Jeffrey B. Perry

Theodore W. Allen's The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books) is discussed by Jeffrey B. Perry in Black Agenda Report of May 15, 2013. Read the article CLICK HERE Read More 

Jeffrey B. Perry -- Slide Presentation/Talk on
The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books) by Theodore W. Allen
with special emphasis on Vol. II: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America.
Hosted by “The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society”
Filmed by Fred Nguyen on January 31, 2013
Brecht Forum, New York City
.

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WBAI 7 AM

Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” (Verso Books, 1996 and 2012) and his “Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race” (1975; SUNY, Stony Brook, 2006) will be discussed this Friday morning, April 5, 2013, at 7:00 AM by Jeffrey B. Perry with host Felipe Luciano on “Wake UP Call” on radio station WBAI, 99.5 FM in New York.

For additional Allen writings CLICK HERE

To listen live CLICK HERE


Brecht Forum 7:30 PM

An overview of Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” will be offered this Friday night, April 5, 2013, at 7:30 PM by Jeffrey B. Perry at the Brecht Forum, 451 West St., NY (between Bank and Bethune Sts. off the West Side Drive) in a program hosted by the Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society. Perry’s presentation will be followed by a lengthy question and answer period with those in attendance.

Allen’s magnum opus (Vol. 1: "Racial Oppression and Social Control" and Vol. 2: "The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America") details the invention of the “white race” and the development of racial slavery, a particular form of racial oppression, in late 17th and early 18th-century Virginia. Perry wrote the introductions, new back matter, internal study guides, and expanded indexes for the new, 2012, Verso Books edition of Allen’s “classic.”

People in the New York area are encouraged to attend.

Please share this information with those who might be interested!

For information on "The Invention of the White Race", vol. 1: "Racial Oppression and Social Control" including a Table of Contents of the volume) CLICK HERE

For information on the Brecht Forum series CLICK HERE  Read More 

Slide Presentation/Talk by Jeffrey B. Perry on
The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books)
by Theodore W. Allen
with special emphasis on Vol. II: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America.
Hosted by “The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society”
Filmed by Fred Nguyen on January 31, 2013
Brecht Forum, New York City
.

 Read More 

“Rebellion and Reaction”

The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America, the second volume of The Invention of the White Race, new expanded edition (Verso Books, 2012) by Theodore W. Allen, will be discussed this Friday night, March 29, 2013, at 7:30 PM by Jeffrey B. Perry at the Brecht Forum, 451 West St., NY (go to the West Side Drive between Bank and Bethune Sts.) in a program hosted by the Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society.

Allen’s work details the invention of the “white race” and the development of racial slavery, a particular form of racial oppression, in late 17th and early 18th-century Virginia. This week’s presentation will focus on Volume 2, Section Four, and discuss Bacon’s Rebellion, the invention of the “white race” social control formation, and differences between the social control system established in Virginia and the system established in the Anglo-Caribbean.

People in the New York area are encouraged to attend.

Please share this information with those who might be interested!

For information on The Invention of the White Race, vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America (including reviewers' comments and a Table of Contents of the volume) CLICK HERE .

For information on the Brecht Forum series CLICK HERE Read More 

“Road to Rebellion”
The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America, the second volume of The Invention of the White Race (new edition, Verso Books, 2012) by Theodore W. Allen, will be discussed this Friday night, March 22, 2013 at 7:30 PM (and for the next two Fridays) by Jeffrey B. Perry at the Brecht Forum, 451 West St., NY between Bank and Bethune St.) in a program hosted by the Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society.

Allen’s work details the invention of the “white race” and the development of racial slavery, a particular form of racial oppression, in late 17th and early 18th-century Virginia. This week’s presentation will focus on Volume 2, Section Three, “The Road to Rebellion” and will discuss Chapters 7 (“Bond-Labor Enduring . . .”), 8 ( “. . . and Resisting”), 9 (“The Insubstantiality of the Intermediate Stratum”), and 10 (“The Status of African-Americans”).

People in the New York area are encouraged to attend.

Please share this information with those who might be interested!

For information on The Invention of the White Race, vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America (including a Table of Contents of the volume) CLICK HERE .

For information on the Brecht Forum series CLICK HERE .
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“When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there; nor, according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.”
Theodore W. Allen
(Written after searching through 885 county-years of Virginia’s colonial records)

Theodore W. Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, with its focus on racial oppression and social control, is one of the twentieth-century’s major contributions to historical understanding. This two-volume classic (Vol. 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control and Vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America) details how the “white race” was invented as a ruling-class social control formation and a system of racial oppression was imposed in response to labor solidarity in the wake of Bacon’s Rebellion (1676-77), how the “white race” was created and maintained through “white race” privileges conferred on laboring class European-Americans relative to African-Americans, how these privileges were not in the interest of African-Americans or laboring class European-Americans, and how the “white race” has been the principal historic guarantor of ruling-class domination in America.

The Invention of the White Race presents a full-scale challenge to what Allen refers to as “The Great White Assumption” – “the unquestioning, indeed unthinking acceptance of the ‘white’ identity of European-Americans of all classes as a natural attribute rather than a social construct.” Its thesis on the origin and nature of the “white race” contains the root of a new and radical approach to United States history, one that challenges master narratives taught in the media and in schools, colleges, and universities. With its equalitarian motif and emphasis on class struggle it speaks to people today who strive for change worldwide.

Jeffrey B. Perry contributed new introductions, back matter, internal study guides, and expanded indexes to Verso Books’ new expanded edition of The Invention of the White Race. For more information on Dr. Perry and his work on Hubert Harrison “the father of Harlem radicalism” (1883-1927) and Theodore W. Allen (1919-2005).

CLICK HERE

The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books) by Theodore W. Allen, especially Vol. II: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America. Slide Presentation/Talk by Jeffrey B. Perry hosted by The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society on January 31, 2013, at the Brecht Forum in New York City.

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Jeffrey B. Perry interview/discussion with host Hugh Hamilton on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” (Verso Books) and on Hubert Harrison “The Father of Harlem Radicalism.” WBAI Radio (99.5 FM, NYC) Broadcast, Thursday, March 14, 2013 from 4 to 5 PM. To listen please go HERE -- (to the second hour of the two-hour radio program) [Special thanks to Michael G. Haskins for his assistance with this program] Read More 

The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America, the second volume of The Invention of the White Race (new edition, Verso Books, 2012) by Theodore W. Allen, will be discussed this Friday night, March 15, 2013 at 7:30 PM (and for the next three Fridays) by Jeffrey B. Perry at the Brecht Forum, 451 West St., NY in a program hosted by the Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society.

Allen’s work details the invention of the “white race” and the development of racial slavery, a particular form of racial oppression, in late 17th and early 18th-century Virginia. This week’s presentation will focus on Volume 2, Section Two, “The Plantation of Bondage” and will discuss Chapters 4 (“The Fateful Addiction to ‘Present Profit'”), 5 (“The Massacre of the Tenantry”), and 6 (“Bricks Without Straw: Bondage But No Intermediate Stratum”).

People in the New York area are encouraged to attend. Please share this information with those who might be interested!

For information on The Invention of the White Race vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America (including a Table of Contents of the volume) CLICK HERE

For information on the Brecht Forum series CLICK HERE
 Read More 

Jeffrey B. Perry will be on “Talk Back” with host Hugh Hamilton on Radio Station WBAI (99.5 FM New York) at 4 PM today, Thursday, March 14, 2013 discussing the work of Theodore W. Allen (particularly The Invention of the White Race - new edition, Verso Books, 2012) and Hubert Harrison. For more information and to listen online CLICK HERE Read More 

The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society is hosting a presentation by Jeffrey B. Perry on Theodore W. Allen's "The Invention of the White Race" (new expanded edition Verso Books, 2012) tonight Friday, March 1, 2013, 7:30 PM at the Brecht Forum, 451 West St., NYC. Tonight’s discussion will focus on Volume 1: “Racial Oppression and Social Control.” Come and bring a friend! Open to the public! For more information -- CLICK HERE Read More 

The Brecht Forum will be closed on Friday, Feb 8, 2013--because of the “blizzard conditions” in the New York area. The class on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race" (New expanded edition from Verso Books) will now begin on Friday, February 15, 2013, at 7:30 PM at the Brecht Forum, 451 West St. in New York.

The suggested reading for the first session is the article “The Developing Conjuncture and Some Insights from Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen on the Centrality of the Fight Against White Supremacy" available HERE (at the top left). Read More 

On January 29, 2013, two days before the book launch for the new expanded edition of Theodore W. Allen's The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books, 2012), I was interviewed by Gary Glennell Toms regarding Allen's work, the struggle against white supremacy, and the upcoming book launch. The interview is listed as "The Invention of the White Race." To listen to it CLICK HERE. The book launch is being hosted by The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society and will be held at the Brecht Forum, 451 West St., New York, NY, 10014 on Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 7:30 PM. Read More 

The Invention of the White Race
by Theodore W. Allen
Book Launch and Slide Presentation/Talk by Jeffrey B. Perry
for the New Expanded Edition (Verso Books, November 2012)
Hosted by the Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society
Thursday, January 31, 2013, 7:30 pm
Brecht Forum
451 West St. (between Bank and Bethune Sts.)
New York, NY 10014

Theodore W. Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, with its focus on racial oppression and social control, is one of the twentieth-century’s major contributions to historical understanding. This two-volume classic (Vol. 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control and Vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America) details how the “white race” was invented as a ruling-class social control formation and a system of racial oppression was imposed in response to labor solidarity in the wake of Bacon’s Rebellion (1676-77), how the “white race” was created and maintained through “white race” privileges conferred on laboring class European-Americans relative to African-Americans, how these privileges were ruinous to the interests of African-Americans and “disastrous” for laboring class European-Americans, and how the “white race” has been the principal historic guarantor of ruling-class domination in America.

The Invention of the White Race presents a full-scale challenge to what Allen refers to as “The Great White Assumption” – “the unquestioning, indeed unthinking acceptance of the ‘white’ identity of European-Americans of all classes as a natural attribute rather than a social construct.” Its thesis on the origin and nature of the “white race” contains the root of a new and radical approach to United States history, one that challenges master narratives taught in the media and in schools, colleges, and universities. With its equalitarian motif and emphasis on class struggle it speaks to people today who strive for change worldwide.

Extraordinary praise for Allen’s work has been offered from such scholars and labor, left, and anti-white supremacist activists activists as Audrey Smedley, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Tim Wise, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Gene Bruskin, Tami Gold, Muriel Tillinghast, Joe Berry, George Schmidt, Noel Inatiev, Carl Davidson, Mark Solomon, Gerald Horne, Dorothy Salem, Sean Ahern, Wilson Moses, David Roediger Joe Wilson, Charles Lumpkins, Michael Zweig, Margery Freeman, Michael Goldfield, Spencer Sunshine, Ed Peeples, Russell Dale, Gwen-Midlo Hall, Sam Anderson, Gregory Meyerson, Younes Abouyoub, Bruce Nelson, William Carlotti, Peter Bohmer, Dennis O’Neill, Ted Pearson, Juliet Ucelli, Stella Winston, Sean J. Connolly, Vivien Sandlund, Dave Marsh, Russell R. Menard, Jonathan Scott, John D. Brewer, Richard Williams, William L. Vanderburg, Rodney Barker, and Matthew Frye Jacobson. CLICK HERE to read comments

To assist individual readers, classes, and study groups this new expanded edition of Allen’s seminal two-volume "classic" includes new introductions, new appendices with background on Allen and his writings, expanded indexes, and new internal study guides. The study guides follow each volume, chapter-by-chapter, and the indexes also include entries from Allen's extensive notes based on twenty years of primary research.

The work should be of special interest to students of U.S. History, Labor History, African-American History, Irish History, Caribbean History, African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, Race and Ethnicity, Political and Economic History, Sociology and Anthropology, and "White Privilege" and “Whiteness” Studies.

Jeffrey B. Perry contributed new introductions, back matter, internal study guides, and expanded indexes to Verso Books’ new expanded edition of The Invention of the White Race. For more information on Dr. Perry and his work on Hubert Harrison “the father of Harlem radicalism” (1883-1927) and Theodore W. Allen (1919-2005) CLICK HERE .

Background

“When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there; nor, according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.”
Theodore W. Allen
(Written after searching through 885 county-years of Virginia’s colonial records)

The above statement, based on twenty-plus years of research of Virginia’s colonial records, reflected the fact that Allen found “no instance of the official use of the word ‘white’ as a token of social status” prior to its appearance in a Virginia law passed in 1691. As he later explained, “Others living in the colony at that time were English; they had been English when they left England, and naturally they and their Virginia-born children were English, they were not ‘white.’ White identity had to be carefully taught, and it would be only after the passage of some six crucial decades” that the word “would appear as a synonym for European-American.”

Allen was not merely speaking of word usage, however. His probing research led him to conclude – based on the commonality of experience and demonstrated solidarity between African-American and European-American laboring people, the lack of a substantial intermediate buffer social control stratum, and the indeterminate status of African-Americans – that the “white race” was not, and could not have been, functioning in early Virginia.

The Invention of the White Race, especially Volume 2, The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America, tells that story. For a Table of Contents for Volume 2 CLICK HERE For a Table of Contents for Volume 1 CLICK HERE

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To assist individual readers, classes, and study groups this new expanded edition of Allen’s seminal two-volume "classic" includes new introductions, new appendices with background on Allen and his writings, expanded indexes, and new internal study guides. The study guides follow each volume, chapter-by-chapter, and the indexes also include entries from Allen's extensive notes based on twenty years of primary research.

Please read the extraordinary praise from such scholars and labor, left, and anti-white supremacist activists activists as Audrey Smedley, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Tim Wise, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Gene Bruskin, Tami Gold, Muriel Tillinghast, Joe Berry, George Schmidt, Noel Inatiev, Carl Davidson, Mark Solomon, Gerald Horne, Dorothy Salem, Wilson Moses, David Roediger Joe Wilson, Charles Lumpkins, Michael Zweig, Margery Freeman, Michael Goldfield, Spencer Sunshine, Ed Peeples, Russell Dale, Gwen-Midlo Hall, Sean Ahern, Sam Anderson, Gregory Meyerson, Younes Abouyoub, Peter Bohmer, Dennis O’Neill, Ted Pearson, Juliet Ucelli, Stella Winston, Sean J. Connolly, Vivien Sandlund, Dave Marsh, Russell R. Menard, Jonathan Scott, John D. Brewer, Richard Williams, William L. Vanderburg, Rodney Barker, and Matthew Frye Jacobson. Click Here to read these comments

Table of Contents for Vol. 2
"The Invention of the White Race: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo America"

Introduction to the Second Edition [by Jeffrey B. Perry]

PART ONE: Labor Problems of the European Colonizing Powers
1. The Labor Supply Problem: England a Special Case
2. English Background, with Anglo-American Variations Noted
3. Euro-Indian Relations and the Problem of Social Control

PART TWO: The Plantation of Bondage
4. The Fateful Edition to “Present Profit”
5. The Massacre of the Tenantry
6. Bricks without Straw: Bondage, but No Intermediate Stratum

PART THREE: Road to Rebellion
7. Bond-Labor: Enduring . . .
8. . . . and Resisting
9. The Insubstantiality of the Intermediate Stratum
10. The Status of African-Americans

PART FOUR: Rebellion and Reaction
11. Rebellion – And Its Aftermath
12. The Abortion of the “White Race” Social Control System in the Anglo-Caribbean
13. The Invention of the White Race – and the Ordeal of America

Appendices
Appendix II-A: (see Chapter 1, note 64 [re “Maroon communities” in the Americas])
Appendix II-B: (see Chapter 2, note 6 [re Wat Tyler’s Rebellion])
Appendix II-C: (see Chapter 5, note 46 [re the “‘cheap commodity’ strategy for capitalist conquest and William Bullock])
Appendix II-D: (see Chapter 7, note 197 [re the bond-labor system])
Appendix II-E: (see Chapter 9, note 54 [re reduction in the supply of persons in England “available for bond-labor in the plantation colonies”])
Appendix F: (see Chapter 13, note 26 [re William Gooch and the discussion of white supremacy among the ruling classes in eighteenth-century Virginia])
Editor’s Appendix G: A Guide to “The Invention of the White Race” Volume II
Editor’s Appendix H: Select Bibliography on Theodore W. Allen

Notes
Index [Newly Expanded]

This new edition of "The Invention of the White Race" is essential reading for those interested in matters of race and class, for study groups, and for classes. The volumes make especially thoughtful gifts for loved ones, friends, and co-workers.

Please encourage public librarians and school librarians to order these new editions so they are available for others to read!

The volumes are available directly from Verso Books Click Here

They are also available on special discount (including both volumes shrinkwrapped) from Amazon Click Here

For the initial price for a shrinkwrapped set of both volumes at Barnes and Noble Click Here

Table of Contents for Volume I

“The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control”

Acknowledgements
Introduction to the Second Edition [by Jeffrey B. Perry]
Introduction
1. The Anatomy of Racial Oppression
2. Social Control and the Intermediate Strata: Ireland
3. Protestant Ascendancy and White Supremacy
4. Social Control: From Racial to National Oppression
5. Ulster
6. Anglo-America: Ulster Writ Large
7. The Sea-change
8. How the Sea-change was Wrought
Appendices
Appendix A: (see Introduction, note 46 [re intermarriage])
Appendix B: (see Introduction, note 46 [re “cheaper labor” rationale])
Appendix C: (see Chapter 1, note 58 and Chapter 2 note 51 [re Africans’ strength as a limit to English colonization])
Appendix D: (see Chapter 2, notes 42 and 73 [re English Plantations in Ireland as “response to rebellion”])
Appendix E: (see Chapter 2, note 58 [re England on threshold of its career as a world colonial power, with Ireland as its first objective”])
Appendix F: (see Chapter 2, note 77 [re Mountjoy’s “starvation strategy” for Ireland])
Appendix G: (see Chapter 2, note 108 [re “social control policies of the Western colonizing powers”])
Appendix H: (see Chapter 3, note 8 [re “Scottish slavery”])
Appendix I: (see Chapter 3, note 46 [re relative cost differential of English and Irish common labor greater than differential between wage-labor and bond-labor in continental Anglo-America])
Appendix J: (see Chapter 4, note 107 [re “Daniel O’Connell’s views regarding revolutionary violence in Ireland”])
Appendix K: (see Chapter 7, note 62 [re “The Slave” by Leander (John Hughes)])
Appendix L: (see Chapter 7, note 80 [re “Address from the people of Ireland to their Countrymen and Countrywomen in America”])
Editor’s Appendix M: A Brief Biography of Theodore W. Allen
Editor’s Appendix N: Notes to Encourage Engagement with Volume I
Chronological Finding Aid for Users of this Volume
Notes
Index [Newly Expanded]

Theodore W. Allen’s "The Invention of the White Race," with its focus on racial oppression and social control, is one of the twentieth-century’s major contributions to historical understanding. This two-volume “classic” presents a full-scale challenge to what Allen refers to as “The Great White Assumption” – “the unquestioning, indeed unthinking acceptance of the ‘white’ identity of European-Americans of all classes as a natural attribute rather than a social construct.” Its thesis on the origin and nature of the “white race” contains the root of a new and radical approach to United States history, one that challenges master narratives taught in the media and in schools, colleges, and universities. With its egalitarian motif and emphasis on class struggle it speaks to people today who strive for change worldwide. Its influence will continue to grow in the twenty-first century.

Readers of the first edition of "The Invention of the White Race" were startled by Allen’s bold assertion on the back cover: “When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there; nor, according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.” That statement, based on twenty-plus years of research of Virginia’s colonial records, reflected the fact that Allen found “no instance of the official use of the word ‘white’ as a token of social status” prior to its appearance in a Virginia law passed in 1691. As he later explained, “Others living in the colony at that time were English; they had been English when they left England, and naturally they and their Virginia-born children were English, they were not ‘white.’ White identity had to be carefully taught, and it would be only after the passage of some six crucial decades” that the word “would appear as a synonym for European-American.”

Allen was not merely speaking of word usage, however. His probing research led him to conclude – based on the commonality of experience and demonstrated solidarity between African-American and European-American laboring people, the lack of a substantial intermediate buffer social control stratum, and the indeterminate status of African-Americans – that the “white race” was not, and could not have been, functioning in early Virginia.

It is in the context of such findings that he offers his major thesis -- the “white race” was invented as a ruling class social control formation in response to labor solidarity as manifested in the later, civil war stages of Bacon's Rebellion (1676-77). To this he adds two important corollaries: 1) the ruling elite, in its own class interest, deliberately instituted a system of racial privileges to define and maintain the “white race” and implement a system of “racial oppression” and 2) the consequences were not only ruinous to the interests of African-Americans, they were also “disastrous” for European-American workers.

Please share this information with others who might be interested!
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In Volume One of The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control, Theodore W. Allen painstakingly sets out the historical precedents, the comparative case studies, the means to dissect threadbare explanations of contemporary racism, and then provides us with nimble heuristic devices to disentangle the snarled derivatives of the white supremacy ideology we face today.
But it is Volume Two (The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America) which so many of us working on civil rights in the South still carry in our mental knapsack into combat with the remaining diehard Confederistas who continue their sniping at people of color and insinuating their propaganda into the conservative legislative agenda. Volume Two in particular, with its penetrating narrative about the origins of white supremacy and slavery, much of it unfolding in Virginia, is of special inspiration to me and to my civil rights comrades in the Old Dominion. It spells out hope and erases all doubt, even among former skeptics, that white supremacy is not an inherent condition, but a cruel contrivance created and nurtured by the powerful few to master the rest of us. And in Ted Allen’s analysis dwells the heartening prospect that this invention, like all such fabrications, can be dismembered and its fragments thrown upon the waste heap of history.

Edward H. Peeples, Ph.D., Associate Professor Emeritus, Virginia Commonwealth University; Civil rights activist; author, Twentieth Century Scalawag: A White Southerner’s Journey through Segregation to Human Rights Activism (forthcoming, UVA Press)

For more on Theodore W. Allen's The Invention of the White Race and for a link to order from Verso Books -- Click Here!
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