Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat
Author | J. Sakai |
---|---|
Original title | The Mythology of the White Proletariat: A Short Course in Understanding Babylon |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Colonialism, racism, white supremacy |
Published |
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Pages |
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LC Class | E184 .A1 .S253 |
Text | Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat at Internet Archive |
Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat[a] is a 1983 book by J. Sakai that aims to provide a historical account of the formation of whiteness in the United States.
Background
J. Sakai, the book's
Publication
Settlers was first published as a
Summary
Settlers argues that the class system in the United States is built upon the
Style
Marxist–Leninist–Maoist academic
Impact and reception
Settlers went largely unnoticed within academia, though it has been somewhat influential among radicals.
Some critics praised the book's account of the historical construction of whiteness and class in the United States.[14] Kevin Bruyneel, writing in the book Settler Memory, described Settlers as among the first and most comprehensive works aiming to define American whiteness by "its historical foundations in settler life".[15] Writing in Labour/Le Travail, Fred Burrill acknowledged criticisms of the book over its usage of contingent categories, but otherwise praised the book's "clear articulation" of the development of classes in the United States.[16]
Notes and citations
Notes
- ^ Republished in 2014 as Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat From Mayflower to Modern and originally published as The Mythology of the White Proletariat: A Short Course in Understanding Babylon
Citations
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 219: "Sakai is the child of Japanese immigrants and a former autoworker."
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 224: "...although for many, including Sakai, politicization came earlier—through the Japanese internment camps, through the communist-inspired sectors of the labor movement..."
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 219: "Both [J. Sakai and Butch Lee] were politicized through their involvement with the black freedom struggle, from the civil rights phase through its revolutionary nationalist incarnations that described itself as part of a black liberation movement."
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 219: "Sakai and Lee have been key nodes in the circuits of intellectual discourse among imprisoned radicals, especially from the BLA. Their political biographies, like the books they produced, are tied to the fascinating but little known history of revolutionary nationalism based in Chicago from the 1960s to the 1990s."
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 221: "David Roediger bought Settlers at a left bookstore in Chicago in the early 1980s, when it was first published as an oversized pamphlet called The Mythology of the White Proletariat."; Moufawad-Paul 2010: "...[the] 8.5x11 graphic novel size does not fit the acceptable standards of an 'authoritative' book."; Bruyneel 2021: "Originally published in 1983 under the title Mythology of the White Proletariat: A Short Course in Understanding Babylon."
- ^ Moufawad-Paul 2016, pp. 140–142; Berger 2016, p. 219: "These books were written and circulated within a semiclandestine network shaped by revolutionaries close to or part of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), the military offshoot of the Black Panther Party."
- ^ a b Berger 2016, p. 227: "The new edition includes an essay about the reparations given to Japanese Americans for their imprisonment during World War II, as well as an interview conducted with Sakai. It also features a new subtitle, From Mayflower to Modern, and a more traditional design than the previous editions."
- ^ Moufawad-Paul 2010: "Perhaps the reason for its academic neglect can be blamed on its unsober use of language and rhetorical tone..."; review cited in Berger 2016, p. 227
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 221: "It is far more pessimistic than even the work of other antiracist independent scholars tracking the invention of whiteness at the time, such as Ted Allen."
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 221: "Although Settlers received almost no notice from academics, it made a small splash among revolutionaries in the early 1980s and still travels in these circles today."; Moufawad-Paul 2010 "...[Settlers] has remained at the edges of 'acceptable' social theory, just at the threshold of obscurity."
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 221: "...Roediger was one of the first and remains one of the only people to cite Settlers in a scholarly publication, The Wages of Whiteness."
- ^ Berger 2016, p. 221: "He said recently that he objected to the at times 'categorical and transhistorical' dismissal of those defined as white, preferring the formulations of Allen...He said he hoped labor historians would take notice of the book's arguments and also look to the land, although it seems that few, if any, noticed."
- ^ Berger 2016, pp. 218–219
- ^ Bruyneel 2021; Burrill 2019, p. 190
- ^ Bruyneel 2021: "J. Sakai provided one of the earliest and most comprehensive readings of American whiteness as fundamentally defined by its historical foundations in settler life."
- ^ Burrill 2019, p. 190: "And while Settlers has been criticized by some within the left for its Maoist over-reification of contingent categories like 'nation' and 'proletariat,' Sakai's book distinguishes itself as a work of theory in its clear articulation of the warped nature of class development in American society."
- ^ Perlman 1985, p. 53: "As an application of Mao-Zedong-Thought to American history, it is the most sensitive Maoist work I've seen...The author mobilizes all these experiences of unmitigated terror, not to look for ways to supersede the system that perpetrated them, but to urge the victims to reproduce the same system among themselves...this work makes no attempt to hide or disguise its repressive aims;"; review cited in Berger 2016, p. 227
- ^ Balagoon 1995, p. 15: "This is in spite of the fact that it is a Marxist work...Its historical recounting...has not been discounted publicly, to my knowledge, by anyone, including the cheap-shot artist who offered an underhanded review of it in the Fifth Estate called 'the continuing appeal of nationalism.'"; review cited in Berger 2016, p. 227
- ^ Balagoon 1995, p. 15; review cited in Berger 2016, p. 227
- ^ Gilbert 2004, p. 57: "Overall, it is a very revealing and useful look at U.S. history."
- ^ Gilbert 2004, p. 59: "Sakai's survey of U.S. history understates the examples of fierce class struggle within the oppressor nation that imply at least some basis for dissatisfaction and disloyalty by working whites."
- ^ Gilbert 2004, p. 59: "Here, Sakai enumerates class based solely on white male jobs in order to correct for situations where the woman's lower-status job is a second income for the family involved. This method, however, fails to take account of the growing number of families where the woman's wages are the primary income. The methodological question also relates to the potential for women's oppression to be a source for a progressive current within the white working class."; Berger 2016, p. 222: "[Night Vision] centralizes gender as an analytic in ways Settlers failed to do. Its gendered framework is one of several factors making Night Vision more resonant to contemporary scholarly debates."
- ^ Yates 2018, p. 53: "Second, his reading of the Sakai book is too generous."
- ^ Yates 2018, p. 54: "This is preposterous on its face, as any clear look at the data would indicate: a large and growing minority of white workers are poor, and all face stagnant or declining wages and diminishing life prospects. Besides, if white workers generated no profits from their labor, they would all be unemployed. Such a view is an insult to those whites who have suffered the grossest exploitation and still do."
References
Books
- JSTOR j.ctv11hpkv8.15.
- Bruyneel, Kevin (2021). "Notes". Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States. ISBN 9781469665252.
- ISBN 1-894925-26-2.
- Archive.org.
- ISBN 9780317295580.
Journal and magazine articles
- University of Victoria Library.
- Burrill, Fred (Spring 2019). "The Settler Order Framework: Rethinking Canadian Working-Class History". JSTOR 26741326.
- ProQuest 2012379487. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
Websites
- M-L-M Mayhem!. Retrieved November 3, 2023.