iolence and hostility" (p. 12) in the beginning. Hacker writes, "Immigrants are allowed entry on the condition that they serve as cheap labor and live unobtrusively" (p. 12).
He suggests that white America's unwillingness to welcome former slaves into full society after the Civil War prevented them from enjoying the privileges of assimilation extended to all others who came freely to the United States. He writes, "The ideology that had provided the rationale for slavery did not disappear. Blacks continued to be seen as an inferior species, not only unsuited for equality but not even meriting a chance to show their worth" (pp. 15-16). Michael Novick (1995) sees a broader picture but concurs with Hacker's view of slavery as a root problem: "The social formation which has sprung up in this country is based on white supremacy and colonialism, slavery and the conquest of land" (p. 10).
White America continues to hold power over those brought across the Atlantic as unwilling property. However, defining "white" has become an increasingly difficult task. Richard Dyer, discussing the ways in which white power is expressed in film, notes the difficulty, "partly because
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