White History? Not Quite

By Tim Wise, AlterNet. Posted June 27, 2000.

In 1992, white supremacist Jared Taylor lamented the ostensibly growing influence of people of color in the U.S. when he wrote:

"The old, standard history united Americans... It emphasized one point of view and ignored others. It was history about white people for white people... This served the country well, so long as Blacks and Indians did not have voices... All that changed (in) the 1960's. The civil rights movement gave voices to Blacks and Indians. It was the end of a certain kind of America."

To listen to Taylor tell it, whites are no longer in control of the nation's dominant historical narrative thanks to the rising tide of multiculturalism, forcing us to listen to the perspectives of others.

Frankly, we should be so lucky.

In reality of course, the history we teach, learn, and remember is still largely a white-perspectived history, even though we rarely think of it as such. So used are we to perceiving race and identity as something only people of color have, we often neglect to notice when our own perspectives are intensely racialized, even as we try and pass them off as universal.

Case in point: a recent syndicated column by pundit Mark Shields, in which he extols the virtues of the 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act, popularly known as the GI Bill of Rights. It's a piece of legislation of which most of us have heard, and from which many we know -- family or friends -- have likely benefited: signed by President Roosevelt so as to help returning soldiers from World War II, and later Korea, reintegrate into civilian life via subsidized education and job training.

In his homage to the GI Bill, Shields explains that whereas higher education had previously been the province of the elite, with the passage of this government-funded mandate, "all that changed immediately," as nearly 8 million veterans enrolled in college or job training. Additionally, he notes, veterans were extended favorable mortgage terms, allowing them to own a home for the first time. He concludes his Memorial Day essay by describing the bill as an example of "our ability to act for the common good."

Now, far be it from me to dispute the positive effects of the GI Bill. It was indeed -- and still is in more recent incarnations -- a powerful example of what the state can do to provide economic and educational opportunity when it so chooses.

And yet, what Shields neglects to mention -- perhaps because he doesn't know it himself, or it doesn't seem relevant to him -- is that the GI Bill was hardly the universalistic triumph he romanticizes. And the same can be said of the VA and FHA loan programs implemented during the middle of the century to expand opportunity for members of the working class.

For in truth, the working class that was able to take full advantage of these programs was hardly representative: indeed, the benefits of these otherwise laudable efforts were received mostly, and often nearly exclusively, by white folks, and white men in particular. Universal programs in name and theory: affirmative action and preferential treatment for members of the dominant majority in practice.

For blacks returning from military service, discrimination in employment was still allowed to trump their "right" to utilize GI Bill benefits. An upsurge of racist violence against black workers shortly after the war when labor markets began to tighten again, prevented African-American soldiers from taking advantage of this supposedly "universal" program for "re-adjustment" to civilian life.

And although 43 percent of returning black soldiers expressed a desire to enroll in school, their ability to do so was severely hampered by ongoing segregation in higher education, none of which the GI Bill did anything to reverse or prohibit. Especially in the South, where segregation was most severe, opportunities for blacks to take advantage of the educational component of the bill were harshly curtailed. Largely restricted to historically black colleges and universities with limited openings for enrollment, nearly as many black veterans were blocked from college access as gained access.

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