White Privilege Timeline
Early 1600s
1676
Approximately 50 wealthy Englishmen
acquired financial interests in the
Virginia Company of London. This
included large amounts of land in the
new colony known as Virginia. This
included the right for them to govern
this colony.
Bacon’s Rebellion Both English &
African servants, in
addition to farmers
and free workers,
rose up to demand
land and pay for their
labors. Jamestown
was burned to the
ground during their
revolution.
Mid 1600s
The total number of working servants
in the new American colonies, which
includes both English and African, outnumbered the “gentleman” by as much
as 100 to 1
~~~~~~~~~~
In Virginia there are at least 10
documented servant revolts, the most
famous of which is Bacon’s Rebellion.
1680
In response to these
uprisings, legislators
began enacting a
series of Slave Codes
through 1705.
1755
Massachusetts Legislature: 40
pounds for every Indian male
scalp, 20 pounds for every
female or male scalp under the
age of 12.
1790
Naturalization Act
“Thus the naturalization law
required him [the immigrant] to
reside in the United States for
two years, and make ‘proof’ in
a common law court that he
was a person of good character.
But first he had to be ‘white’”
(Takaki, Iron cages: Race and
culture in 19th-century
America,
p. 15).
President Lincoln’s Conflicting Views
1848
Treaty of
Guadalupe
Hidalgo
“What emerged
after the MexicanAmerican war was
the integration of
the Southwest into
the American
economy and the
development of a
caste/class
structure of social
relations” (Takaki,
Iron cages: Race
and culture in
19th-century
America, p. 162).
1850
July, 1858 in Chicago, IL: “Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and
the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and
therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these
things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more
stand up declaring that all men are created equal.”
September, 1858 in Charleston, IL: “I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have
been, in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the
white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters
or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with
white people… And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain
together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any
other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
Both quotes: Zinn, H., A people’s history of the United States, p 155.
1862
1830
Indian Removal Act, initiated by
President Andrew Jackson.
“The Indian Removal Act of 1830
forced many indigenous people,
particularly those of the eastern
and southern United States, such
as the Creek, Cherokee, and
Seminole, from their native lands.
This Act, sometimes referred to
as perhaps the most devastating
single action taken by the federal
government in destroying Indian
cultures and societies”
(Langer, “The effect of selected
macro forces on the contemporary
social construction of American
Indian ethnic identity.” Journal of
Health & Social Policy, 20 (2), p.
19).
1890
Fugitive Slave Act
“The Act made it easy for slaveowners to recapture ex-slaves or simply
to pick up blacks they claimed had run away”
(Zinn, A people’s history of the United States, p. 181).
August, 1862 - Lincoln wrote: “My paramount object in this struggle is
to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I
could
save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could
save it by freeing all slaves, I would do it…”
(Zinn, A people’s history of the United States, p. 191)
1882 1945
1966
100 million acres of the
American Indians’ former
land is given, free of
charge, to the railroads.
“A speech by Missouri
Senator Thomas Hart
Benton in 1846 articulated
a Racialized ideology of
manifest destiny and
spelled out its implications
for the continent’s Native
peoples. Benton focused
on the historical destiny of
what he called the
‘Caucasian’ or ‘White
race.’ Of all the world’s
‘races,’ only the ‘White
race’ had obeyed God’s
command ‘to subdue and
replenish the earth’”
(Ostler, The plains Sioux
and U.S. colonialism
from Lewis and Clark to
Wounded Knee, p. 38).
Massacre at Wounded Knee
“By the late afternoon, when the firing
finally subsided, between 270 and 300 of
the 400 people in Big Foot’s band were
dead or mortally wounded. Of these, 170
to 200 were women and children, almost
all of whom were slaughtered while
fleeing or trying to hide” (Ostler, The
Plains Sioux and U.S. colonialism from
Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee, p.
345).
“Too much weight, however, has been
placed on the first shot, as though this
alone is the decisive factor in interpreting
Wounded Knee. Regardless of who fired
the first shot, the United States ultimately
bears responsibility for the massacre”
(Ostler, The Plains Sioux and U.S.
colonialism from Lewis and Clark to
Wounded Knee, p. 350).
“the year after the massacre at Wounded
Knee, 1890, it was officially declared by
the Bureau of the Census that the internal
frontier was closed”
(Zinn, A people’s history of the United
States, p. 297).
1996
Proposition 209 ends the 30 years
of affirmative action for people of
color in California.
1997 President Clinton hints at an
apology for American slavery, but
with no compensation.
2001-2002
White Collar Crime hits the
front page news. Companies
such as ENRON & Arthur
Anderson are responsible for
costing the public millions of
dollars
The Chinese Exclusion
Act
1924
Oriental Exclusion Act
1942 Pres. Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9066
“Japanese Americans
were interned en masse
without due process as a
consequence of racial
prejudice, whereas Italian
and German Americans
received individual due
process hearings”
(Brooks, When sorry isn’t
enough: The controversy
over apologies and
reparations for human
injustice, p. 162).
The Atomic Bomb
“The Russians had
secretly agreed (they
were officially not at war
with Japan) they would
come into the war ninety
days after the end of the
European war. That
turned out to be May 8,
and so, on August 8, the
Russians were due to
declare war on Japan. But
by then the big bomb had
been dropped, and the
next day a second one
would be dropped on
Nagasaki; the Japanese
would surrender to the
United States, not the
Russians, and the United
States would be the
occupier of postwar
Japan”
(Zinn, A people’s history
of the United States, p.
423)
Over half of the states
prohibited black-white
marriages
1956-1971
F.B.I. Counterintelligence
Program
“The department of justice
failed to supervise
adequately the domestic
intelligence division of the
Federal Bureau of
Investigation; in addition,
the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, in the
campaign against Dr. King,
grossly abused and
exceeded its legal authority
and failed to consider the
possibility that actions
threatening bodily harm to
Dr. King might be
encouraged by the
program”
Report of the Select
Committee on
Assassinations of the U.S.
House of Representatives
2001
2005
Human Genome Project
“When researchers completed the
final analysis of the Human Genome
Project in April 2003, they confirmed
that the 3 billion base pairs of genetic
letters in humans were 99.9 percent
identical in every person”
http://www.genome.gov/17516714
Hurricane Katrina
“In sum, Katrina provides an unprecedented
opportunity to communicate that ‘racism’ is not
just a matter of the psychology of hatred but is
instead also a matter of the racial structure of
political and economic inclusion and exclusion.”
Nils Gilman, June 11, 2006
http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Gilman/
from White Privilege 101 by Art Munin (permission granted)