The ghost of America’s greatest sin has haunted various socio-economic institutions in the U.S., the most notable of those being labor. W.E.B. Du Bois’ seminal work, Black Reconstruction in America, contextualizes the effects of chattel slavery through early American foundations into industrialization, all the while examining its relationship with the white worker. Through a historical analysis of the African-American experience from slavery and beyond, Du Bois contextualizes the plight of people of color in the West. When reviewing the Department of Labor’s data regarding “Earnings Disparities by Race and Ethnicity,” it is obvious that there are aggregate differences among ethnicities. Du Bois analysis of U.S. economic phenomena provides insight;
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Black freedmen who had only previously known slavery sought employment and in effect, angered white workers who had dreams of becoming capitalists. Du Bois would approach this data by analyzing the political systems set up to prevent Black workers from mobilizing for justice as employees. Du Bois discusses the disenfranchisement of Black men, who had previously had the ability to vote per their property holdings– and how the political landscape vastly changed by excluding their input (Du Bois 8). The fear of white workers and plantation workers, who considered themselves the ‘police’ of Black workers, preventing them from revolutionizing, was any sort of organization, even political (Du Bois 12). Thus, the political history of Black labor in the South was consistently against their progress. In aggregate, the national data indicates that Black workers earn 34 of the wages that white people earn, which, while more progressive than that of the nineteenth century systems Du Bois speaks of, indicates that wage levels are consistently lower for Black individuals than their white or Asian
Black freedmen who had only previously known slavery sought employment and in effect, angered white workers who had dreams of becoming capitalists. Du Bois would approach this data by analyzing the political systems set up to prevent Black workers from mobilizing for justice as employees. Du Bois discusses the disenfranchisement of Black men, who had previously had the ability to vote per their property holdings– and how the political landscape vastly changed by excluding their input (Du Bois 8). The fear of white workers and plantation workers, who considered themselves the ‘police’ of Black workers, preventing them from revolutionizing, was any sort of organization, even political (Du Bois 12). Thus, the political history of Black labor in the South was consistently against their progress. In aggregate, the national data indicates that Black workers earn 34 of the wages that white people earn, which, while more progressive than that of the nineteenth century systems Du Bois speaks of, indicates that wage levels are consistently lower for Black individuals than their white or Asian