Race-Making and the Garrison State

Abstract

This essay explores the implications of Paul Massing's findings that CIO union members were slightly more resistant to authoritarianism than AFL affiliated unionists. I begin by sketching the contours of the different forms of union consciousness produced by the AFL's craft unionism and the CIO's industrial unionism. Then, paying special attention to the 'ethnic' constituency of CIO unions, I argue that the CIO offered a particularly egalitarian vision of union democracy, at least until the onset of World War II. In the second half of the essay, I examine cinematic representations of race and the manner in which those representations corresponded to a changing racial consciousness among American workers. I end with a discussion of the contours of Cold War unionism, the decline of union democracy as a result of the wartime 'no-strike' pledge and Taft-Hartley, and the manner in which the American union movement displaced exploitation onto a racialized 'Third World' work force.

Working Class Self-Fashioning inSwing Time(1936)

“…From the first sound picture, The Jazz Singer (1928), analyzed so well by Michael Rogin (1998), to social problem films like Black Fury (1935), gangster pictures, especially Scarface (1932), to melodramas like Frank Borzage’s Mannequin (1938), second generation immigrants were portrayed as caught between old and new worlds. Some films, like Michael Curtiz’s Black Fury (1935) and Borzage’s Big City (1937), go much further, taking a stand for social justice by vividly portraying the racism and oppression experienced by immigrant workers (Cassano, 2008b, 2009b). While rarely exposed to the level of vicious racism experienced by African Americans, Asian Americans, and indigenous peoples, the racism, forms of exclusion, and racial domination these ‘new immigrants’ did experience within the normatively ‘white’ culture of the US shaped their assimilation and Americanization.…”

“…While Romero’s motivations for pursuing Penny are never explicitly articulated, they parallel Lucky’s desire for the common world and, simultaneously, resemble the racial dialectic of desire played out in so much 1930s cinema. Racial and ethnic ‘others’ pursue white lovers precisely in order to gain access to that whiteness, to be allowed into the common world (Cassano, 2008b, 2009b). And whatever Romero’s motivations, one thing is clear: he stands below Lucky in the social hierarchy.…”

“…In short, a population of working Americans largely made up of second and third generation immigrants became a political, social, and cultural force. (On the textile strikes of 1934, see Roscigno and Danaher, 2004; for an overview of class struggles during the 1930s, see Levine, 1988; on the Popular Front and the ‘Age of the CIO’ see Denning, 1998, 2009; Cassano, 2009c; on the immigrant character of the American working class see Barrett, 1992; Cassano, 2008b, 2009b; Guttman, 1987. )…”

Dangerous Times

“…This journal has a long history of publishing analyses of race. Authors of articles both in print and forthcoming have examined diversity and education (Berrey 2011, Brunsma et al 2013, Embrick 2011, criminal justice and race (Case 2008, Cassano 2009, Moore 2014, Turner forthcoming), and more generally on race theory (Bonilla-Silva 2002, Bracey forthcoming, Byng 2013, Winant forthcoming). More needs to be done, and we have several special issues in preparation that will further explore the nature of race in this society.…”

Editorial: Racial Politics and the Right

“…There is a long tradition of seeking to comprehend the nature and form of racism in the pages of this journal, whether trying to figure out what it means (Doane, 2006; Paolucci, 2006), its role in profiling other non-whites (Correa, 2011; Romero, 2006), and how race informs politics (Costa Vargas, 2006; Taylor, 2010), or assess its impact on society in general (Cassano, 2009; Wilson, 2008). We are a long way from understanding racism, though we make strides in uncovering how it is manifest in and the way it transforms our social and political discourse.…”