The readings for this Tuesday offered two enlightening perspectives about the relationship between free laborers and the system of slavery. It was interesting to compare the experience of white freemen in the North working for labor rights (as discussed in Roediger\u2019s essay) and that of Irish Americans in their attempts at establishing a favorable identity within a slave society (discussed in Dee Dee Joyce\u2019s article). I enjoyed Roediger\u2019s eloquent style and Joyce\u2019s clear and concise outlining of her argument.<\/p>\n
Northern white laborers compared themselves to slaves in a rhetorical strategy in order to critique the \u201cevolving capitalist social relations as a kind of slavery\u201d (Roediger 342). This strategy was risky and complex; while they compared their plight to that of slaves, they also had to be careful to \u201cdistance themselves from blacks even as the comparisons were being made.\u201d (Roediger 341). While it is easy to look back now and characterize their comparisons to slavery as hyperbolic and extreme, the risk that was assumed by likening oneself to a slave should not be understated. Roediger emphasized this point by saying that \u201ccomparing oneself to a slave or to any Black American could not be lightly undertaken in the antebellum United States\u201d (344). I assumed that comparing themselves to slaves implied a certain degree of anti-slavery sentiment, but the reading revealed that this was not the case. Rather it was \u201ca call to arms to end the inappropriate oppression of whites\u201d (344). Because, you know, slavery is totally okay\u2026 just not for whites.<\/p>\n
The Irish Americans in the South also played on the societal inferiority of blacks and slaves as they attempted to create their identity in their new home of the antebellum south. Like the white northern freemen, the Irish were extremely concerned about avoiding \u201cthe taint of blackness\u201d as they attempted to succeed in the realm of free labor (Ignatiev quoted by Joyce, 188). While Joyce described \u00a0quite a few racist acts by the Irish (minstrel shows, eradicating slave and free black from the realm of free labor, etc\u2026) it is understandable (but not necessarily justified) that Irish Americans resorted to racism in light of their past. Will pointed this out extremely well when he said: \u201cShaped by a history of marginalization, Irish-Americans desperately longed for inclusion and a sense of superiority, and maintaining slavery offered the best way to attain these goals\u201d (http:\/\/sites.davidson.edu\/his141\/white-laborers-fear\/<\/a>).\u00a0This history of marginalization led them to be very pragmatic and calculating about their discrimination of blacks. I ultimately took away from this reading that it wasn\u2019t necessarily racist impulse that fueled their anti-black actions, just an undeniable truth that either the Irish immigrants or the African Americans were going to be oppressed in the US, and the Irish did what was possible to make sure it wouldn’t be them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The readings for this Tuesday offered two enlightening perspectives about the relationship between free laborers and the system of slavery. It was interesting to compare the experience of white freemen in the North working for labor rights (as discussed in Roediger\u2019s essay) and that of Irish Americans in their attempts at establishing a favorable identity … <\/p>\n