Jeffrey B. Perry

115,000 VIEWS
This Video on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of White Race”
Has Just Passed the 115,000-Views Mark.


115,000 VIEWS -- This Video on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of White Race” Has Just Passed the 115,000-Views Mark. It opens with some insights from the life and work of Hubert Harrison.

Please take time to watch the video, to share it with friends, and to call the work of Theodore W. Allen and Hubert Harrison to the attention of others.

Theodore W. Allen’s “Invention of the White Race” has been referred to as a “classic” by historians Nell Painter, Gerald Horne, Wilson J. Moses, and Gregory Meyerson and by social anthropologist Audrey Smedley.

Labor historian Joe Berry says it “is one of the most important books of U.S history ever written.”

Historian Mark Solomon of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University, says, “The profound insights in ‘The Invention of the White Race’ are essential both to understand the origins and destructiveness of white supremacy and to provide the means to conduct struggle against it. Allen’s study is mandatory reading for everyone concerned with justice, equality and the liberation of all from the binds of white supremacy.”

Long time activist Carl Davidson emphasizes that “You simply can’t understand America and who we are without this [“The Invention of the White Race”] book.”

Special thanks to those who contributed to the book launch event that was the basis of this video on Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” – including filmmaker Fred Nguyen; Muriel Tillinghast and Sean Ahern of “The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society”; Kazembe Balagun, Max Uhlenbeck, and Liz Mestres of the Brecht Forum; and Jessica Turner of Verso Books.

A second video on “The Invention of White Race,” recently filmed at a “multi-racial” worker organizing conference in Greensboro, NC, has exceptionally clear slides and is also attracting increased attention – see HERE Special thanks to organizer Ben Wilkins, who coordinated the two-day conference, and to Eric Preston (and Fusion Films) for work on the video.

For information on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” Volume I: “Racial Oppression and Social Control" (including comments from scholars and activists, Table of Contents, and an overview of the volume) see HERE Note – the new, expanded Verso Books edition of this volume includes new introductions and notes, an expanded index, and a lengthy and detailed internal study guide.

For information on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” Volume II: "The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo America" (including comments from scholars and activists, Table of Contents, and an overview of the volume) see HERE Note – the new, expanded Verso Books edition of this volume includes new introductions and notes, an expanded index, and a lengthy and detailed internal study guide.

For information on Theodore W. Allen’s “Summary of the Argument of The Invention of the White Race” Part 1 see HERE and for Part 2 see HERE

For additional writings by and about Theodore W. Allen see HERE

For an in-depth treatment of the development of the work of Theodore W. Allen see “The Developing Conjuncture and Some Insights From Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen on the Centrality of the Fight Against White Supremacy” in PDF format at the TOP LEFT at HERE
or at “Cultural Logic” at HERE

For a video interview with Theodore W. Allen on “The Invention of the White Race” conducted by New York City schoolteacher Stella Winston and viewed by over 105,000 people see HERE

For information on “Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918” (Columbia University Press, 2008) see HERE

For information on “A Hubert Harrison Reader” (Wesleyan University Press, 2001) see HERE

For information on Hubert H. Harrison, “When Africa Awakes: The ‘Inside Story’ of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in the Western World,” New Expanded Edition (Diasporic Africa Press, 2015) see HERE

For a video on Hubert Harrison based on a presentation at the Dudley Public Library in Roxbury, Massachusetts – see -- HERE
Special thanks to Mimi Jones, Friends of the Dudley Library, Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, Massachusetts Global Action. Mirna Lascano, Umang Kumar, and Charlie Welch for making the event possible and to Boston Neighborhood News TV's "Around Town" -- Channel: Comcast 9 / RCN 15 -- Justin D. Shannahan, Production Manager, Ted Lewis, cameraman, and Laura Kerivan, copy editor, Nia Grace (Marketing and Promotions Manager), and Scott Mercer for helping to make the video available.

For a recent video on Hubert Harrison done at the St. Croix Landmarks Society, Estate Whim, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands – see Read More 

95,000 Views – Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of White Race” - Presentation by Jeffrey B. Perry. This video of a slide presentation/talk on Allen’s “Invention” (2 vols.; Verso Books, new expanded edition, 2012), which opens with some insights from the life and work of Hubert Harrison (“The Father of Harlem Radicalism”), has just passed the 95,000 -Viewers Mark. See HERE

See also “Theodore W. Allen and ‘The Invention of the White Race’” video of slide presentation/talk by Jeffrey B. Perry at a June 2016 “Multiracial Organizing Conference” against white supremacy in Greensboro, NC
HERE
(Slides in this video are very clear).

Harrison and Allen are two of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers on "race" and class and they are growing in importance in the 21st century.

You are encouraged to watch the video at your leisure (the use of slides makes it possible to stop for awhile and then pick up where you left off). You are also encouraged to share this video with others – particularly younger activists. As one long-time activist wrote, Allen’s work “will change your life and outlook forever. You simply can't understand America and who we are without this book.”

Theodore W. Allen explained “When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no ‘white’ people there, nor according to the colonial records, would there be for another sixty years.” Allen based his statement on twenty-plus years of research and examination of 865 county years of pattern-setting Virginia’s colonial records. Allen makes clear that the “white race" did not exist in early colonial Virginia.

He then documents and develops three major themes:

1. The "white race" was invented as a ruling class social control formation in response to labor solidarity as manifested in the latter (civil war) stages of Bacon's Rebellion (1676-77).

2. A system of racial privileges was deliberately instituted by the late-17th/early- 18th-century Anglo-American bourgeoisie in order to define and establish the "white race” and to establish a system of racial oppression.

3. The consequence was not only “ruinous” to the interests of the African Americans, but was also "disastrous" for European-American workers. Their “position vis-á-vis the rich and powerful was not improved, but weakened by the white-skin privilege system.”

Theodore W. Allen (pioneer of class struggle-based “white skin privilege” analysis in the 1960s and author of “The Invention of the White Race” in the 1990s) and Hubert Harrison (“The Father of Harlem Radicalism”) are two of the most important thinkers on issues of "race" and class of the 20th century. They offer a tremendous amount of insights to people struggling today for a more just and radically changed society. Those concerned with issues of "race" and class are strongly urged to become familiar with their work and to share information by and about them with others.

This slide presentation / talk by Jeffrey B. Perry was hosted by the “Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society” at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan. Long-time activist Muriel Tillinghast chaired the event and long-time activist Sean Ahern assisted with the slides. Kazembe Balagun helped to arrange the event.

The video was shot by Fred Nguyen and made available Courtesy of Fansmiles Productions.

For information on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” Volume II: "The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo America" (including comments from scholars and activists, Table of Contents, and an overview of the volume) see HERE
Note – the new, expanded Verso Books edition of this volume includes new introductions and notes, an expanded index, and a lengthy and detailed internal study guide.

For information on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” Volume I: “Racial Oppression and Social Control" (including comments from scholars and activists, Table of Contents, and an overview of the volume) see HERE
Note – the new, expanded Verso Books edition of this volume includes new introductions and notes, an expanded index, and a lengthy and detailed internal study guide.

For information on Theodore W. Allen’s “Summary of the Argument of The Invention of the White Race” Part 1 see HERE

For an in-depth treatment of the development of the work of Theodore W. Allen see “The Developing Conjuncture and Some Insights From Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen on the Centrality of the Fight Against White Supremacy” in PDF format at the TOP LEFT at HERE

For additional writings by and about Theodore W. Allen see HERE

For a video interview with Theodore W. Allen on “The Invention of the White Race” conducted by Stella Winston and viewed by over 104,000 people see HERE

For comments from scholars and activists on "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918" (Columbia University Press) see HERE
and see
HERE

For information on "A Hubert Harrison Reader" (Wesleyan University Press) see HERE

For information on the new, expanded, Diasporic Africa Press edition of Hubert H. Harrison's “When Africa Awakes: The 'Inside Story’ of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in the Western World” see HERE

For a video of a Slide Presentation/Talk on Hubert Harrison see HERE

For articles, audios, and videos by and about Hubert Harrison see HERE

 Read More