The Invention of the ‘White Race’

In the colonial period, colonial rulers referred to Europeans who came to the colonies as indentured servants in a variety of ways which differentiated them from African or indigenous people. They were called “Christians” to distinguish them from indigenous and African “heathens” or “savages.” They were called “servants” to distinguish them from “slaves.” They were also referred to by their country of origin (English, Scottish, etc.) to distinguish them from Africans. In early 17th century Virginia, legal codes relating to the regulation of the working poor of all nationalities, an African was usually called “a Negro,” followed by a name, while Europeans were simply called by their first and last names.

Note that these distinctions were made by the rich about the poor. The land owning law makers, who got their ‘right’ to own land and make laws for the Virginia colony by buying stock in the Virginia Company, had no need to describe themselves. These stockholders knew who they were.

But in 1691, the colonial legislators created a new legal category: “whatsoever English or other white man or woman, bond or free, shall intermarry with a Negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman, bond or free, he shall within three months be banished from this dominion forever.” (Higginbotham, op. cit., p. 44 Italics added.)

Up until this point, the term “white” may have been used in dialogue, but never in law. And when it was used, it referred only to indentured servants. The 1691 law set several legal precedents that have profoundly effected the concept of race to this day:

The first legal use of “white” was used to ban racial intermarriage;
The law focused the punishment on the “white” lover;
The law created a racial category, in that it covered all white people, men and women, bond or free;
The law distinguished “white” from all other inhabitants of the colonies: “Negro,” “mulatto,” and “Indian;”
The law created a new synonym: English equals white. By implication, when other European immigrants came to the colonies, they could be included in the new legal category of “white.”
Thus, a small group of colonial slave owners invented the "white race".

(For more info, see Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race, Racial Oppression and Social Control. Vol. 1 and Ii. New York: Verso Books, 1994 and 1997.)

The creation of a ‘white’ nation

The U.S. Constitution established the new nation as a white republic. indigenous and African peoples were excluded from participation in the republic. The first law of the first (white) congress in 1790 banned all non-white immigrants from becoming citizens of this white republic. This law meant that first generation immigrants from any continent except Europe could not own land -- the main means of earning a living in the new republic -- because state and territorial constitutions prohibited non-citizens from owning land.

In the 19th century, European Americans ran over the remaining lands of indigenous nations in the West, made war on Mexico and took half her land as war booty —— now called the Southwest or “Occupied America,” depending on your viewpoint of these historical events. These acts of expansion of the white republic were called “Manifest Destiny,” the god—given right of the white U.S. to conquer nations of color and establish them as colonial territories.

Today we still call the U.S. “America,” a linguistic expression of white nationalism (a term coined by the famous African American scholar John Henrik Clarke). Using the term “America” to refer to the U.S. ignores the existence of both Canada and all the nations south of the Rio Grande which are also part of the American continent.

Under the banner of white nationalism, “America” has brought “democracy” — under the barrel of a gun ——to nations of color around the world.

Sexual violence through the lens of ‘race’

One of the most pervasive, destructive and hypocritical myths to come from the concept of “race” has been the belief that Indigenous and African-American men are sexual predators on white women; and that all women of color are sexual vampires luring white men.

This mythology comes, I believe, from a white psychological projection which legitimates as well as covers up the socially sanctioned sexual violence by white men against men and women of color. White men have raped African American women as a matter of racial prerogative; then fantasized that Black men are raping white women. The punishment meted out to Black men, In particular, for this crime committed by white men has been barbaric: lynching, burning and castration. And white women have bought this barbarity as the price they pay for “safety.”

(For more on this complex topic, see Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Mind that Burns in Each Body,” in Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology. Edited by Margaret L. Anderson and Patricia Hill Collins. Belmont, Ca: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1992. pp. 397—412.)

Another interpretation of the barbarity and pervasiveness of racially motivated sexual violence by whites against people of color, and especially against peoples of African descent, is the theory of the pre—eminent African American psychiatrist, lecturer and anti-racist activist, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. In her “Cress Theory of Color -- Confrontation and Racism/White Supremacy,” Dr. Welsing analyzes the root causes of white supremacy. She demonstrates that the genes of white people are recessive as compared to those of people of African descent. Thus, if whites and African-descended people mate and create children, the family tree will have more darker skin offspring.

Dr. Welsing concludes the the virulence of white supremacy stems from white fear of genetic annihilation. In other words, if white/African sexual interrelationships become the norm rather than the statistical exception, in a few generations there will be no more white people. An historical analysis of the pervasiveness of white fear of intermarriage, from 1691 to the present, lends much credence to this perspective.

Dr. Cress Welsing further asserts that white people keep this fear in their white closets. I agree. For over two decades, Dr. Cress Welsing has been a featured speaker at African American gatherings, and her book, The Isis Papers, is a best seller in Black book stores. But I have yet to see her name mentioned by any white writers on race, or any reference, supportive or critical, to her theories. It is as if white writers want to white her out of the discussion on race!

(For more info, see Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, “The Cress Theory of Color— Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy) in The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors. Chicago: Third World Press, 1991.)

excerpt from,

Understanding Racism: An Historical Introduction
(This presentation and exercise is inspired by the Undoing Racism Workshop of The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond.)