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When Affirmative Action Was White Paper

Introduction

The federal government tried to save the country in the midst of the Great Depression by carrying out different initiatives throughout the 1930s and World War II years. Also, these programs did not only hurt Black people economically but to the benefit of the White people. The book ‘When White People Did Affirmative Action’ by Ira Katzelson reveals how white Americans were the target of all the affirmative action policies that were passed during New Deal, World War II, and post-war era. The main aim of this paper is to explore how the colorblind New Deal, World War II, and post-World War II programs by the federal government in reality turned into affirmative action for the white Americans, thus perpetuating racial inequity through legal and non-legal means.

New Deal Programs

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States during the Depression era, presented an array of economic reforms called the New Deal. The progress of New Deal was most important factor that decided greater things to do without losing their social and economic reforms desires (Katznelson p.29). However, most gainful results of these schemes were made by white Americans, not considering the black Americans. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), that turned in many states from tax ability during the financial crash, helped families to survive. Yet more Black people were also recipients of the domestic relief packages between 1933 and 1935 (Katznelson p.140). Harry Hopkins, the FERA head office administrator, found that he had no alternative other than “allowing the plantation owners in the south to get a large number of cheap laborers for their farms by refraining from paying out wages to agricultural workers and sharecroppers” after deducing that the size of the population of black who got such payments was small compared to that of the white who got such payments (Katznelson p.37). As for the southern states, there is a marked drop in the black relief rates after 1935. It is notable that in ten southern states the black relief rates were less than those of the whites. People of black race and poverty in several Georgian regions were not qualitative to get FERA subsidiary payments. While white Americans and Black Americans both enjoyed benefits from the Social Security Act of 1935, a majority of the African Americans were mostly classified under the low-income status such as domestics or farmworkers therefore they were not entitled to Social Security. However, since the late 1960s, African Americans were able to register into Social Security and they started getting full benefits. As the authors assert (Katznelson p.51), “the result of federal social welfare policy is two-sided: its warping factor played a role as affirmative action, but also it was racial discrimination at the same time.” Lacking the wide range of representatives of the Black population in the Senate and House of Representatives in the South, they have the power to bar the welfare progress of blacks.

World War II Programs

The United States (US) army in WWII was segregated into a white army alongside a black army. However, they were not independent but equally unequal armies. Only white officers were promoted to positions of high rank and were able to command the troops. Along with those, white supremacy had its form in the armed forces during World War II. As a good example, Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz stated, “enlisted white soldiers would not accept the idea of being commanded by black officers by the sea side” (Katznelson p.105). WWII was also a big change for white ethnic America, especially the descendants of Catholic and Jewish settlers who arrived between the 1880s and 1924. It happened to be the Jews who were being denied citizenship across Europe, so Jews and Catholics as citizens were just acknowledged. Religious privileges existed for a white ethnic minority but not to the same extent for the black community. Black Americans still were offered national policies, however more were offered to white Americans. The Army took over special Training units and created a crash schooling program in response to Mississippi’s Senator Bilbo, who said that he was troubled because he wanted to (pg. 108). Despite this, African Americans were much zealous towards getting out of the category of illiteracy, but there was still a higher percentage of white admirals than black Americans (Katznelson p.110). Nevertheless, the blacks soldiers evinced an audacious resolve and had they continued the war it would have been to destroy Germany and Japan, not just to integrate racial groups.

Post-World War II Programs

After WWII the G.I. Bill was enacted to grant the veterans the money for paying the college fees, unemployment insurance, and the house, and hence, the middle class was created but mostly for white citizens. John Rankin from Mississippi, a notorious racist (Katznelson p.123). Among the reasons that made the G.I. Bill of Rights a white’s only, was that it was shaped to come across as inciting racism at both the state and the local levels by James F. Byrnes, the former senator from South Carolina (Katznelson p.23). The Veterans Administration (VA) administrators were aware that the pieces of legislation contemplated to pass through the Southern Well, VA, in turn, supported Rankin in combating postwar program proposals from Washington. Following the G.I. Bill, the U.S. Employment Service (USES) was set up to provide jobs for unemployed veterans. African Americans who were suitable for the program applied, but white counselors who generally discouraged them from take jobs that they were assumed to be able to get. In addition, the G.I. loan that was promised to black Americans as well was denied to them. Moreover, they already severely discriminated against them on the basis of race by deeming them as “high-risk candidates” (Katznelson p.140) nationwide.

Conclusion

In conclusion, New Deal, World War II and post-World War II federal programs were affirmative action for white Americans and hence were a practice of sustaining racial inequality through discrimination. However, the colored segregation removed or even disenfranchised the African Americans from accessing resources and mobility. Learning about the background and development of these programs allows us to identify the structural barriers of the racial inequality in the US.

Work Cited

Katznelson, Ira. When affirmative action was white: An untold history of racial inequality in twentieth-century America. WW Norton & Company, 2005.

 

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