The White Man's Burden Summary

Winthrop Jordan was born on November 11, 1931, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was a history professor and a writer on the history of slavery and the origin of racism in the US. Jordan is the author of the 1974 book The White Man’s Burden. In this book, Jordan tries to describe the history of prejudice behavior in the US. Jordan states that the thesis of this book is that, “rather than slavery causing ‘prejudice,’ or vice versa, they seem rather have generated [. . .] slavery and ‘prejudice’ may have been equally causing and effect continuously reacting upon each other” (45). To provide evidence of his thesis, Jordan points out how whites use the color black to indicate the skin color of African-Americans. He explains the idea of the reason
These views are said to be the cause of blacks taking up jobs as servants and slaves which is proven by Jordan’s justification of the value of whites and blacks. African Americans are valued higher than whites which implied that they should be a lifetime property. Due to the growth of the black population there was fear that they would revolt, so slave owners developed strict controls on slaves and deepened the wedge between the races. Jordan uses Thomas Jefferson theory that slavery is wrong, but he owned slaves himself, to prove the contradictory mindset some slave owners developed. Jefferson also stated that blacks lack intellect. Jordan lastly explains the problem of blacks who are free which were believed to have the ability to cause a rebellion. This lead to the issue of race and how to fix it. A solution to this was to settle black who were free and make laws that will prohibit them to go to certain states. This book uses historical evidence pf the issues caused by racism throughout history and the substantial wedge between whites and blacks. The progression of racism in the US is greatly seen in this story as