Sweat

In addition to exploring racial prejudice—from the micro-aggression Brucie experiences with the union to the violence Oscar faces as a “scab”—Sweat subtly examines race as a social construction. Opposed to simply using the labels “Black” and “White,” Nottage carefully deconstructs the social and ethnic histories of her Colombian American, Italian American, German American, and African American characters. As Brucie reflects in his story about the White union member who made prejudicial assumptions because he didn’t know his “biography” (37), assumptions based on the external color of someone’s skin often affect an erasure of their complex lived experiences.

Oscar points out this form of erasure when Stan attempts to warn him that Olstead’s workers will direct their anger toward him during the strike. After detailing his family’s history of coming to the United States and attempting to build a better life, Oscar observes that the factory workers who patronize the bar refuse to acknowledge him as a person, seeing him only as a non-White threat. He thus denounces all responsibility for them: “If they don’t see me, I don’t need to see them” (92).

Sweat also subtly suggests that by distancing themselves from the floor—and rendering themselves invisible to their workers—Olstead’s management strategically pits White people against people of color, despite the fact that many of their hardships and struggles are the same. As Brucie tells his fellow White union member, “if you ain’t noticed I’m in the same fucking line as you” (37). Thus, the play suggests that overly simplistic notions of race are often weaponized against the working class to prevent oppressed workers from unifying.