There isn't any special mystery about how US racial ideology works if you remember that in the key period of the biologization of the issue, 1890-1920, scientists constructed long lists of the continuum between the pure (anglos) and the nearly apes (so-called "Hotentots", or Bantu peoples, and Australian/New Zealand/Papuan blacks generally competed for this position of honor). And while reasonable men no doubt disagreed about precise placements, some putting Jews a little lower, others a little higher, the general principle that there were middle possibilities, neither strictly speaking white nor nonwhite, was present. This is counterintuitive because, at the same time (because of the property needs of the earlier slave state), the US was unique in not recognizing a hierarchy among "grades" of black blood -- any African descent at all made you black. What I'm saying is not, obviously, that the system made sense, but that it worked ideologically, because it fit with a remarkable variety of interests. What it worked best for was illustrating to Jews, Slavs, Italians, etc. that, if we "worked hard", we could prove that we were "white". It took some time for this line to be bought on a large scale -- it was quite counterintuitive to all those class conscious immigrants. Many refused the compliment. But in the long term it seems to have worked pretty damned well after all.
Kenneth Mostern Department of English University of Tennessee
"Talent is perhaps nothing other than successfully sublimated rage."
Theodor Adorno
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