AH Challenge: White Man's Burden

[Roedecker]

The movie White Man's Burden is a political allegory by Writer/director Desmond Nakano. It is set in an alternate America where blacks are the wealthy upper-echelon majority and whites are the angry, underprivileged lower class that inhabits the inner city ghettos.

The subject of the movie has already been brought up in the chat room:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=11517

My brief theory is that in that timeline, slavery in America was far more vast, leading to a much larger population of African Americans. And that eventually the population-growth of blacks and whites was very different for some reason until eventually blacks outnumbered whites. And the reason that the country didn't simply develop a situation like apartheid-era South Africa was that there was an early affirmative action program for blacks that enabled blacks to rise out of poverty and into positions of prominence.

I'm really hoping others can up with a really solid and very detailed description and theory for this scenario of an alternate history.

Come on. What are your theories?

 

[Roedecker]

Here's a theory that "Doctor What" has come up with:

"Everything is as OTL till about WW1 or so--then some disease spreads in North America that hits whites much more strongly than blacks. It runs its course after a few years and disappears forever--say some weird mutant version of the Spanish Flu or whatever.

White population is devastated (say reduced to ~50% original population or less) while black population gets off relatively easy. When the rebuilding occurs, blacks are in a position to move up the social ladder much faster than OTL. Add in some radical black leaders advocating 'payback' for generations of abuse and the white population finds itself on the receiving end of a lot of hostility and resentment. Within a generation or so, you have the reverse scenario as you had pre-disease."

 

[Nicole]

What about a far more slave-based USA early on? Say colonies like Maryland decide to prefer slave labor to indentured servitude and the like, as what happened in the Caribbean... It would also help to get the Northern Colonies out of the country.

 

[Tyr]

It doesn't fit into AH, its not meant to make logical sense.,
I do recall a TL on the old forum about it though which has the zulus discovering america and taking British slaves though

 

[Roedecker]

I do recall a TL on the old forum about it though which has the zulus discovering america and taking British slaves though

But that doesn't make sense in the White Man's Burden situation that was in the movie. It wasn't an Afrocentric culture. American was essentially the same, including with people speaking English...not Zulu. And blacks had English surnames implying that their ancestors were slaves. So I'm really imaging that in that universe blacks were the underclass and at some point became dominant in America.

 

[Roedecker]

OK. How about a "the south won the war" scenario. In another thread "Justin Green" gave a description of the aftermath of the Confederacy winning the Civil War and the CSA eventually having a majority black population by 1950.

Here's the description:

In the late 1880s Great Britain, France, Latin America, and the US place a total embargo and blockade on the Confederacy, destroying their economy. The RN and USN begin patrolling the Confederate coast, seizing ships. Texas, nearly completely dependent on exporting beef to the US and Britain, secedes and eventually re-enters the Union*. The Confederates bitterly abolish slavery finally in 1900, but only after loosing a full third of its white population, who have emigrated mostly to the US and Canada. The Confederates begin industrializing as fast as they can, using forced black labor in a manner similar to that used by the Soviets in the 20s and 30s OTL. The nation that invests the most is the German Empire.

It is about this time that literacy is beginning to rise among the black confederate population, and Marxism rapidly spreads through the ranks. In 1914 the South enters the Great War on the side of Germany (the war started in 1910) and begins island hopping in the Caribbean. The US under William Jennings Bryan stays neutral thoughout the war. The war ends with bost sides exhausted in 1917. A final treaty between the Confederates and the Allies returns British and French caribean possesions but allows the Confederates to keep Cuba, Haiti, Santo Dominigo, and Puerto Rico.

The Confederates begin moving blacks from their new Caribbean possesions to work in the continetal states. By 1930, Blacks represent 45% of the population in the continetal Confederacy. The Great Depression hits in the mid 20s, and in the Confederacy many whites lose their jobs because black workers are paid half or less as much as they are. White immigration between the Confederacy and the US grows dramatically. By 1950, Blacks in the Confederacy represent 57% of the population of the total population of the continental Confederacy.

Here's a link to the thread:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=15045&page=2

Here's a theory I have to go with that: The black-majority CSA recovers very well from the Depression and is an economic superpower, however the white-majority USA never recovers and is impoverished. Sometime in the 1950s, the CSA and the USA re-unify. The black CSA agreed to this because it simply wanted more territory and the USA agreed to this out of desperation to improve its economic situation.

Anyway, even though the two countries completely integrate to the point of people from every state moving all over the new reconstituted United States of America, the situation of whites from the former USA still does not improve and blacks from the former CSA become more wealthy overall as whites from the CSA become more impoverished. By the late 1960s, whites in America are becoming a marginalized segment of the population. This aspect of society is completely cemented during the 1970s. Hence, we have the situation seen in the movie by 1995.

 

[wkwillis]

Malarial mutation to adapt to American mosquito spreads malaria, the way native insects adapted to apples in 1845. The white population shrinks and the black population takes over.

 

[Straha]

Actually due to emigrations of unionist whites/ppoor whites we'd see a confederacy with a black majority by 1900 not 1950.

 

[Tyr]

But that doesn't make sense in the White Man's Burden situation that was in the movie. It wasn't an Afrocentric culture. American was essentially the same, including with people speaking English...not Zulu. And blacks had English surnames implying that their ancestors were slaves. So I'm really imaging that in that universe blacks were the underclass and at some point became dominant in America.

Hence the

I really don't think it fits into any TL. Its just a work of complete fiction which portrays the world the way it does to make its point, there is no background.

One thing I would point out with the film though is even though whites are the poor people they do seem to still be the majority- just look at the factory where Travolta works, there are only one or two blacks. All the others are whites.
In a standard factory setting you would get a disproportionate amount of poor blacks to other jobs but whites would still be the majority.

 

[Roedecker]

One thing I would point out with the film though is even though whites are the poor people they do seem to still be the majority- just look at the factory where Travolta works, there are only one or two blacks. All the others are whites.

In a standard factory setting you would get a disproportionate amount of poor blacks to other jobs but whites would still be the majority.

Not necessarily. In a majority-black city such as Detroit or Washington D.C., it's completely possible to have workplace overwhelmingly black. Perhaps the city that the film took place in was majority-white, even though the U.S. was still majority-black.

 

[Diamond]

I think the mutant Spanish Flu POD makes the most sense. In fact, there is an AH novel called Archangel which deals with exactly that. Pretty decent book.

 

[Doctor What]

I think the mutant Spanish Flu POD makes the most sense. In fact, there is an AH novel called Archangel which deals with exactly that. Pretty decent book.

Vaguely recall that book--some kind of disease released in WW1 and the whole novel is set in the 1930's? Been meaning to pick that book up.

 

[eschaton]

Actually, I think the situation described in the movie is somewhat plausible, given the fact it happened on a small scale in Barbados with the redlegs.

So, if I were to posit a TL, my guess would be this.

1. Plantation slavery is the norm throughout most of British North America outside of New England. Population becomes around 70% Black (mostly, but not entirely, slave), 25% poor-white (descendents of early indentured servants), and 5% or less upper class. Essentially no options for poor whites outside of colonial militias.

2. No American War of Independence in the manner we recognize it. Slavery is outlawed by the British Empire just about on track. Wealthy whites start packing it in and moving back to Britain or *Canada. Or maybe there is a violent, haiti-like revolution. Much of what would be the "northern Tier" of states in our own USA ends up part of *Cananda however, staying loyal to the crown as the *USA either drifts to independence or violently proclaims itself.

3. As the upper-class whites leave, a black controlled populace, schooled in the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, forms a national economy, bootstrapping the population to middle-income levels.

4. The poor white population has been left out in all this. Originally in remote areas such as the Appalachians, they were too numerous and uneducated for any other country to be willing to accept. With the coming of *WW2 requiring almost all Male African-Americans to enlist, there was a growing demand for white labor in the major cities, leading to a depopulation of much of the "white belt" and the development of white inner-city neighborhoods throughout the USA.

I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how well this jibes with the plot, but it can almost work.

3.

 

[Keenir]

disease

If you go the disease route, you need to find something specific -- "race" isn't genetic.

Traits that some call "racial", however, are. (ie, sickle-cell anemia)...perhaps there's a mutation there, allowing sickle-cell carriers to have an advantage in surviving the plagues.

just a thought.