202 Elizabeth Esch

improved through learning new habits at work and home and those whowere permanently cast in the racial past: the former were paternalisticallymarked for possible citizenship, the latter as colonized subjects.19

Black workers found work at Ford in the early 1920s with the openingof the company’s second assembly plant, the Rouge, where none hadbeen available to them at the Highland Park plant. The end of HighlandPark marked the beginning of the Rouge; it also signified the shift towardracially segregated work as Black workers were hired by Ford for thefirst time and in larger numbers than at any other employer in Detroit.The embrace of vertical integration and the massive expansion of thecompany’s international investments coincided with this practice, whichput African Americans at the center of the Ford empire.20

By the mid 1920s most of Ford’s Detroit production had moved to theRouge and nearly 10 000 Black workers filled the hottest and dirtiest jobsin the foundry and forge. The long history of how Ford came to employmore African American workers than all other employers in Detroit isbeyond the scope of this essay. But by the mid-1920s, work that hadformerly been done by Slavic and other Eastern European workers atHighland Park bad become »Black work«. So brutal were jobs in thefoundry and forge that Black workers began to refer to the Rouge as the»house of murder« even as these were considered the best jobs AfricanAmerican men could get in Detroit.21

Between 1910 and 1920 the African American population of Detroitgrew by 80 000. Between 1910 and 1930, the city’s overall populationdoubled, leading to a massive housing crisis.22 In detailing the life ex-periences of Detroit’s Black workers Joyce Shaw Peterson argues thatalthough African Americans had access to jobs and even wages that werenot available in other cities, Black Detroiters were still impacted by struc-tural racism. Shaw Peterson cited a report on the problem of overcrowd-ing in the city in 1919 which found: »Not a single vacant house or tene-ment in the several Negro sections of this city. The majority of Negroesare living under such crowded conditions that three or four families inan apartment is the rule rather than the exception. Stables, garages andcellars have been converted into homes for Negroes. The poolrooms and

19 For an excellent treatment of this process in Progressive Era U.S. History see PedroCaban: Subjects and Immigrants During the Progressive Era.

20 Cf. Mira Wilkins with Frank Ernest Hill: American Business Abroad.21 August Meier, Elliot Rudwick: Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW; See also Eliza-

beth Esch: Fordtown.22 Olivier Zunz: The Changing Face of Inequality.


gambling clubs are beginning to charge for the privilege of sleeping onpoolroom tables overnight«.23

A 1925 investigation of Detroit’s Black population found typical acase in which a »Ford worker was the head of a family of three with fivelodgers. In his home four adults slept in a room measuring seven by ninefeet«. In the nineteen teens, one of the emphases of Ford’s Sociologi-cal Department in its home visits of immigrant workers was to disallowthe practice of taking in boarders. But by the time Black workers werehired in numbers of any significance, the Sociological Department hadceased to function, making the paternalistic practices that contributed tothe whitening of Detroit’s European immigrant population over time un-available. The problem of the housing crisis, while it did affect Europeanimmigrants as well, was exacerbated by racist exclusion. Particularly be-cause the majority of Black workers in Detroit worked for Ford, and didnot in the 1920s suffer from wage discrimination, the absence of afford-able housing was not the driving force of the problem: racial segregationwas.24 Thus the genuine social problem of housing in Black neighbor-hoods was not addressed.

In response to the general crisis in housing in Detroit, over fifty thou-sand single family homes were built between 1923 and 1928, nearly all ofwhich were in already white areas of the city. In 1926 the Mayor’s Inter-racial Committee reported that decent, sanitary and affordable homes inDetroit’s Black neighborhoods were the ›exception‹. In 1925, thirty per-cent of African American housing had no indoor bathrooms. Almost halfof the Black families shared houses with at least one other family and/ortook in lodgers, an economic necessity of families and of the single menwho became lodgers who simply could not afford to live otherwise.25

The Detroit Urban League tried to help solve the housing crisis inBlack Detroit, though its primary work until then had been with AfricanAmerican job-seekers. In 1920 League head John Dancy set out to finda piece of land in the Detroit area that was not controlled by restrictivecovenants and for landlords who would cooperate in renting or sellingproperty to African Americans. Dancy found two men who were willingto sell plots of land on a 140-acre tract to African Americans. Part of thevillage of Inkster, incorporated in 1926, the area offered new residents

23 Pipp’s Weekly, 5.6.1920 (Report on Mayor’s Housing Conference); Joyce Shaw Peter-son: Automobile Workers in the United States, p. 182; the following quote is cited ibid.,p. 183.

24 Cf. August Meier, Elliot Rudwick: Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW, p. 8.25 Joyce Shaw Peterson: Automobile Workers in the United States, p. 190; cf. Kevin

Boyle: Arc of Justice.

204 Elizabeth Esch

no paved streets, streetlights, city sanitation or water, yet not surprisinglymany people jumped at the opportunity to buy or lease land in Inkster.From a population of 150 in 1900 by 1930 Inkster claimed 4 400 resi-dents. Of these 1 195 were African American and 3 244 where white. Inboth the 1930 and 1940 censuses African Americans were a large minor-ity but always a minority. Black and white Inkster were fully segregatedfrom one another.26

Drawn by the idea that they would be able to become home owners,and with jobs to pay the bills, many of Detroit’s Black residents were soeager to escape the crowding of the city that they built temporary sheltersof tar paper, scrap wood and sheet metal on their newly settled pieces ofland. While African Americans were not the only ones to benefit fromthe possibilities of tracts in Inkster, the southwest quadrant of the vil-lage became nearly all Black. Inkster crossed Dearborn Township, sig-nificant because this was the home of Ford-dominated Dearborn, wherethe Rouge plant was built and which was exclusive to white Christians:»By legal stratagems and the common consent of its citizens, [Dearborn]bars Negroes and Jews from residence«. Nearly eight miles from BlackInkster, Dearborn and the Rouge connected the two via a Ford inter-urbanrail line.27

The disaster of the depression hit Inkster fast and furiously. In Octo-ber 1930 the village had to ask Edison Electric to extend it a promissorynote because it could not pay its bill for municipal street lighting. In May1931, when Edison turned off their service, the village was 8 000 dollarsin debt to the electric company. With a village treasury of 2.75 dollars itfaced debts of nearly 30 000 dollars. In order to pressure the village tomake good on its three year old debts, in 1931 the first National Bank ofDearborn, the Peoples State Bank of Inkster, Dearborn State Bank andEdison made the city promise any taxes collected would go to them first.A survey of Black Inkster found 700 men unemployed in 1931, 500 ofwhom had worked for Ford. It also revealed the not surprising but stag-gering fact that ninety percent of those surveyed were buying their homesunder land contract. Many of those trying to buy land were living in un-completed houses. When the layoffs started many people simply couldnot finish construction on their homes.28

The possibility of ›rehabilitating‹ Black Inkster resonated powerfully

26 Howard Lindsey: Fields to Fords, Feds to Franchise, p. 28. The fact that the populationof Inkster was in a minority Black is meant to clarify a reality of the story of Ford inInkster, which has been badly obscured by company propaganda.

27 James Loewen: Sundown Towns28 Howard Lindsey: Fields to Fords, Feds to Franchise, p. 44.


with Henry Ford and his managers. Though the Sociological Departmenthad been suspended as anti-immigrant sentiment grew during and afterWorld War One, Ford still welcomed opportunities for social experimen-tation. The ›New York Times‹ reported that, »[Ford] concluded that thesepeople had not learned the lesson which months of idleness should havetaught them, that is first to pay off their debts and put their house in or-der. That was the beginning of the Inkster educational experiment«. Thenewspaper also reported that Inkster »is an ideal ground for this experi-ment, because its population is almost entirely one race, there being 500colored families and only 50 white families«.29

Ford’s approach to solving the very real problems the people ofInkster faced was to institute a system of debt peonage. According toFord Secretary Ernest Liebold: »What we did down there was take overthe supervision of these Negroes and employed a number of them at theRouge plant on the basis of $ 1 a day«; »the difference in their earning,between the actual wage they were paid, which was probably $ 6, and the$ 1 that was given them [ . . . ] was placed in a general fund in the FordMotor Company’s books«.30

With 500 workers back in the plant the company was setting aside 2500 dollars per day. The general fund that Ford created from workers’unpaid wages was used to cover the costs associated with feeding andhousing the people of Inkster and restoring city services.31 Of course,during the depression most Rouge workers were probably working a twoor at most three-day week. Records don’t indicate how many days Inksterresidents worked, though there was obvious material incentive on Ford’spart to keep them in the plant as many days as possible.

Ford’s practices in Inkster, and some other depression relief activi-ties, revived the dormant Sociology Department. Yet the Department itrevived was not the one which sought to make citizen-consumers outof those who worked in the plant, as it had with the previous genera-tion of immigrant workers it sought to Americanize. Now the goal wasto make colonized subjects out of Black Ford workers.32 Though manyof the policies Ford insisted on in Inkster mimicked what the companyhad done at Highland Park fifteen years earlier, its goals and expectationswere very different.

29 New York Times, 16.12.1931.30 Ernest Liebold: Reminiscences, p. 1420.31 Howard Lindsey: Fields to Fords, Feds to Franchise, p. 45.32 Cf. Chip Berlet, Matthew N. Lyons: Right-Wing Populism in America, p. 117: »Ford’s

newspaper declared that ›[. . . ] the white man’s civilization [. . . ] is the black man’s bestsecurity‹. Blacks, Ford believed, were racially inferior to Whites«.

206 Elizabeth Esch

Before any worker could qualify for home repair they had to be eval-uated by a Sociology Department representative. The representative’s jobwas to determine whether or not the potential recipient of help was wor-thy of and qualified for the company’s assistance. One of the most im-portant evaluative criteria was cleanliness: »There was no excuse for filthand untidiness just because one was unemployed«.33 Reports describedthe homes of laid off workers by listing the number of rooms, numberof people living in those rooms and their condition: »unsanitary [. . . ,]incomplete [. . . ,] under constr (sic) [. . . ,] overcrowded but clean«. Moresignificantly, »liabilities« included »a large expensive car, player piano,or radio costing hundreds of dollars«.34

So the very things that were prescribed by Ford as essential to earlierAmericanization efforts were now said to describe the irresponsibility,lack of civility and excess of African Americans. Though Ford is thecompany credited with making it possible for every worker to own hisown car, and Henry Ford himself encouraged people to stay home andlisten to the radio, his radio show in fact, these represented racial fail-ures on the part of African Americans. The very consumption that wouldprove to be so central to Ford’s conception of civility and developmentworldwide was essentially denied to African Americans.

Home repair was one of the most serious worries of Inkster residents,many of whom had been extended credit to build or expand their smallhouses when they were making the Ford wage. Those who did not havecredit, who had been building bit by bit, were simply forced to stop whenthe paychecks did. Ford underwrote the homes of people buying underland-contract and paid back-rent for others. From 1931 to 1938, the Fordfund built 150 homes in Inkster; some of those for people who had beenliving in tents. All who agreed to accept aid from the company also hadto accept the terms of the company’s repayment policy and each workerwas required to sign an I.O.U.35

Running a commissary for the residents of Inkster was one of Ford’scentral tasks and the company had multiple objectives in doing it. Strikinga blow against the alleged Jewish control of shops in Inkster was one ofthe most important according to Henry Ford’s secretary and future Nazisympathizer, Ernest Liebold: »The reason that prompted us to make thefinancial arrangement down there was that there were a couple of Jewishmerchants in Inkster [. . . ;] some of the Negroes got so involved they were

33 Hayward S. Ablewhite: Reminiscences, p. 11 and pp. 111 f.34 Inkster Commissary Report, np.35 Howard Lindsey: Fields to Fords, Feds to Franchise, p. 74.


no longer able to make their payments [. . . ;] when they found out thatthese people weren’t getting any more than $1 a day they wouldn’t givethem any more credit«.36

Ford believed that Inkster’s crisis was a direct result of its residents’irresponsible handling of money and that the commissary, as the centerof a cash free economy, would allow Ford to provide for the needs ofpeople and teach them lessons in living.37 The commissary sold foodraised on Inkster farms, dresses sewn by women »volunteers« from thevillage, shoes cobbled there, bread baked there. All of that was done withunpaid labor and an »established policy [was] in effect for regulating allthe accounts that were being carried and charging the people from thegeneral fund«.38

The unsanitary living conditions of the poor were not a new preoc-cupation for reformers. Ford and others related the sanitary conditions ofInkster to the behavior and outlook of its residents even though there hadbeen no garbage collection in Inkster for years, and no sewage lines toInkster’s Black neighborhood had ever been built. The schools that Fordbuilt also lacked indoor plumbing. A Special to the ›New York Times‹read, »A hopelessness had seized the village which reflected itself in un-tidy homes. Every yard was littered with rubbish. Vacant lots were junkpiles«.39 To challenge this behavior, unemployed workers were put towork hauling garbage in trucks from the Rouge; ditches were dug, roadswere paved; expenses were covered by the fund.

Ernest Liebold was in charge of building schools for African Ameri-cans: »I had the plan for the building [. . . ;] I had some of our men go outand to the building [. . . ;] the cost of that service was all charged to theNegroes from the general fund [. . . ;] we wanted to confine these Negroesto the area in which they lived«.40 Of course, Michigan was not legallysegregated. But both schools were built in the center of Black Inksterand brought Black children from rural areas that were denied access toDearborn schools. As in the Rouge, Liebold and Ford had a great amountof involvement in the day-to-day operations of the Ford-Inkster Project.Liebold kept close tabs on what happened at the school, arranging for

36 Ernest Liebold: Reminiscences, p. 1424.37 Cf. Allan Nevins, Frank Ernest Hill: Ford, passim.38 Ernest Liebold: Reminiscences, p. 1425. Hayward S. Ablewhite: Reminiscences, p. 12.

According to Ablewhite the Black residents of Inkster were aware that the commissarythey relied on was started in part because the company did not want them to use thecommissary it had started for white Ford employees in Dearborn.

39 New York Times, 16.12.1931.40 Ernest Liebold: Reminiscences, p. 1425.

208 Elizabeth Esch

Henry Ford’s friend, the Black scientist George Washington Carver todeliver a graduation speech at the new high school.41

The practice of withholding wages from African American workersin the Rouge ended in September 1933 with the minimum wage clauseof the National Industrial Recovery Act.42 From then on Ford’s sociol-ogists had to try to collect the debts voluntarily, often resulting in pres-sured company workers bribing relatives of Ford workers with jobs ifthey would agree to sign a portion of their wages to pay off the debt.Sometimes this meant that African Americans couldn’t find employmentat Ford through the front door. Instead they had to have a debtor in mindwho they would pledge to support in order to be hired at Ford. Though inthe end Ford had to write off some of the expenditures in the Ford-InksterProject it also managed to run Inkster like an efficient sharecropping sys-tem. Ford spent 884 035 dollar on the Inkster project between 1931 and1935; payroll deductions and voluntary payments totaled 788 076 dollars,leaving a deficit of 95 959 dollars.43

In summary, from 1914 to 1921 the Ford Motor Company linked thebehavior of immigrant workers off the job to the right to earn five dol-lars a day on the job. Following Ford’s rules about hygiene and health,thrift, responsibility and cleanliness, Protestant family living gave thoseworkers access to the highest wages ever paid in the industrialized UnitedStates. Yet in Inkster, almost the opposite happened. Black workers werehired back to do the same work but were denied the wages they had beenmaking before losing their jobs, denied even the wages made by immi-grant workers more than a decade earlier. This was done ostensibly forthe same reasons, to save workers from their own, allegedly undisciplinedif not uncivilized tendencies.

But the racialization of rule in the Rouge changed the terms of theagreement. Withholding wages from African American workers and us-ing those wages literally to do the job of the state was now Ford’s model,as was the concept of racial rehabilitation. Citizen-making seldom anylonger entered into the post-World War One management calculationswhere any Ford workers were concerned. But subject-making could, es-pecially where Black workers were the objects of exploitation and re-form. In South Africa, the making of white consumer-citizens would bea more enduring Fordist project.

41 Cf. Howard Lindsey: Fields to Fords, Feds to Franchise, p. 86.42 Cited in David Lewis: The Public Image of Henry Ford, p. 3543 Willis Ward: Reminiscences, p. 80; Supplemental Reminiscences, p. 15 ff.


Making the White Worker in the Detroit of South Africa

In 1924 with the first Model Ts rolling off the assembly line in Port Eliz-abeth, the ›Eastern Province Herald‹ in South Africa wrote: »The vastindustrial works of Henry Ford are not only or chiefly for the output ofvehicles demanded in every part of the world, they are mainly for thetransformation of human detritus into beings of real economic and so-cial value [. . . ;] at Dearborn Ford finds employment for a number of menbelow standard who, but for his combined philanthropy and business acu-men, would be on humanity’s scrap heap«.44

This column both described Henry Ford’s vision of work in his fac-tories and gave voice to an emerging sentiment about the role industrycould and should play in a modernizing South Africa. Ford’s arrival inPort Elizabeth coincided with the deepening of a public discourse amongreligious leaders, social scientists, politicians and industrialists about asocial ill they had named the poor white problem. The problem of poorwhitism existed at the intersection of capitalist modernization, class con-flict and colonial rule; its unfolding would have a profound impact onsegregationist policy and practice in South Africa as elites confrontedthe complexities of an increasingly dynamic commercial and industrialsociety in which some whites ruled and some whites worked. Though al-ready well under construction by 1924, racial segregation in South Africaexpanded and deepened in the 1920s and 30s. Henry Ford’s own ideolog-ical and political commitments, his company’s practices, and Americansocial science played a definitive role in conceptualizing and prescribingsegregationist solutions to the poor white problem.45

44 Eastern Province Herald, 11.2.1924 (›Diary of the Day: The Ford Idyll‹).45 Though Ford’s longstanding commitment to South Africa began in these years, it has

been largely neglected both by historians who have written about Ford’s overseas expan-sion and by those who have examined South African and American white supremacyin relationship to one another. Business historian Mira Wilkins in ›American BusinessAbroad‹ gives brief attention to South Africa in her discussion of Ford of Canada, underwhose auspices the plant opened. In the 1980s a few path-breaking works of scholar-ship comparing and contrasting the development of white supremacy in South Africaand the United States appeared, including George Fredrickson: White Supremacy; JohnCell: The Highest Stage of White Supremacy; Thomas Noer: Briton, Boer and Yankee,the United States and South Africa; Howard Lamar, Leonard Thompson: The Fron-tier in History; Stanley Greenberg: Race and State in Capitalist Development; AnthonyMarx: Making Race and Nation. A series of as yet unpublished papers presented at ›TheBurden of Race: Whiteness and Blackness in Modern South Africa‹, History Work-shop Conference, 5.-8.7.2001, have been extremely useful to me. These include PeterAlexander: Race, Class Loyalty and the Structure of Capitalism; Saul Dubow: Scien-tism, Social Research and Limits of South Africanism; John Hinshaw: Politics of Pro-duction; Matthew Pratt Guterl: Domineering Anglo-Saxons and Supple Asians.

210 Elizabeth Esch

In keeping with the segregationist priorities of the South African stateFord willingly embraced a whites-only policy in its Port Elizabeth assem-bly plant, describing the decision in no uncertain terms. That the factoryonly assembled cars and did not include the man-killing foundry jobsinto which African Americans were slotted in Detroit doubtless madesuch a colour bar easier to construct. A company spokesman wrote, »Upto 1952, the Ford plant in South Africa employed only white labor. Whenthey started operations there was a poor white problem. There was con-siderable unemployed European labor. Thus the company employed onlywhite labor«.46

Ford’s relationship to the broad contours of segregation in urbanSouth Africa was made visible in the location of New Brighton. Theoldest existing Black location or township as they would come to becalled, New Brighton was celebrated by whites as a model in the so-called progressive city of Port Elizabeth. Having been designated a loca-tion through the terms of the Native Reserve Location Act of 1902 NewBrighton changed status in 1923 when it came under the new Native Ur-ban Areas Act. The Port Elizabeth municipality had responsibility for ad-ministering New Brighton where there were no schools until 1928; onlyin 1930 was electricity extended to it. By 1948 New Brighton had beenextended more than a few times to incorporate new housing schemes,especially for so-called coloured workers, and informal squatter campsbrought into being through the massive dislocation of Africans in thesurrounding countryside. Though Port Elizabeth had the highest percent-age of white labour of any industrial city in South Africa through the1920s and 1930s, the growth rate of the African population neverthelessexceeded all others. The population of the city nearly doubled between1921 and 1936. Manufacturing jobs were overwhelmingly the preserveof whites – factory owners perceived that about ninety percent of theirworkers were Afrikaans-speakers; yet Africans still sought employmentin Port Elizabeth largely because they had no choices.47

As the population of Africans in Port Elizabeth increased so did thedemand for housing. As in every other township in South Africa infor-mal squatters settlements would be constructed adjacent to them. In NewBrighton the largest of these camps was called KwaFord. The Zulu wordfor ›place of Ford‹, earned its name because the housing in the settlementwas originally constructed from packing crates discarded by the com-pany and stamped with the word Ford. Built by African migrants from the

46 Anonymous: Talk with Love.47 Cf. Gary Baines: A History of New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, p. 18.


countryside fleeing the same conditions as the poor whites Ford soughtto resuscitate through work, KwaFord was not formally incorporated intoNew Brighton until 1948, coinciding with the advent of apartheid rule.

Despite the depression that gripped the world in the 1930s, the con-struction of a deep-water port in Port Elizabeth was able to attract for-eign investment; soon foreign capital accounted for more than half ofthe investment in local industry, with the auto industry the largest em-ployer (General Motors also came to South Africa in these years). Morethan ninety percent of those who worked for the auto plants were white.It was in this context that Ford operated its whites-only plant, and inwhich racial liberals from the United States were invited to participate inthe continued and deepening organization of racial segregation in SouthAfrica.

Following a visit to South Africa in 1927 by the President of theCarnegie Corporation, based in New York, the Dutch Reformed Churchsubmitted an application to the Corporation asking for financial supportin carrying out what it described as ›The Poor White Investigation‹. Inits zeal to fulfill the philanthropic vision of Andrew Carnegie the Corpo-ration supported initiatives that linked »science with social progress andthe public consumption of institutionalized knowledge with the idealsof modern citizenship«.48 American social science played a vital role inthe poor white study; many on the team that produced the study were so-cial scientists from American universities, or South African psychologistswho had visited labs at Harvard and Yale. Most of the South Africans hadstudied in the U.S. or Britain.49

In her examination of the role of the Carnegie Commission in SouthAfrica Anne Stoler wrote: »The commission was presented as a SouthAfrican initiative of local origin whose concerns were localized. But itsscientific resources were not local, nor were its points of reference CapeTown Boers and South African Bantus [. . . ]. It was a study grounded inthe production of racialized knowledge in the United States«.50

While Stoler’s overarching project, of linking progressive intellectu-als and bureaucrats in the United States to global colonial practices, isvital, she over-states the degree to which the Carnegie study was drivenby U.S. concerns. More accurately viewed it was a truly transnationalproject, allowing advanced practices of modern racial segregation in the

48 Morag Bell: American Philanthropy, the Carnegie Corporation and Poverty in SouthAfrica, p. 484.

49 Cf. Saul Dubow: Scientism, Social Research and Limits of South Africanism, passimand Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in South Africa.

50 Anne Laura Stoler: Tense and Tender Ties, p. 840.

212 Elizabeth Esch

US to shape but not directly determine how the continued developmentand deepening of segregation of home and work in South Africa – withdiffering imperatives and demographic concerns – could and would hap-pen. As significantly, these U.S. intellectuals and bureaucrats were in-creasingly standing in for those from the British Empire. Reflecting theadvent of what Saul Dubow has called »South Africanism« this turn tothe U.S. allowed a new generation of middle class, educated Afrikaanerpolicy makers and politicians to avoid both narrow Afrikaaner national-ism and total reliance on British imperial knowledge.51

As in other colonial contexts, producing knowledge about the re-lationships between gender, race and sex were central to the Carnegieproject. The imagined decline of whites was overwhelmingly a worry ofthe Carnegie team, and was attributed to behavior and attitudes, not bi-ological failure. In particular interviewers focused on the behavior andattitudes of women – »the order or disorder in a home« – that it believedled to a generalized decline in white initiative-taking. Maria ElizabethRothman, the only woman on the investigative team and a member of theSouth African Christian Association, conducted interviews with moth-ers and daughters in 462 poor white families which appeared in its ownvolume, ›The Mother and Daughter in the Poor White Family‹.52

Stressing as it did environmental as opposed to biological factors thereport found a particular role for women in racial improvement throughhousekeeping and food preparation. Mirroring the American Race Better-ment Foundation’s fixation on diet the report concluded that, »instructionshould be given to mothers and daughters in the proper choice and prepa-ration of various foods, that parents should be encouraged to grow veg-etables [. . . ]. This instruction should not merely be advisory but shouldbe so organized as to be habit-forming«.53 Leaning on Fordist ideals andmirroring Ford Sociology Department methods, the commission recom-mended that modern management technique be applied to home-keeping

51 Cf. Saul Dubow: Scientism, Social Research and Limits of South Africanism.52 Cf. Morag Bell: American Philanthropy, the Carnegie Corporation and Poverty in South

Africa, p. 492 and Maria Elizabeth Rothman: The Mother and the Daughter in the PoorWhite Family.

53 National Conference on Race Betterment: Joint Findings and Recommendations, p. xv.The Race Betterment Foundation was founded in 1911 in Battle Creek, Michigan withmoney from the Kellogg cereal fortune. The Foundation sponsored three national con-ferences on race betterment (1914, 1915, and 1928) and started its own eugenics registryin cooperation with the Eugenics Records Office. Experimentation with racial improve-ment through diet was a preoccupation of Ford’s, who ran a Jim Crow plantation inGeorgia dedicated in part to the production of soybeans, a food he was certain wouldrevolutionize nutrition and health.


and that schools be created in which domestic skills could be taught cul-minating in what Carnegie called a »national housewife certificate« uponfinishing the course.54

The practice of interviewing poor whites in their homes resembledFord’s practice, by then abandoned, of sending sociological examinersinto the homes of immigrant workers in Detroit. Remember that thereFord insisted that to be an American a particular standard of behaviorwas required. If that standard was attained a worker could qualify for thefive-dollar daily wage. In the Carnegie model the home and the workplacewere not as directly linked – behavior at home never became the basis forwages at work – though both were considered essential to the process ofracial improvement.

The problem of making science out of race and race out of sciencewas obvious to the Carnegie team from the very beginning, when it ad-mitted that »for various reasons an exact enumeration [of who is a poorwhite] is not practicable«. The Commission went so far as to say thatmany white people who were very poor were not to be considered poorwhites in the sense in which investigators used the term. One could bepoor and one could be white, but this did not necessarily make one a poorwhite.55

A working definition came to be, »a white person whose income isnot enough to allow him to maintain a civilized standard of living and,at the same time, one whose whole attitude of mind prevents him fromrising above that level«. The report found that a failure to adjust to »mod-ern economic conditions [. . . ] brought about by the [. . . ] discovery ofdiamonds and gold, the capitalistic exploitation of mines, the influx ofimmigrants with the modern business outlook, [and] the rapid penetra-tion of railways« all contributed to the economic decline of those whitesused to living subsistence lives. Isolation on farms led to backward busi-ness practices, a »certain lack of industriousness« and a decided lack ofinterest in consumer goods.56

Cars could mitigate such isolation and the wages paid to those assem-bling them could create white citizen-consumers. At least a year beforeFord began assembling cars in South Africa the company was intent on

54 Maria Elizabeth Rothman: The Mother and the Daughter in the Poor Family, pp. xxiii,206-207, 212.

55 Cf. Stephen Jay Gould: The Mismeasure of Man. Gould demonstrates that to studyrace was to assume it, an approach which contradicts the most basic tenets of scientificendeavor. In the case of the poor whites, a decision was made about who was and wasnot one (or who was in danger of becoming one) before they would be studied.

56 Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in South Africa,vol. 5.

214 Elizabeth Esch

developing a consumer market. Advertisements appeared regularly in thepages of the Port Elizabeth papers, each of which reveals the particularlyracialized character of this emerging class based, consumer society. Oneimplicitly defines »the people« as white: »Just about half the people haveFORD cars, and the other half wants them!« Of those attending the agri-cultural show in Port Elizabeth the company asked, »Are you returningto your home in FORD comfort – enjoying the green fields, sunshine andpicnic? Or in a stuffy train?« Targeted at rural or newly urbanized whites,the ad evokes the disgust associated with the public space of the train.Though racially segregated, the train nonetheless appeared in the ad asa symbol of the crowded world of the poor, a world in which controlof one’s own time – say, to stop for a picnic – is impossible.57 In otherwords, the opposite of what was imagined civilized for Black workers inInkster.

While clearly the Carnegie team felt that the racial difference betweenwhite and Black needed to be made manifest through increased whiteconsumer power, it is also true that this was a possibility that was onlyrecently being extended across class lines.58 Further, though anxiety overthe consumer habits and psychological conditions of poor white peopledrove the Carnegie study, a bigger concern lay at the heart of the panic:»Long-continued economic equality of poor whites and the great massof non-Europeans, and propinquity of their dwellings, tend to bring themto social equality«. It was not so much the existence of poor whites thatmattered, but what behaviors their social conditions might lead to thatwas cause for worry. Economic and geographic closeness »[I]mpair thetradition which counteracts miscegenation and the social line of colour[was] noticeably weakening«. Even as cases of poor whites »going kaf-fir« were viewed as »undoubtedly quite the exception« the report stressedthat »long-continued contact with inferior coloured races has in somerespects had deleterious social effects on the European«.59 Though theproblem was defined largely as a rural one, it is extremely revealing thatthe areas of poor white life most heavily studied by the Commission werethe urban areas of Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. Consistent with this,the Carnegie Commission argued that an important solution to the poorwhite problem lay in finding a way to impose capitalist time-work dis-cipline on poor whites while protecting them from the brutal working

57 Eastern Province Herald, 10.3.1923.58 Cf. Jeremy Krikler: White Rising on the post-Rand Revolt era in South Africa.59 Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in South Africa, vol.

5, p. xx; concerning the following details and quotations see ibid.: pp. ix (›urban areas‹),xxi (›measures for restricting‹), xxiii (›It will be disastrous‹, ›work in the factory itself‹).


conditions that so-called colored and native workers were subjected to.Claiming that unrestricted competition had a demoralising effect on theEuropean, the report urged that »measures for restricting such competi-tion should aim at counteracting this demoralization«. Promoting the ideathat higher wages were necessary for »civilized« workers the Commis-sion offered suggestions on how best to accomplish this.

Resting on both a commitment to the role of labor market competi-tion in creating efficiency and on a racist worldview, the Commission’sarguments urged on the one hand that the state intervene to provide whiteworkers with jobs but, on the other hand, that they not allow whites tobecome soft by protecting them too much from competition. »It will bedisastrous for the poor white himself if any protection given him is ofsuch a nature that it results finally in impairing his ability to compete withthe non-European«. Thus the report stressed that the best training groundfor the adult rural poor immigrant was »work in the factory itself«.

Morag Bell has written that, »[t]he inter-war years marked a newphase of colonial occupation in Britain’s African domain in which sci-entific survey became integrated with colonial administration«.60 As theUnited States increasingly took over networks of trade and markets long-established by the British empire, the American Progressive Era fixa-tion on reform, production and scientific knowledge overlapped withsuch colonial administrative practices. The company’s implementationof a whites-only policy was consistent with both the interests of whitesupremacy in South Africa and with the commitments the companybrought with it.

If poor whites would be made through labor no company in the worldwas better fit than Ford to make it happen. South Africa’s reliance onsegregation, work and consumption to civilize poor whites was not onlyenabled by Ford, its very character was shaped by the idea that new menwould be made through work. Indeed, the visibility of the links betweenefficiency, modern progress and racial segregation in South Africa al-lows us to think differently about the political economy of racism in theU.S., to recognize more directly the existence of ideological and practi-cal alignments between the Jim Crow South and the industrial North. Inthis regard, considering Du Bois’ prescient analysis of the color line asan international divide alongside his assertion that whiteness operates asa psychological wage opens new ways of thinking history, particularlyU.S. history.

60 Morag Bell: American Philanthropy, the Carnegie Corporation and Poverty in SouthAfrica, p. 487.

216 Elizabeth Esch

So, too, does transnationalism. As a category of historical analysis,transnationalism relies on a dynamic set of tools for examining narra-tives deeply rooted in historiography and, in the case of Ford, popularunderstandings. Arriving in South Africa as neither liberator nor hege-mon, the Ford Motor Company helped shape the terrain of work, raceand rule for at least four decades. The Detroit of South Africa reflectedthe characteristics of Detroit of USA back at it in dramatic and tragicways – via deepening rather than receding poverty, segregation, racial andanti-union violence and, ultimately unemployment. As Detroit closed itsdoors to immigrants, opened its doors to white supremacist organizing,and became the most pro-business city in the United States, a rethink-ing of how American industrialists shared not just beliefs but practiceswith their co-thinkers around the world clarifies the political and inter-national character of those commitments. Fordism, on this view, was notonly the great homogenizing and universalizing force it is often seen asbeing. It was equally and simultaneously the product and producer ofracial differences and uneven development within and between nations.The changing definition of who was white and who was capable of beingwhitened was a central weapon in Ford’s arsenal.

References

Ablewhite, Hayward S.: Reminiscences. In: Accession 65, Ford Research Center,The Henry Ford Museum.

Alexander, Peter: Race, Class Loyalty and the Structure of Capitalism. Coal Min-ers in Alabama and the Transvaal, 1918-1922. Paper presented at the His-tory Workshop Conference ›The Burden of Race: Whiteness and Blacknessin Modern South Africa‹. University of the Witswatersrand, 5.-8.7.2001.

Anonymous: Talk with Love, South African PR Man, May, 1961. Accession 880,Box 4, Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford Museum.

Baines, Gary F.: A History of New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, South Africa 1903-1953. The Detroit of the Union. Lewiston: African Studies 1996.

Baldwin, Neil: Henry Ford and the Jews. The Mass Production of Hate. NewYork: Public Affairs 2001.

Bell, Morag: American Philanthropy, the Carnegie Corporation and Poverty inSouth Africa. In: The Journal of Southern African Studies, 26, 2000, 3,pp. 481-504.

Berlet, Chip, Matthew N. Lyons: Right-Wing Populism in America. Too Closefor Comfort. New York: The Guilford Press 2000.

Beynon, Huw: Working for Ford. London: EP Publishing 1975.Boyle, Kevin: Arc of Justice. A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the

Jazz Age. New York: Henry Holt 2004.


Briggs, Laura, Gladys McCormick and John T. Way: Transnationalism. A Cate-gory of Analysis. In: American Quarterly, 60, 2008, 3, pp. 625-648.

Brinkley, Douglas: Wheels for the World. Henry Ford, His Company and a Cen-tury of Progress, 1903-2003. New York: Penguin Books 2004.

Caban, Pedro: Subjects and Immigrants During the Progressive Era. In: Dis-course, 23, 2001, 3, pp. 24-51.

Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in SouthAfrica: The poor white problem in South Africa. Report of the Carnegie Com-mission. 5 Vols. Stellenbosch: Pro Ecclesia Drukkery 1932.

Cell, John: The Highest Stage of White Supremacy. The Origins of Segregationin South Africa and the American South. New York: Cambridge UniversityPress 1982.

Cohen, Lizabeth: A Consumers’ Republic. The Politics of Mass Consumption inPost-War America. New York: Vintage 2003.

Denby, Charles: Indignant Heart. A Black Workers Journal. Detroit: Wayne StateUniversity 1989.

Downs, Linda Bank: Diego Rivera. The Detroit Industry Murals. New York: W.W. Norton 1999.

Du Bois, W. E. B.: The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Doubleday 1903.Dubow, Saul: Scientism, Social Research and Limits of South Africanism. The

Case of Ernst Gideon Malherbe. Paper presented at the History WorkshopConference ›The Burden of Race: Whiteness and Blackness in Modern SouthAfrica‹, 5.-8.7.2001.

Esch, Elizabeth: Fordtown: Managing Race and Nation in the American Empire,1925-1945. Unpublished PhD dissertation. New York University 2004.

Eugenides, Jeffrey: Middlesex. New York: Picador 1998.Feagin, Joe R.: Old Poison in New Bottles. The Deep Roots of Modern Nativism.

In: Immigrants Out! The New Nativism and the Anti-Immigrant Impulse inthe United States, ed. by Juan F. Perera. New York etc.: New York UniversityPress 1997, pp. 13-43.

Ford, Henry: Personal Notes. Accession 23, Box 14, Benson Ford Research Cen-ter, Henry Ford Museum.

—: The International Jew, the World’s foremost Problem. Being a Reprint of aSeries of Articles Appearing in The Dearborn Independent from May 22 toOctober 2, 1920. Dearborn: The Dearborn Publishing 1920.

— with Samuel Crowther: Today and Tomorrow. New York: Doubleday 1926.Fredrickson, George: White Supremacy. A Comparative Study of American and

South African History. New York etc.: Oxford University Press 1982.Gould, Stephen Jay: The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton 1996.Gramsci, Antonio: Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: Interna-

tional Publishers 1971.Grandin, Greg: Fordlandia. The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle

City. New York: Metropolitan Books 2009.

218 Elizabeth Esch

Greenberg, Stanley: Race and State in Capitalist Development. South Africa inComparative Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press 1980.

Harribene, Margaret: Port Elizabeth. A Chronology, Port Elizabeth Public Li-brary, nd. np.

Hinshaw, John: The Politics of Production. Race and Class Conflict in the Ironand Steel Industries of the U.S. Paper presented at the History WorkshopConference ›The Burden of Race: Whiteness and Blackness in Modern SouthAfrica‹, 5.-8.7.2001.

Inkster Commissary Report. In: Accession 55, Box 1, Henry Ford Research Cen-ter, Henry Ford Museum, np.

Inkster, John: Robert Inkster, 1828-1914. Inkster Historical Commission 1954,Ford Motor Company Collection, Leanna Hicks Public Library, Inkster, MI.

Krikler, Jeremy: White Rising. The 1922 Insurrection and Racial Killing in SouthAfrica. London: Manchester University Press 2005.

Lamar, Howard, Leonard Thompson: The Frontier in History. North Americaand Southern Africa Compared. New York: American Council of LearnedSocieties 2009.

Lewis, David L.: The Public Image of Henry Ford. An American Folk Hero andHis Company. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1976.

Liebold, Ernest: Reminiscences. Benson Ford Research Center, Henry Ford Mu-seum.

Lindsey, Howard: Fields to Fords, Feds to Franchise. African American Em-powerment in Inkster, Michigan. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Universityof Michigan 1993.

Lipsitz, George: The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Philadelphia: TempleUniversity Press 1998.

Loewen, James: Sundown Towns. A Hidden History of American Racism. NewYork: New Press 2005.

Marx, Anthony: Making Race and Nation. A Comparison of the United States,South Africa and Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press 1998.

Meier, August, Elliot Rudwick: Black Detroit and the Rise of the UAW. New ed.Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2007.

Meyer, Stephen: The Five Dollar Day. Labor Management and Social Control.Detroit: Wayne State University 1981.

National Conference on Race Betterment: Joint Findings and Recommendations.Proceedings of the Third Race Betterment Conference. Kalamazoo: The RaceBetterment Foundation 1928.

Nevins, Allan, Frank Hill: Ford. Expansion and Challenge. New York: CharlesScribner and Sons 1957.

Noer, Thomas: Briton, Boer and Yankee, the United States and South Africa,1870-1914. Kent: Kent State University Press 1978.

Pierrot, George: Diego Rivera Frescoes. A Guide to the Murals of the GardenCourt. Detroit: People’s Museum Association 1933.


Pipp’s Weekly, 5.6.1920: Report on Mayor’s Housing Conference. In: Accession940, Box 5, Benson Ford Research Center, Henry Ford Museum.

Pratt Guterl, Matthew: Domineering Anglo-Saxons and Supple Asians. The Useand Abuse of Chinese Labourers in the early Twentieth Century Transvaal andLate Nineteenth Century California. Paper presented at the History WorkshopConference ›The Burden of Race: Whiteness and Blackness in Modern SouthAfrica‹, 5.-8.7.2001.

Ribuffo, Leo P.: Henry Ford and The International Jew. In: American Jewish His-tory, 69, 1979/80, pp. 437-477.

Rivera, Diego: My Art, My Life. An Autobiography. New York: Dover 1992.Rothman, Maria Elizabeth: The Mother and the Daughter in the Poor Familiy.

(Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in SouthAfrica. The Poor White Problem in South Africa, vol. 5). Stellenbosch: ProEcclesia Drukkery 1932.

Shaw Peterson, Joyce: Automobile Workers in the United States, 1900-1933. Al-bany: State University of New York Press 1988.

Shenhav, Yehouda: The Historical and Epistemological Foundations of Organi-zation Theory. Fusing Sociological Theory with Engineering Discourse. In:The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory. Meta-Theoretical Perspec-tives, ed. by Haridimos Tsoukas, Christian Knudsen. Oxford etc.: OxfordUniversity Press 2003, pp. 183-209.

Stoler, Anne Laura: Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Inti-mate in Colonial Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press 2002.

—: Haunted By Empire. Geographies of Intimacy in North American History.Chapel Hill: Duke University Press 2006.

—: Tense and Tender Ties. The Politics of Comparison in North American His-tory and (Post) Colonial Studies. In: Journal of American History, 88, 2001,3, pp. 829-865.

The Great Depression: A Job at Ford’s. Corporation for Public Broadcasting1996.

The Reminiscences of Mr. Willis Ward. Supplemental Reminiscences. In: Acces-sion 65, Benson Ford Research Center, Henry Ford Museum.

Watts, Steven: The People’s Tycoon. Henry Ford and the American Century. NewYork: Vintage Books 2006.

Wilkins, Mira with Frank Ernest Hill: American Business Abroad. Ford on SixContinents. Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1964.

Zunz, Olivier: The Changing Face of Inequality. Urbanization, Industrial De-velopment and Immigrants in Detroit, 1880-1920. Chicago: University ofChicago Press 2000.

Wages of Whiteness & Racist Symbolic Capital (ed. Wulf D. Hund, Jeremy Krikler, David Roediger)

Documents

Transcript of Wages of Whiteness & Racist Symbolic Capital (ed. Wulf D. Hund, Jeremy Krikler, David Roediger)