Race is a common term used to describe people who have common visible physical traits, such as one’s skin color. Ethnicity is a common term used to describe people who belong to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. These two terms are different because race refers to physical characteristics that people inherit from their previous generations. On the other hand, ethnicity refers to tradition and it is not something that is inherited, rather it is something that people come to obtain and choose. Race has to do with one’s biological background and ethnicity can be based on where one resides, the language that one speaks, the religion that one practices, etc.
Slavery’s legacy of racism and discrimination did not end after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Now that slaves were free, the North and the South had to decide what to do with them. According to “The Reconstruction of Black Servitude after the Civil War,” the North had a fear that ex-slaves would migrate to the northern states and increase competition for jobs. “This was particularly true of Irish immigrants, who rapidly became as racist as any segment of northern society simply because they competed with blacks for jobs at or near the bottom of the occupational ladder” (Steinberg, 177). Many plans involved removing blacks from the industrial labor market, fueling racism and discrimination. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln proposed a plan to colonize ex-slaves in the Caribbean islands to reduce the labor competition. However, colonization was never heavily implemented because black labor was too valuable. In 1864, Senator James Lane of Kansas proposed a plan that “would have set aside large tracts of land in Texas for Negro colonization” (Steinberg, 181) and Carl Schurz and John Palmer Usher would have employed blacks in public works projects like railroad construction. On the other hand, the South wondered if the former slaves would work now that they were free. The South believed that the only way to make blacks work was to enforce punishment. They decided to try and colonize blacks out of the country, just as the North had planned. After the South was unsuccessful with European immigrants and Chinese laborers, they realized that they relied on black labor for cotton production. The Freedman’s Bureau was created “to facilitate the transition from slavery to freedom in a manner that would not disrupt the Southern economy or jeopardize the North’s supply of cheap and abundant cotton” (Steinberg, 191). Contracts were created that guaranteed freedmen specific wages or a share of the crop, shelter, food, and medical care. With many ex-slaves not wanting to sign these contracts, most southern states passed Black Codes between 1865 and 1867. These included vagrancy laws that allowed blacks to be arrested or hired out of public auction if they did not sign or breach the contracts. The Freedman’s Bureau was a way to continue the practices of slavery without calling it slavery.
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In regards to agricultural work arrangements, there existed sharecropping and prison labor. These systems most definitely helped to perpetuate and fuel racism and discrimination. In the system of sharecropping, a landowner would allow a laborer to use their land and in exchange, they would get a share of the crop they were growing, shelter, food, and medical care. Black families would rent the land and produce crops such as cotton, rice, and tobacco. The landowners would give the black laborers equipment that they could lease and other tools that they would need to harvest their crops. However, many black families encountered high-interest rates, corrupt landowners, and crops that would not grow as they had hoped. Black laborers suffered a large amount of debt and they had difficulty selling their crops to anyone besides their landowner. They also had difficulty moving to another plot of land. Prison labor is a form of punishment for imprisoned people. After the Civil War, many prisons were destroyed. Before the Civil War, slaves were punished by their slave owners. Now slavery had been abolished, and there was a problem with housing felons. Under the system of prison labor, felons would be leased out to local planters. They would pay a low rate for the laborers, providing them with food and shelter, similar to sharecropping. Markets started evolving for these prison laborers. Employers did not treat prison laborers well because they only invested a small amount of money into them. However, the states and the people who invested in prison laborers made a high profit. The costs started to outweigh the benefits of prison labor, as income was being lost and it was costing too much to house them. Eventually, they were not leased out anymore and they would work on public projects.
According to the reading, “Race, Ethnicity, and the American Labor Market: What’s at Work?”, race and ethnicity play a role in the jobs that people obtain and the careers that they pursue. When somebody is looking for a job, trying to get a promotion, or may change their career, “race and ethnicity constrain individual choices and affect chances of success” (Page 1). Occupational segregation refers to the distribution of employees within an occupation based on race, ethnicity, gender, etc. One group may be overrepresented in an occupation and another group may be underrepresented. This results in employment inequity across gender and race. According to the reading, “White men have the highest labor force participation and employment rates, and the lowest unemployment rates, of all measured demographic groups; data for Asian men differ only slightly” (Page 2). It can be seen that there are more white men and Hispanic men in the labor force than African American men. There are similar statistics for women, as less than three-fifths of white women are in the labor force and have jobs. There are more African American women in the labor force, but they also have a higher unemployment rate. Hispanic women are the lowest in the labor force with an employment rate below white and African American women. “These economic statistics indicate that, in a robust economy, the supply of white and Asian workers may not meet employer demand, but the supply of African American and Hispanics who want to work outstrips the demand for these workers” (Page 3). This racial supply and demand for workers play a role in specific groups being overrepresented or underrepresented within occupations.
When looking at occupational data, there is a clear indication of labor market disparities due to race and ethnicity. “One-third of white men and nearly one-half of Asian men are employed in managerial, professional, and related occupations, compared with one-fifth of African American men and one-seventh of Hispanic men” (Page 3). While more white men are employed in higher-paying positions, more African American men and Hispanic men are employed in lower-paying positions like production and transportation. As for African American and Hispanic women, they are more likely to be employed in low-paying service occupations than white or Asian women. “According to sociological research, occupational segregation helps explain persistent wage gaps between whites and both African Americans and Hispanics, especially for women” (Page 3). While the wage gap has narrowed due to African Americans being employed in more occupations in the 1960s and 1970s, “wages do not rise for any occupation characterized by the presence of African American women” (Page 3). Many factors go into occupational segregation and employment inequity. Employers rank workers on a queue from perceived best to worst. “Theoretically, if there were no racial and ethnic discrimination, there would be one queue of workers, with placement in the job queue dependent on skills, education, and experience. However, employer preferences also vary by gender and race; preferences for whites, and sometimes Asians, alter job queues based on educational level and skills” (Page 5). Occupational segregation and employment inequity hinder everyone from having an equal opportunity to work in different fields.
During the Industrial Era, the social order of work and race was changing. In the article titled, “Divided We Stand,” by Bruce Nelson, the working class was portrayed as white, and discrimination existed within labor unions. White men were racially superior, however, African Americans fought by building schools, and churches, starting businesses, and organizing unions. Being a citizen meant being white or becoming white, which allowed segregation to continue. The Irish community tried to exclude African Americans as much as possible using the idea of citizenship, which impacted social order. Even though some people supported interracial unionism, other Irish people believed “that to become American one must become white, that American citizenship required the drawing of a racial line between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and that whiteness was not only about skin color but also about ascribed characteristics separating the saved from the damned and the purgatory of racial in-betweenness” (Nelson, 31). Unions such as the AFL and the CIO talked about racial equality, yet they each had qualities that had African Americans experiencing harshness. This was a pivotal time in history for workers and employers because the American working class was made with the help of black migrants. In the article titled, “When Affirmative Action Was White,” by Ira Katznelson, there is an emphasis on African Americans being excluded from the new middle class. “Written under Southern auspices, the law was deliberately designed to accommodate Jim Crow. Its administration widened the country's racial gap. The prevailing experience for blacks was starkly differential treatment” (Katznelson, 114). As can be seen, the creation of a middle class during the Industrial Era had an impact on the social order of work and race, however, the discrimination did not seem to lighten for African Americans.
There are multiple types of discrimination, three being individual discrimination, institutional discrimination, and structural discrimination. Individual discrimination is one individual discriminating against another. An employee may face individual discrimination in the workplace when their boss gives them more of a workload than the other employees because they are a minority. Institutional discrimination refers to discrimination embedded in the procedures or policies of large organizations. An employee may face this type of discrimination as they are trying to move up a job ladder in their place of employment but are not offered the position because the company refuses to offer promotions to those employees of minority races or ethnicities, despite their qualifications for the job. Structural discrimination refers to discrimination within the social, economic, and political systems in which we all exist. A worker, specifically a woman, may face this type of discrimination as it has been embedded into society that women should hold less powerful jobs than men. Therefore, a woman may face this type of discrimination when applying for jobs that are considered to be masculine and may receive lower wages. These types of discrimination can be seen throughout the Industrial Era. The New Deal was instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Under The New Deal, a reform called the GI Bill of Rights was created to reintegrate 16 million veterans who were returning from the war. It allowed millions of soldiers to buy homes, go to college, start businesses, and find jobs. However, many African American veterans were excluded from this program, experiencing structural discrimination. The idea of “separate but equal” was seen within The New Deal, even though equality was out of reach for African Americans. For example, according to the article “When Affirmative Action Was White,” “Though separate, black colleges hardly were equal. ‘Not a single one of these institutions offers work that is even substantially equal to that offered in the corresponding state institutions for whites…’” (Katznelson, 132). These colleges offering work that is not equal for whites and minorities is a clear indication of institutional discrimination. The GI Bill did not contain anything that directly or indirectly excluded blacks, but how it was administered enabled the discrimination of black veterans individually, institutionally, and structurally.
When Martin Luther King said this, he was referring to African Americans having some rights, but not enough wealth to enjoy these rights. They did not have access to better jobs that were high in pay. On March 18th, 1968, Martin Luther King stated in Memphis, “‘What good is it to have the right to sit at a lunch counter if you don’t have enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?’” (Honey, 2). The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, which banned segregation and employment discrimination based on a person’s race, religion, sex, or national origin. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, which banned discriminatory voting practices. With these acts in place, according to King, African Americans had to fight for “‘genuine equality, which means economic equality’” (Honey, 2). Therefore, they faced a new obstacle of being able to obtain jobs and livable wages. King called upon the government and businesses “to create jobs or provide a guaranteed annual income, pegged not to minimum income but to the median income in the society” (Honey, 2) to give African Americans a fair chance to create wealth. In addition, King also wanted African Americans “‘to turn to the labor movement because it was the first and pioneer anti-poverty program’” (Honey, 3). The AFL-CIO states that African Americans’ union representation today is the highest percentage of any other group, and Martin Luther King saw that coming.
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