Race and Class (pt 3)

Given the previous post on the Incorporation of America, it seems appropriate to return to my thesis on the intersection of race and class.

The bourgeois American culture is dependent on the notion of civilization.  It holds this up, but there has also been an ongoing debate and contest over what counts as civilized.  Could Irish people be accepted into the notion of American civilization?  For a long time, the WASP bourgeoisie was resistant.  Ultimately, as we see happening in the late 19th century, race functions as the primary othering agent against the lower-classes by the bourgeoisie.  And so, race and class are conflated - race becomes a stand in for class.  The bourgeoisie isn't afraid of the racial other per se, but rather the racial other as poor, and as a physical threat.

But race functions somewhat differently among the working-class.  Within the working-class, race works to divide the people against themselves.  Competition for jobs and economic well-being is a primary driving force of this phenomenon.  So, also, is a desire for cultural acceptance within the bourgeoisie.  Finally, the othering process is alive and well here, too.  Denied cultural acceptance by the dominant group, people define their own cultural groups for cultural strength, but at the expense of the other, thus impacting the ability to create class-based resistance to what is really a class-based domination.

So, race is used as a proxy for class in an argument to maintain the bourgeoisie.  In essence, the dominant American culture of the bourgeoisie allows relatively small groups to count themselves as "in" the culture, even while maintaining a specific Other.  Ultimately, American culture has been changed by these non-dominant cultures, while maintaining a heavy class-based hierarchy, which still is impacted by the othering processes, and still includes members of otherwise incorporated groups.  So, the working-class remains divided, and the bourgeoisie survives.