Whiteness was created to divide the working class. Whiteness has been assigned primarily to European ethnic groups, including European Jews1. Theodore W. Allen argued that whiteness was created to divide the working class, pitting European-American laborers against African-American laborers2. Ostensibly, this serves to increase competition, driving wages down and distracting workers from organizing against the capital-owning class. This effectively aligns the “white” working folk with the upper class and against other ethnic labor groups. This is captured in the Roland Wright (2004) paraphrase of John Steinbeck’s (1960) A Primer on the ’30s: ”[…] the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
As European immigrant labor began to identify itself as “white,” so, too, did they develop attitudes of anti-blackness3.
The expanding interpretations of whiteness over decades has functioned essentially as a shield protecting the upper class4. This use of whiteness to divide the working class could also be why the “Great Replacement Theory” is such a threat to the upper class and driving legislative efforts against reproductive rights and protections on child labor. If labor is no longer white-majority, there is a chance for all laboring ethnic groups to organize together.