WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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Whiteness: the privileges associated with one’s white skin color.
Racial divides have a starting point in America – Bacon’s Rebellion. This episode traces the origins of the rebellion and the role it played in beginning a long history of racial tension in America. Bacon’s Rebellion gave certain privileges to lower-class white people to prevent them from rebelling against white elites alongside Native Americans and African Americans. These privileges or whiteness have led lower- class white people who think they are benefitting from whiteness voting for policies that impact their health, finances, and sociopolitical power. Why and how whiteness impacts lower-class white people is the topic of this episode. Listen along to hear more from American Studies scholar, Micol Seigel.
More resources:
Encyclopedia of American Studies, “Whiteness”
Jonathan Metzel, Dying of whiteness, How the politics of raial resentment is killing America’s heartland
Judah Schept, “Cages in the Coalfields”
Brent Tarter, “Bacon’s Rebellion, the Grievances of the People, and the Political Culture of Seventeenth-Century Virginia”
Dale Tatum, “Donald Trump and the legacy of Bacon’s Rebellion”
