A review by historicalmaterialgirl
Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat from Mayflower to Modern by J. Sakai

challenging dark informative slow-paced

4.0

J. Sakai's Settlers seems to be pretty controversial, and after reading it, I don't know why. Are we really that fragile? This book lays out very clearly how time and time again that "socialist" whites/settlers chose to get closer to wealth over being closer to freedom. This was always at the detriment of working people of color. For instance, many white labor movements (including CPUSA, IWW, and the CIO) tried to use racial unity to prevent strikes from being broken up or because they thought it would somehow benefit them. Sakai uses these examples to reveal how race has organized class in America. Can we not handle an analysis that says "the problems with white people are deeper that just racist attitudes"? 

I hear people say it's anti-Marxist, yet he quotes Marx, Lenin and Engels throughout. Sorry he expands on what the word proletariat means! I've heard unfounded claims the author was CIA/FBI. I've also heard it's revisionist, but this man has the sources and this book covers a lot of ground, for a range of national groups (he analyzes and comments on political movements for Asian, African, Latino and Indigenous American liberation). To me, this book is the more biting and readable version of Wages of Whiteness by David Roediger, or a more leftist History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter. If you want to read about whiteness, racial/class formation or the history of the United States, I highly recommend. I definitely see myself thinking about it and engaging with it over time. 
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