On White Manhood Suffrage Laws
On White Manhood Suffrage Laws
By: Justin Laing | July 30, 2019 | Racial Capitalism
Two volume set by Theodore Allen.
bell hooks is the person I associate with connecting how capital, whiteness and masculinity act in reinforcing ways and I’m getting better at sussing that out. Recently, reading How the White Race Was Invented by Theodore Allen, I came across a historical reference to “manhood suffrage” which, apparently, were the laws passed in the 1820s & 1830s that ended the requirement that one had to have property to vote. Essentially, this was white manhood suffrage because the laws were designed such that it was only white men who could vote, even taking away the right to vote from property holding Black men in those states where this was legal. Allen blew my mind again with this find. By stating that only white men were men, it gives an idea of what role racism has had in defining manhood which has implications for all men, but particularly white men. For non property holding white men, this law wrapped their manhood into this deal with the capital holding class of white men that said you get to pick which capital holding white man will lead the society instead of Black people and white women. So, holding up a racist/sexist society becomes a part of how white masculinity is defined (“if you don’t like this country (woman), you can leave!”). When I read this it was revelatory. The other side of “intersectionality”.
Shouts to Robin D.G. Kelley who wrote an updated intro to Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism and it was in his references that I found Allen’s book.
