'White Man's Work': Deciding Who Gets To Be "Working Class" | Joseph Jewell | TMR

Professor of Black Studies and Department Head at the University of Illinois Chicago, Joseph O. Jewell, joins Sam to discuss his book White Man’s Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility Into the Progressive Era.

In the midst of recent financial upheavals, the increasing wealth gap has disrupted conventional notions of middle-class stability. Concurrently, demographic forecasts anticipate a shift in the racial composition of the middle class, traditionally perceived as predominantly white, over the next two decades due to the nation's growing racial diversity. Joseph O. Jewell takes us back to the early twentieth century, revealing how the mobility of Black, Mexican American, and Chinese men into the middle class sparked new anxieties and forms of backlash among white communities. Through a blend of cultural history and historical sociology, Jewell traces the evolving narratives that intertwined whiteness with middle-class mobility and manhood, delving into how racialized groups navigate, defend, and transform their social positions within intersecting hierarchies of race, class, and gender. At the turn of the century, cities nationwide witnessed the emergence of new racist narratives portraying non-white men in middle-class occupations, serving to reinforce white supremacy amid profound shifts in the nation's racialized economic landscape.

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