Affirmative Action 20th Century America White Racial Inequality

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America

By Ira Katznelson

Review:
"Rather than seeing affirmative action developing out of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Katznelson (Desolation and Enlightenment) finds its origins in the New Deal policies of the 1930s and 1940s. And instead of seeing it as a leg up for minorities, Katznelson argues that the prehistory of affirmative action was supported by Southern Democrats who were actually devoted to preserving a strict racial hierarchy, and that the resulting legislation was explicitly designed for the majority: its policies made certain, he argues, that whites received the full benefit of rising prosperity while blacks were deliberately left out.

Katznelson supports this startling claim ingeniously, showing, for instance, that while the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act was a great boon for factory workers, it did nothing for maids and agricultural laborers — employment sectors dominated by blacks at the time — at the behest of Southern politicians. Similarly, Katznelson makes a strong case that the GI Bill, an ostensibly color-blind initiative, unfairly privileged white veterans by turning benefits administration over to local governments, thereby ensuring that Southern blacks would find it nearly impossible to participate. This intriguing study closes with suggestions for rectifying racial inequality, but its strongest merit is its subtle recalibration of a crucial piece of American history." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Book News Annotation:

Katznelson (political science and history, Columbia U.) offers a reexamination of the history of affirmative action in the U.S., from the early days of the New Deal and the Social Security Act, to the GI Bill and civil rights legislation under President Lyndon Johnson. Katznelson argues that the public policies of the federal government during the 1930s and 1940s shaped affirmative action to the benefit of whites under the aegis of the South in Congress, and that despite subsequent legislation of the 1960s and modern affirmative action, there still exists a "deep, even chronic dispossession that continues to afflict a large percentage of black America." Academic, but accessible to the general reader.
Annotation 2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Synopsis:

"WHEN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WAS WHITE demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. This was no accident. With the United States still in an era of legal segregation, the powerful southern wing of the Democratic Party provided the framework for Social Security, the GI Bill, and landmark labor laws that helped create the foundations of the modern middle class. Through mechanisms that specifically excluded maids and farm workers and through laws that kept administration in local hands, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity. The publication of this deeply disturbing work promises to create a national debate on the meaning of affirmative action and the responsibility of government.