I genuinely do not understand how all this blood and soil stuff makes any sense from an American perspective. I live in rural Denmark (although am not Danish) and most Danes can actually more or less say that their ancestors have been working this soil for hundreds if not thousands of years, whatever policy implications that may or may not have. But you are actually all mixed-up immigrants! Surely the most logical conclusion of this thinking would be restoring the land to Native Americans? but those sorts of ideas rarely go down well in Wolfe's circles, to put it mildly. Does he ever deal with this apparent tension?
This is a very helpful and needed review. It is important to set Wolfe's modern racism in historical context. One point - WASP did begin as you suggest but the W was repurposed much earlier and not just by Wolfe. I can recall White Anglo-Saxon Protestant being used in the 1960s. I can provide cites if needed. Looking forward to the next installment!
Thanks for this, I appreciate your work. Minor typo: Blut und Boden (the d was left off of und). In an odd way, Wolfe agrees with Native historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz that the US is “not a nation of immigrants,” though Wolfe perversely wants to baptize settler colonialism and the racial capitalism that emerged in and through the history of state formation here, whereas Dunbar-Ortiz obviously does not.
I genuinely do not understand how all this blood and soil stuff makes any sense from an American perspective. I live in rural Denmark (although am not Danish) and most Danes can actually more or less say that their ancestors have been working this soil for hundreds if not thousands of years, whatever policy implications that may or may not have. But you are actually all mixed-up immigrants! Surely the most logical conclusion of this thinking would be restoring the land to Native Americans? but those sorts of ideas rarely go down well in Wolfe's circles, to put it mildly. Does he ever deal with this apparent tension?
This is a very helpful and needed review. It is important to set Wolfe's modern racism in historical context. One point - WASP did begin as you suggest but the W was repurposed much earlier and not just by Wolfe. I can recall White Anglo-Saxon Protestant being used in the 1960s. I can provide cites if needed. Looking forward to the next installment!
Yes, I think most of us first heard of it as "white," but the acronym was still synonymous with "the upper crust."
Thanks for this, I appreciate your work. Minor typo: Blut und Boden (the d was left off of und). In an odd way, Wolfe agrees with Native historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz that the US is “not a nation of immigrants,” though Wolfe perversely wants to baptize settler colonialism and the racial capitalism that emerged in and through the history of state formation here, whereas Dunbar-Ortiz obviously does not.
Oh, good catch. Thanks.