The Jim Crow system and its historical impact

¶ … Neurological Assessment

Jim Crow in Texas

Poor Whites," Blacks, & Mexican Immigrant Laborers

It has been claimed that Roosevelt's "New Deal" was an act of genus that saved many desperate individuals during the depression through the passing of his Roosevelt's "New Deal Agriculture Adjustment Act." Neil Foley argues that the system of farming in Central Texas, in economic terms, gave birth to a societal hierarchy established on elements of race.

Foley claimed that the thought of "whiteness" was that which was determinant of social interactions and relations among farm owner as to their status. White farmers, or poor whites as they became, believed in the possibilities held in "working their way up" from the position of sharecropper to landowner gradually had to squarely face the fact that it was not to be.

Higher Cotton Prices & Lower Wages:

High land prices in combination with the falling of cotton prices was inclusive of a flooding of cheap Mexican labor into the market undercut efforts of gaining property resulting in a loss of "whiteness" for these farmers. The Mexican laborers were hated by practically all whites who argued against the dirtiness and lack of education as well as the Mexican adherence or tolerance to ideas of socialism and anarchism "anti-American' ideals. However, the landowners were glad to receive the cheaper labor for harvesting of crops and then followed the social persecution of the "poor whites" by those wealthy enough to own land. In fact the poor whites were viewed as just as lowly, if not more so than the blacks of the day.

Foley makes performs a close examination of the white racist frame of mind in view of the Mexican immigrants as well as shedding light on the impacts of the "New Deal" in terms of agriculture in the South. The incorporation and mechanization of farming served to undermine the whites, blacks and Mexicans in Foley's opinion. Recurrence of his argument in relation to the constrictions that society held at that time in terms of race and "whiteness" is seen as the revealing story of the problems that poor peoples of all races faced at this juncture.

Prior to this time, working as a sharecropper or tenant farmer would eventually allow the worker to purchase and own land. This act was actually something that afflicted the migrant laborers throughout the South. Praise for the policies of Roosevelt during the Depression Era in reference to the passage of the "New Deal" has not taken into account elements which render those praises as merely a "storybook" description of an act that impacted the lives of millions of poor workers. It is true that the "New Deal" was the salvation of a few individuals however, the only people-receiving benefits from the "New Deal" were the wealthy landowners thereby showing it to be just another one of the same "old" ideas in hierarchical society.

In fact, far from saving he lives of millions from hopeless desperation, a closer look reveals that it took away the livelihood of at least that many. Foley's work reveals that the government through paying off Texas landowner farmers to plow under cotton crops, resulted in the elevation of cotton prices as well as devastating the lives of those who didn't own land.

II. Illiteracy & No Written Contract = No Sharing of Government Monies:

In fact, historians note that the elevation of crop prices was something, which was desirable in the minds of the ruling parties of wealth. Furthermore, although having contracts for the season with the laborers, history reveals that many if not most landowners did once consider sharing the government monies with tenants much less make recompenses for broken contracts. There was no viable or practical recourse for the tenant and migratory farmers due the role that illiteracy played within the scheme of the day. Most of the tenant farmers,

Immigrant and migratory workers as well as sharecroppers, excepting only a few, did not know how to read or write. Therefore the results were seen in the lack of any real legal protection for the laborers due the fact that contracts between them and the landowners were more often than not, verbal or oral contract. Lack of proof as well as lack of resources left the farm laborers with few options of self-defense against the tactics of the government or the wealthy landowners.