Capital abandoned color-blind hiring under white worker pressure

Evidence

British capital, local Randlords, and colonial administrators thus sought initially to maximize the labor pool more or less no matter color so as to undercut wage costs of both skilled and unskilled white labor. Boer political representatives, by contrast, sought to ensure job color bars out of a deep entanglement of self-interest and ideological investment. But capital’s representatives soon relented, not only to the pressures of white workers intent on securing self-interest but also to the renewed reassertion of the discourse of inherent inferiority. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1464

Categorization

• XREF: A near-perfect instance of threatened-privilege mobilization: white workers forced capital to reverse a color-blind labor policy, precisely the zero-sum status-protection mechanism the reader is testing across identity axes. — connects to: Capital initially opposed job color bars but capitulated to white worker pressure and racism; British mine capital initially preferred color-blind labor markets but capitulated to color bars — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1464; Color-blind ideology masks ongoing discrimination while appearing egalitarian — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1850 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: This is striking evidence that anticipated economic competition did trigger defensive racialization by workers, not just capitalists — is the trigger here actual wage competition or threatened status? Worth pulling the labor-discipline evidence.

Broader Connections

• Capital initially opposed job color bars but capitulated to white worker pressure and racism #epitomizes (0.98)
• British mine capital initially preferred color-blind labor markets but capitulated to color bars #exemplifies (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1464
• Whites resist equality while constrained by antidiscrimination norms toward bounded change #expands (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3358
• Racial consciousness supplied fictive status to white workers while excluding Blacks #corroborates (0.78)
• Color-blind ideology masks ongoing discrimination while appearing egalitarian #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1850