Is It Possible to Lose Your Whiteness?
Can What Has Been Giveth Be Taken Away?
Whiteness hasn't always been a thing in America, though the concept of the other is eternal. Class has always been the determining factor in acceptance. Money could mostly buy favor, though there were distinguishing factors like old and new money. Whiteness didn't exist until after Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 when groups of the lower classes, Black enslaved people, Black indentured servants, and white indentured servants joined forces against the governor of Virginia and burned down Jamestown.
Ironically, the goal of the rebellion was to force the government to force out or kill the Native Americans. The threat of the lower classes joining forces was too much to bear and required a whole new system. Race became the means to classify Americans, with wealthy white people occupying the top rung of the ladder and enslaved Black people on the bottom.
Indentured servitude soon ceased to exist, and the white indentured servants who once worked alongside Black indentured servants were now their superiors. They became overseers and slave patrollers, with some now having slaves of their own. There was a hierarchy among white people as well. Everyone considered white now was not at the time. People not initially regarded as white in America included Germans, Greeks, white…
