Turning the race-class dialectic on its head: the case of an AFL union

Abstract

Using his research into the American Federation of Musicians, the author shows how those trained in jazz and classical music responded negatively to the emergence of jump blues and rock-and-roll music in the late 1940s. Interracial solidarity within the union was made possible in part by the creation of a particular class distinction based on taste, formed through musical training and performance. Though it has been customary for followers of W. E. B. Du Bois such as David Roediger, who describes the ‘dialectic of race and class’, to emphasise the critical factor of race in US class formation, this article suggests the need for a more nuanced position. In his study, the author shows how class solidarity can be made possible through racial distinction, while in other cases interracial solidarity is constructed around class distinction. To expand our analyses of how class mediates racial formations means examining cultural, discursive and ideological dimensions of class as well as the structural aspects.