1. Tara McPherson’s article, “I’ll Take My Stand in Dixie-Net” is explaining how many white men in old Confederate states are trying to create a new Dixieland in cyberspace.
2. She begins the article by telling us how she first encountered these Dixie web pages. But she found that in these web pages blacks were hardly mentioned. She explains this when she says, “Cybercommunities like those of the neo-Confederates invoke specific registers of place, yet these places, like the majority of writing bout cyberspace, evade précis discussions about race or racism.” This even though blacks were a huge part of the south’s history. The creators of these websites say that they created them to preserve Southern heritage. She explains that most of the websites link to other neo-Confederate websites. One of the main facets of the heritage was the war. McPherson exclaims this when she says, “The war itself becomes the ground upon which claims to heritage are waged, though here heritage clearly functions as a universal and naturalized category which only some can lay claim to and which all “real” Southerners would die to defend. The South’s complex racial history and its relationship to the Civil War disappear as the war is rewritten in univocal terms.” She also says that numerous maps show the 11 Confederate states separated from the rest of the United States. These maps signify the way the south could have been had the war turned out differently. The “Lost Cause” is then mentioned as their remembrance of the Civil War. Even though the racism is covert, it is still clear in these websites. The heritage that they mention is undeniably white. Her point in the article is that these websites are meant to encourage a covertly racist southern society.
3. For my analysis I visited the Confederate.net website. I actually found it to be fairly disappointing. According to McPherson, this was one of the big three sites for this neo-Confederate movement. I didn’t think it had all that much Confederate stuff on the site. From reading the article, I thought it would have a bunch of discussion boards with people talking about how great life would be if there was a Confederate nation. But on the site there were only two links on the main page that had anything to do with this movement. I figured the whole site would be dealing with the Neo-Confederate movement. I was extremely surprised to find links to foreign resort vacations, adult sex, and a bunch of random sports. Another thing that surprised me about this site was that the color combinations and format of the page had nothing to do with the Confederacy. The page was purple with a random picture of a woman pouring water on herself. The confederate link at the home page linked to two Confederate on-line stores to buy Confederate merchandise. The Confederate States link just had a bunch of random Confederate pages on the internet. My final analysis of the site was that it was poor and was nothing like I expected it to be by McPherson’s description in her article.
4. I must say that the whole Neo-Confederate movement bothers me a little bit. I always wonder when I see a Confederate bumper sticker on a car, Why do you have a Confederate bumper sticker. We live in the United States of America. I honestly believe the Confederate goods should be outlawed. We live in the most wonderful country in the world, I don’t understand why people think a Confederate nation would have prospered. I hope that as I get older this movement doesn’t become an actual concern, because that would ruin this great country.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Why I hat Abercrombie and Fitch post
1. The very sense-making, the deciphering of the codes that allow one to appreciate what it is that “Abercrombie” stands for and means in our culture, can only be accomplished when we bring a variety of racialist thinking to the experience. (86)
2. The first thing that Dwight McBride did in his article was give us a brief history of the company. He said that Abercrombie and Fitch first dated back to 1892 when David Abercrombie opened his store and featured outdoor supplies. He then went into a partnership with Ezra Fitch and their company became Abercrombie and Fitch. But just a few years later Abercrombie resigned from the company because the two men wanted to take it in separate directions. By 1917 it became the largest sporting goods store in the world. Things kept getting better for Abercrombie as the company eventually became a huge business. McBride puts it, “Abercrombie’s reputation was so well established by this point that it was known as the outfitter of the rich, famous, and powerful” (86). After telling how the company came to be, he explained why he hates the company. The main reason was because, “Abercrombie has worked hard to produce a brand strongly associated with a young, white, upper-class, leisure lifestyle (86).” There are several facets of the company that point this out. One is that in their advertising; most of the models that they use are white. The appearance that the company considers the best contains features that are mainly white and not many that are black. For instance, Dreadlocks are unacceptable. It is also stereotypical to Asian Americans as one shirt that they put out read, “Two Wongs Make It White” (72). Another thing that bothered McBride about the company was their refusal to hire employees that were of the “A and F” look. In June of 2003, this was taken to court as a lawsuit was filed against Abercrombie and Fitch. But no action was taken against them. It is clear though that Abercrombie clearly hires a much larger percentage of whites than of any other ethnic group. One man whom McBride spoke with said, “The Company requires its managers to hire and continue to employ only Brand Representatives who fit within the narrow confines of the ‘Look Book’ resulting in a disproportionately white Brand Representative work-force” (78). The only non-white people who work at the stores are usually found in the stockroom, so they were not noticed. Another person with whom McBride talked to said they were looking for “All American, clean shaven, natural, football player- looking guys” (82). I think a good quote that sums up the article is, “Abercrombie, through its strategy of marketing…has convinced a U.S. public… that if we buy their label, we are really buying membership into a privileged fraternity that has eluded us all for so long, even for such vastly different reasons” (85).
3. I thought that this was an excellent and very readable article. I feel that the author gave an awesome amount of support for her arguments. It seemed as if all of the previous employees gave the same description of the racist actions that go on at Abercrombie and Fitch. With so much support from sources who actually experienced A and F first hand, she makes a rock solid argument. In my opinion, this was the best written article that we have read all year.
4. I have never seen or been to and Abercrombie and Fitch store. But I have seen many people wearing their products. I just thought it was a clothing company similar to American Eagle or Aeropostale. But clearly it is not. Therefore I’m glad that I have never seen a Abercrombie and Fitch store and after reading this article, I will never step foot in one.
2. The first thing that Dwight McBride did in his article was give us a brief history of the company. He said that Abercrombie and Fitch first dated back to 1892 when David Abercrombie opened his store and featured outdoor supplies. He then went into a partnership with Ezra Fitch and their company became Abercrombie and Fitch. But just a few years later Abercrombie resigned from the company because the two men wanted to take it in separate directions. By 1917 it became the largest sporting goods store in the world. Things kept getting better for Abercrombie as the company eventually became a huge business. McBride puts it, “Abercrombie’s reputation was so well established by this point that it was known as the outfitter of the rich, famous, and powerful” (86). After telling how the company came to be, he explained why he hates the company. The main reason was because, “Abercrombie has worked hard to produce a brand strongly associated with a young, white, upper-class, leisure lifestyle (86).” There are several facets of the company that point this out. One is that in their advertising; most of the models that they use are white. The appearance that the company considers the best contains features that are mainly white and not many that are black. For instance, Dreadlocks are unacceptable. It is also stereotypical to Asian Americans as one shirt that they put out read, “Two Wongs Make It White” (72). Another thing that bothered McBride about the company was their refusal to hire employees that were of the “A and F” look. In June of 2003, this was taken to court as a lawsuit was filed against Abercrombie and Fitch. But no action was taken against them. It is clear though that Abercrombie clearly hires a much larger percentage of whites than of any other ethnic group. One man whom McBride spoke with said, “The Company requires its managers to hire and continue to employ only Brand Representatives who fit within the narrow confines of the ‘Look Book’ resulting in a disproportionately white Brand Representative work-force” (78). The only non-white people who work at the stores are usually found in the stockroom, so they were not noticed. Another person with whom McBride talked to said they were looking for “All American, clean shaven, natural, football player- looking guys” (82). I think a good quote that sums up the article is, “Abercrombie, through its strategy of marketing…has convinced a U.S. public… that if we buy their label, we are really buying membership into a privileged fraternity that has eluded us all for so long, even for such vastly different reasons” (85).
3. I thought that this was an excellent and very readable article. I feel that the author gave an awesome amount of support for her arguments. It seemed as if all of the previous employees gave the same description of the racist actions that go on at Abercrombie and Fitch. With so much support from sources who actually experienced A and F first hand, she makes a rock solid argument. In my opinion, this was the best written article that we have read all year.
4. I have never seen or been to and Abercrombie and Fitch store. But I have seen many people wearing their products. I just thought it was a clothing company similar to American Eagle or Aeropostale. But clearly it is not. Therefore I’m glad that I have never seen a Abercrombie and Fitch store and after reading this article, I will never step foot in one.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Takaki Chapter 7
1. The Mexican, Spanish, and Mestizo people were already in Texas and California before the Americans discovered the west. Many of the first settlers in the western region of the United States were from Spain and Mexico. After time many people were considered to be “mestizo” a mixture of Indian or negro and Spanish. One reason that these people settled in California and Texas was because the Sapnish government promised them equipment and food. But not many Spanish settlers went to these areas and after time Mexico became independent and then controlled the land. Some of the people who owned land in the west were given it because of service for Spain or Mexico in past wars. There were really no drives or motivations for them to immigrate to the California Territory. On the other hand, the Americans went to California for one purpose, to take it away from Mexico and continue their manifest destiny.
2. The title of this chapter, “Foreigners in their Native Land” pretty much summarizes the entire chapter. The Spanish who owned the land for around seventy years or were in the blink of an eye foreigners as Americans took it over and didn’t recognize them as equal. A governor in California during the flock of Amreican’s to the west commented, “We find ourselves threatened by hordes of Yankee immigrants who have already begun to flock into our country and whose progress we cannot arrest.” Takaki also says, “Suddenly, they were “thrown among those who were strangers to their language, customs, laws and habits.” Then after the Califorina gold rush they were the minority and were forced to make many concessions through tough American laws. So in a short time span they went from wealthy rancheros to poor laborers and were treated as foreigners.
3. The Social Construction in Takaki’s seventh chapter, was how the Americans acquired and then constructed a society where the natives that had already lived in Texas and California, became a minority and had a hard time re-establishing the life that they had lived previously. They had been rich land owners before, but their land was taken by them with harsh taxes and then became poor and had to work as laborers to the “superior” Anglo Americans. The Mexican Americans were forced to work for white landowners on their farms and ranches, work on the railroads, and work in mines. When they did do the same jobs as white Americans they were paid worse wages. Takaki writes, “In Southern California…75 percent of the Mexican workers were crowded into low blue-collar occupations such as service and unskilled labor, compared to 30 percent of the Anglos. So the Socially Constructed society became the Anglo Americans at the top and the Mexican, African, Asian, and Native Americans all together at the bottom.
4. The Mexican American laborers fought for their rights in labor by continuing to go on strike wanting better pay and working conditions. Takiki writes, “Mexican members of the United Mine Workers won strike demands for a pay increase and an eight-hour day.” Eventually the Mexican and Japanese laborers joined in the cause together as they established the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA). Labor rights were the thing that mattered the most to these people as the union declared, “Many of us have family, were born in the country, and are lawfully seeking to protect the only property that we have-our labor.” The Mexian Americans organized mutualistas, organizations that allowed the Mexicans to take a stand together. These organizations helped members who were in desperate need of additional finances. Takaki sums them up nicely when he writes, “Mutualistas reflected a dynamic Mexican-American identity-a proud attachment to the culture south of the border as sell as a fierce determination to claim their rights and dignity in “occupied Mexico.”
5. An example of race would be the mestizos. They were a mixture of Indian or Negro with Spanish. An example of ethnicity would be Mexican Americans. This ethnicity consisted of different races such as the Spanish, the mestzos, or Indians that lived in Texas and California. The difference is that an ethnicity can consist of several races. Such as the Mexican American ethnicity.
2. The title of this chapter, “Foreigners in their Native Land” pretty much summarizes the entire chapter. The Spanish who owned the land for around seventy years or were in the blink of an eye foreigners as Americans took it over and didn’t recognize them as equal. A governor in California during the flock of Amreican’s to the west commented, “We find ourselves threatened by hordes of Yankee immigrants who have already begun to flock into our country and whose progress we cannot arrest.” Takaki also says, “Suddenly, they were “thrown among those who were strangers to their language, customs, laws and habits.” Then after the Califorina gold rush they were the minority and were forced to make many concessions through tough American laws. So in a short time span they went from wealthy rancheros to poor laborers and were treated as foreigners.
3. The Social Construction in Takaki’s seventh chapter, was how the Americans acquired and then constructed a society where the natives that had already lived in Texas and California, became a minority and had a hard time re-establishing the life that they had lived previously. They had been rich land owners before, but their land was taken by them with harsh taxes and then became poor and had to work as laborers to the “superior” Anglo Americans. The Mexican Americans were forced to work for white landowners on their farms and ranches, work on the railroads, and work in mines. When they did do the same jobs as white Americans they were paid worse wages. Takaki writes, “In Southern California…75 percent of the Mexican workers were crowded into low blue-collar occupations such as service and unskilled labor, compared to 30 percent of the Anglos. So the Socially Constructed society became the Anglo Americans at the top and the Mexican, African, Asian, and Native Americans all together at the bottom.
4. The Mexican American laborers fought for their rights in labor by continuing to go on strike wanting better pay and working conditions. Takiki writes, “Mexican members of the United Mine Workers won strike demands for a pay increase and an eight-hour day.” Eventually the Mexican and Japanese laborers joined in the cause together as they established the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA). Labor rights were the thing that mattered the most to these people as the union declared, “Many of us have family, were born in the country, and are lawfully seeking to protect the only property that we have-our labor.” The Mexian Americans organized mutualistas, organizations that allowed the Mexicans to take a stand together. These organizations helped members who were in desperate need of additional finances. Takaki sums them up nicely when he writes, “Mutualistas reflected a dynamic Mexican-American identity-a proud attachment to the culture south of the border as sell as a fierce determination to claim their rights and dignity in “occupied Mexico.”
5. An example of race would be the mestizos. They were a mixture of Indian or Negro with Spanish. An example of ethnicity would be Mexican Americans. This ethnicity consisted of different races such as the Spanish, the mestzos, or Indians that lived in Texas and California. The difference is that an ethnicity can consist of several races. Such as the Mexican American ethnicity.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Wu quote post
I think that this is an excellent quote in Wu’s article because it is so true. Since in another article we learned that Asian Americans were a very small percentage of Americans at this time, they probably stuck out to white Americans. But when trying to make a difference it was like they weren’t even there, because whites failed to recognize their accomplishments and treated them as if they were not legitimate people. The last part of this quote ‘they have in common a loss of control.’ This means that Asian Americans had no control over how they were viewed or treated and white Americans were out of control in their brutal treatment of Asian Americans.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Takaki Chapter 10 extra credit
1. The main point of this article was the hardships that Asian Americans faced in the Pacific islands as well as the Pacific coast of the United States and how the degree of the hardships was different with both locations.
2. Takaki begins Chapter 10 by telling the reader the main reasons that the Japanese were encouraged to go to Hawaii and the United States. The main reasons were because of higher wages, hard taxation, and the policies where they emigrated to. Then Takaki describes how woman were influenced to emigrate also when he says, “Initially, most of the migrants from Japan were men, but what became striking about the Japanese immigration was its eventual inclusion of a significant number of women. These “picture brides” were products of arranged marriages. At first Takaki explains how the Asian population in Japan received lower wages and had to work in worse conditions than other ethnicities. The Asians were given the unskilled jobs while the whites took advantage of the skilled jobs. Another tactic that Takaki mentioned in this chapter was that the land owners would hire workers of many different ethnicities so they wouldn’t band together and strike for better working conditions. He states this when he wrote, “Planters explained that they preferred to divide the work force ‘about equally between two Oriental nationalities.’ Takaki explained how wrenching the work was when he said, “Harvesting the cane was dirty and exhausting work. As the workers mechanically swung their machetes, they felt the pain of blistered hands and scratched arms.” Eventually though all the ethnic groups banded together to wage a strike. The white land owners made the conditions better for the Asian immigrants. The conditions got good enough that the Asians had no desire to go back to Japan. But it was much harder for the immigrants that emigrated to the U.S. They were a huge minority as they only accounted for two percent of the population. In America the Japanese found themselves working on the railroads and starting farms. They became successful because at the time the United States was going through economic expansion, so more agriculture was needed. But life was tough. The Asians were refused citizenship. They thought their children would fare better since they were by law citizens. But this was not the case as Takaki writes, “Japanese children were often attacked by white boys throwing stones at them.” Finally just as conditions were beginning to get better the attack on Pearl Harbor set the whole process back and the Japanese were discriminated against even more.
3. I think Takaki does an excellent job of showing the differences between what the Japanese in Hawaii faced and what the Japanese in America faced. I think it’s weird that at first the Japanese in the United States were involved with agriculture. Now we always think of them making electronics. I’d never envisioned a Japanese American farmer before.
4. It’s interesting to wonder if Pearl Harbor had never happened, whether the discrimination of the Japanese would have carried on as long as it did. It’s too bad that our government and nation during World War II made things so bad on the Asian Americans, because very few of them supported Japan in that war.
2. Takaki begins Chapter 10 by telling the reader the main reasons that the Japanese were encouraged to go to Hawaii and the United States. The main reasons were because of higher wages, hard taxation, and the policies where they emigrated to. Then Takaki describes how woman were influenced to emigrate also when he says, “Initially, most of the migrants from Japan were men, but what became striking about the Japanese immigration was its eventual inclusion of a significant number of women. These “picture brides” were products of arranged marriages. At first Takaki explains how the Asian population in Japan received lower wages and had to work in worse conditions than other ethnicities. The Asians were given the unskilled jobs while the whites took advantage of the skilled jobs. Another tactic that Takaki mentioned in this chapter was that the land owners would hire workers of many different ethnicities so they wouldn’t band together and strike for better working conditions. He states this when he wrote, “Planters explained that they preferred to divide the work force ‘about equally between two Oriental nationalities.’ Takaki explained how wrenching the work was when he said, “Harvesting the cane was dirty and exhausting work. As the workers mechanically swung their machetes, they felt the pain of blistered hands and scratched arms.” Eventually though all the ethnic groups banded together to wage a strike. The white land owners made the conditions better for the Asian immigrants. The conditions got good enough that the Asians had no desire to go back to Japan. But it was much harder for the immigrants that emigrated to the U.S. They were a huge minority as they only accounted for two percent of the population. In America the Japanese found themselves working on the railroads and starting farms. They became successful because at the time the United States was going through economic expansion, so more agriculture was needed. But life was tough. The Asians were refused citizenship. They thought their children would fare better since they were by law citizens. But this was not the case as Takaki writes, “Japanese children were often attacked by white boys throwing stones at them.” Finally just as conditions were beginning to get better the attack on Pearl Harbor set the whole process back and the Japanese were discriminated against even more.
3. I think Takaki does an excellent job of showing the differences between what the Japanese in Hawaii faced and what the Japanese in America faced. I think it’s weird that at first the Japanese in the United States were involved with agriculture. Now we always think of them making electronics. I’d never envisioned a Japanese American farmer before.
4. It’s interesting to wonder if Pearl Harbor had never happened, whether the discrimination of the Japanese would have carried on as long as it did. It’s too bad that our government and nation during World War II made things so bad on the Asian Americans, because very few of them supported Japan in that war.
Wright: The Ethics of JIm Crow extra credit
The point of this autobiography is clearly to show that the Jim Crow laws clearly hindered African Americans in the south after the Civil War. I think a sentence from his writing that could serve as a thesis is “There were many times when I had to exercise a great deal of ingenuity to keep out of trouble.”
2. The entire article summarized some events that a young black man had to go through in his early life that had lasting impressions on him for the rest of his life. He starts by telling how he got injured by a broken glass bottle during a fight with white boys and how instead of feeling sorry for him his mom beat him instead so he would learn his lesson. Then he told the story about his first factory job and how he was threatened for trying to learn to do better from the white workers. After that he told the story of how he tried to hitch a ride with some white men and was smacked in the face by a beer bottle and left in the middle of the road. The next story was about how a policeman bashed him against the curb on purpose while he was on his bicycle. Then he told of a few bad experiences that he experienced or witnessed while being a hall-boy at a hotel. Another experience he told about was seeing a black woman beaten and then hearing that it was lucky nothing worse was done to her. The last episode he wrote about was how over a long time he learned some tricks that helped him avoid physical harm or verbal abuse. While on an elevator, he couldn’t take his hat off so a white man did for him. But he knew from experience it was good not to say thank you so he pretended to be struggling with the bags that he was carrying.
3. I thought that Wright did a wonderful job in his autobiography of explaining how you had to live as a black person in the Deep South. Only excerpts were taken from his book. Unfortunately, none of them contained any dates as to when these things occurred. I am curious as to whether they were close to the Civil Rights Movement or if they were closer to the end of the Civil War. It was truly terrible; the things that black people had to go through in this time period. The thing that amazes me is how the policeman acted violently against blacks just as other white people did. I think Wright did a good job showing the wide assortment of things that black people had to go through. It was just a few things that the blacks had to be careful about. They had to be smart about every single decision that they made. If they weren’t, they would have to pay terrible consequences.
4. Earlier we read about how bad life was for blacks on the southern plantations before the Civil War. From these excerpts from Wright’s autobiography, I can see that even with freedom their lives really didn’t become much better. It is sad to read about all the years where blacks were treated so poorly. Many had to live their whole lives under these terrible circumstances.
2. The entire article summarized some events that a young black man had to go through in his early life that had lasting impressions on him for the rest of his life. He starts by telling how he got injured by a broken glass bottle during a fight with white boys and how instead of feeling sorry for him his mom beat him instead so he would learn his lesson. Then he told the story about his first factory job and how he was threatened for trying to learn to do better from the white workers. After that he told the story of how he tried to hitch a ride with some white men and was smacked in the face by a beer bottle and left in the middle of the road. The next story was about how a policeman bashed him against the curb on purpose while he was on his bicycle. Then he told of a few bad experiences that he experienced or witnessed while being a hall-boy at a hotel. Another experience he told about was seeing a black woman beaten and then hearing that it was lucky nothing worse was done to her. The last episode he wrote about was how over a long time he learned some tricks that helped him avoid physical harm or verbal abuse. While on an elevator, he couldn’t take his hat off so a white man did for him. But he knew from experience it was good not to say thank you so he pretended to be struggling with the bags that he was carrying.
3. I thought that Wright did a wonderful job in his autobiography of explaining how you had to live as a black person in the Deep South. Only excerpts were taken from his book. Unfortunately, none of them contained any dates as to when these things occurred. I am curious as to whether they were close to the Civil Rights Movement or if they were closer to the end of the Civil War. It was truly terrible; the things that black people had to go through in this time period. The thing that amazes me is how the policeman acted violently against blacks just as other white people did. I think Wright did a good job showing the wide assortment of things that black people had to go through. It was just a few things that the blacks had to be careful about. They had to be smart about every single decision that they made. If they weren’t, they would have to pay terrible consequences.
4. Earlier we read about how bad life was for blacks on the southern plantations before the Civil War. From these excerpts from Wright’s autobiography, I can see that even with freedom their lives really didn’t become much better. It is sad to read about all the years where blacks were treated so poorly. Many had to live their whole lives under these terrible circumstances.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Comic book post
1. I think the thesis this comic book cover was trying to accomplish was that the Americans had a far better military than the Japanese did and that Americas was winning the war.
2. This cover is trying to show that America was winning the war in the Pacific against the Japanese. The American soldier is much stronger than any of the Japanese soldiers. American soldiers are rushing across the bridge as if they are winning the battle and about to annihilate the Japanese army. Also an American plane shot down a Japanese plane. The battle was taking place on an island in the Pacific with all of the trees, so it must have been a battle later in the war. So clearly the artist is saying that the American army is far better than the Japanese army and that the American’s will win the war easily.
3. As is mostly the case with the media during wars, I don’t think the impression that this cover was making was the correct one. The drawer is pretty much saying that the American army was stronger and much better than the Japanese army. I learned in my history classes that this was not the case. In no way did the American army dominate the Pacific side of World War II. In fact I think the whole war was only slightly won by the American army. If the United States would not have been blessed to invent the atomic bomb, the war would have took much longer to finish off. There were a ton of American casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II and if the Atomic bomb had not been used, they probably would have been doubled by the time the U.S. army would have reached Japan. So the artist’s representation of total American dominance in the war I feel was blatantly off.
Another part of the cover that I would like to analyze, is the misinterpretation of the actual looks of the Japanese soldiers. Once again here, the artist is blatantly off. He makes the Japanese soldiers look like monkeys who are trying to eat the American soldiers. They all have their mouths wide open like they may try to bite the American solder. I think the reason their mouths are open is because they are getting hit by bullets, but to me they look like they may try to bite the American before their deaths. The also look like monkey as their mouths bulge out of their face. The author is trying to make them look like blood thirsty savages. Now I know combat can be extremely ferocious, but I think the artist just paints the wrong picture here.
4. Clearly this time in our nation was a time of extreme hate toward people of Asian nationality and this is truly shown in this cover. I guess I was just stunned at how the author made the Japanese solders look like savage monkeys. The drawer made the Japanese soldiers look much meaner than they actually looked. The artists hate against Asian culture clearly comes out in this comic. But since the war was such a terrible time for our nation, I guess this cover looked pretty much how I expected it too look. Clearly an American artist isn’t going to make the Japanese army look superior and nice.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
How Jews became Wthie Folks Post
1. This article talked about how many European ethnicities were at one point discriminated against in the United States. But after World War II, most of the different European ethnicities in the United States have been grouped together as white and had moved up to the middle class. The main reason that they were able to do this was because of the GI Bill of Rights.
2. Karen Brodkin begins her article by explaining how odd it was that at one point in our nation’s history, European workers were thought of as biologically different and not really “white”. She says that she would like to believe that Jews became successful wholly because of their hard work and intelligence. But she says that their rise in America’s class ladder was also because social barriers were removed by the affirmative action program that our country enacted after the Second World War She began the main part of her article by explaining that there were four major European races in America and that the Nordic race was thought of as more superior than all of the others such as the Alpines, Mediterraneans, and the Jews. On page forty she says, “race and class were interwoven: the upper class was racially pure Nordic; the lower class came from the lower races. They were clearly discriminated against as the elite whites thought of Jews as unwashed, uncouth, unrefined, loud, and pushy. She explained this as she told us that her father almost failed a speech test because his speech wasn’t the “standard” non-accented English. But times changed as she stated that in 1940 the census all the ethnicities were not singled out and that the whole white population was listed as white. She says on page forty-three that this took place because, “the economic mobility of Jews and other Euro-ethnics derived ultimately from America’s postwar economic prosperity and its enormously expanded need for professional, technical, and managerial labor, as well as on government assistance in providing it.” The GI Bill of Rights was aimed at and disproportionately helped male, Euro-origin GI’s. She explained how this bill helped nicely on page forty-four, “The almost 8 million GIs who took advantage of their educational benefits under the GI Bill cause ‘the greatest wave of college building in American history.’ White male GIs were able to take advantage of their educational benefits for college and technical training, so they were particularly well positioned to seize the opportunities provided by the new demands for professional, managerial, and technical labor.” After that she explained that unfortunately African Americans and women could not make these same gains. The progress that was made during the war was lost when the soldiers came back. Black students were not allowed in white colleges and all of the black colleges were filled to capacity, so many of them were not able to attend college. Also, housing companies refused to sell houses in suburbs to African Americans and they were not able to make improvements to their current houses.
3. I think that the author’s argument is an extremely valid one in this article. She clearly provided the reader with history of all of the major steps that allowed Jews and other European ethnicities to make the jump to the middle class. She also clearly explains why African Americans were unable to make that same jump. I’m glad that she could see the facts that this bill did help Jews out and that their rise wasn’t only because of hard work. Although they did work extremely hard, so did the African Americans. But the bill didn’t reward them for their service during the war like it did the Europeans.
4. I don’t think that this bill affected any of my ancestors. My father and uncles were born after this timeframe and my grandfather did not fight in the war. Therefore he stayed in the working class as a farmer. I think it is so sad that even this late in our countries history, blacks were being segregated against in brutal ways. It had to have been horrible fighting for the country and then not being rewarded for your service the way others were and in fact, they were almost punished for serving the country.
2. Karen Brodkin begins her article by explaining how odd it was that at one point in our nation’s history, European workers were thought of as biologically different and not really “white”. She says that she would like to believe that Jews became successful wholly because of their hard work and intelligence. But she says that their rise in America’s class ladder was also because social barriers were removed by the affirmative action program that our country enacted after the Second World War She began the main part of her article by explaining that there were four major European races in America and that the Nordic race was thought of as more superior than all of the others such as the Alpines, Mediterraneans, and the Jews. On page forty she says, “race and class were interwoven: the upper class was racially pure Nordic; the lower class came from the lower races. They were clearly discriminated against as the elite whites thought of Jews as unwashed, uncouth, unrefined, loud, and pushy. She explained this as she told us that her father almost failed a speech test because his speech wasn’t the “standard” non-accented English. But times changed as she stated that in 1940 the census all the ethnicities were not singled out and that the whole white population was listed as white. She says on page forty-three that this took place because, “the economic mobility of Jews and other Euro-ethnics derived ultimately from America’s postwar economic prosperity and its enormously expanded need for professional, technical, and managerial labor, as well as on government assistance in providing it.” The GI Bill of Rights was aimed at and disproportionately helped male, Euro-origin GI’s. She explained how this bill helped nicely on page forty-four, “The almost 8 million GIs who took advantage of their educational benefits under the GI Bill cause ‘the greatest wave of college building in American history.’ White male GIs were able to take advantage of their educational benefits for college and technical training, so they were particularly well positioned to seize the opportunities provided by the new demands for professional, managerial, and technical labor.” After that she explained that unfortunately African Americans and women could not make these same gains. The progress that was made during the war was lost when the soldiers came back. Black students were not allowed in white colleges and all of the black colleges were filled to capacity, so many of them were not able to attend college. Also, housing companies refused to sell houses in suburbs to African Americans and they were not able to make improvements to their current houses.
3. I think that the author’s argument is an extremely valid one in this article. She clearly provided the reader with history of all of the major steps that allowed Jews and other European ethnicities to make the jump to the middle class. She also clearly explains why African Americans were unable to make that same jump. I’m glad that she could see the facts that this bill did help Jews out and that their rise wasn’t only because of hard work. Although they did work extremely hard, so did the African Americans. But the bill didn’t reward them for their service during the war like it did the Europeans.
4. I don’t think that this bill affected any of my ancestors. My father and uncles were born after this timeframe and my grandfather did not fight in the war. Therefore he stayed in the working class as a farmer. I think it is so sad that even this late in our countries history, blacks were being segregated against in brutal ways. It had to have been horrible fighting for the country and then not being rewarded for your service the way others were and in fact, they were almost punished for serving the country.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Zinn Chapter 9
1. I feel that Zinn’s thesis in chapter 9 is that life was not much better for the slaves in the south even after the Civil War. Similarly many people think that blacks in the north had life much better than the slaves in south, but for the most part this wasn’t true. Life didn’t get much better for the blacks after the Civil War and maybe for some it got worse.
2. Zinn begins chapter nine by listing a stunning fact that between 1790 and 1860 the slave population in the United States increased by three and a half million and with that cotton production ballooned from thousands to millions. This occurred even though slave importation became illegal in 1808 and he estimated that 250,000 slaves were imported after that date. He states that slave families were torn apart just so the plantation owners could make some extra cash that they didn’t need. Even with these terrible tactics slave rebellion was rare, but the slave owners were still always worried about it. One slave that rebelled and escaped to the north was Harriet Tubman. Zinn listed two interesting quotes from her. First she would tell slaves that she was assisting to escape, “You’ll be free or die.” Amazingly she was not afraid of death as she said, “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.” He also tells us that some poor whites would help with slaves escaping just because they hated the rich plantation owners. But slave-owners didn’t like this so they paid poor whites to be overseers. But through slavery, the blacks formed a community with one another as Zinn states on page 133, “The slave community acted like a generalized kinship system in which all adults looked after all children and there was little division between ‘my children for whom I’m responsible’ and ‘your children for whom you’re responsible’… It was part and parcel, as we shall see, of the social process out of which came black pride, black identity, black culture, the black community, and black rebellion in America.” England was not in favor of slavery in the U.S. and the U.S. thought about war. But the slaves would not have fought as was quoted from page 137, “If war be declared… Will we fight in defense of a government which denies us the most precious right of citizenship?” Some white abolitionists in the north did help out the anti-slavery movement, but blacks still had to deal with racism in the north. Therefore the free blacks took it upon themselves to lead the anti-slavery movement. John Brown tried to start a rebellion, but it was squashed before it began. Still even with the anti-slavery movement in the north, clearly there was still racism as the Supreme Court ruled in 1857 on page 139 that slave Dred Scott could not sue for freedom because “he was not a person, but property.” Many people view Lincoln as a person who didn’t have any prejudices, but even he didn’t see blacks as equal to whites. He said on page 142, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” After the Emancipation Proclamation many former slaves fought for the Union even though they were pretty much still slaves for the army. Without their help the war would have went on for much longer. Even though Lincoln freed the slaves, they didn’t think much of him as he didn’t allow them a chance to succeed in their lives after slavery. After the war several laws were passed that made it a crime to discriminate against blacks, but a few years later none of the laws were enforced. An African American Supreme Court justice was forced to say, “Our constitution is color-blind.” The lack of enforcement made it easy for hate groups to terrorize the blacks. So even after the Civil War, life was not much better for African Americans.
3. I thought the author backed his thesis well throughout the chapter. He used several amazing quotes to validate his argument. Many people think that life for the slave instantly got better after the Civil War, but Zinn does an excellent job of proving that this was not the case in this chapter.
4. In studying Lincoln in history classes throughout my previous education, I always thought that he viewed African Americans as equals. By some of his quotes in this chapter, you can see that this was not the case. How sad it is that we only hear about the good things that our early presidents did. It is clear to me that at a young age our nation wants us to view these men as some of the greatest men in our country’s history so they skew much of their backgrounds so we only see the positive side of them.
2. Zinn begins chapter nine by listing a stunning fact that between 1790 and 1860 the slave population in the United States increased by three and a half million and with that cotton production ballooned from thousands to millions. This occurred even though slave importation became illegal in 1808 and he estimated that 250,000 slaves were imported after that date. He states that slave families were torn apart just so the plantation owners could make some extra cash that they didn’t need. Even with these terrible tactics slave rebellion was rare, but the slave owners were still always worried about it. One slave that rebelled and escaped to the north was Harriet Tubman. Zinn listed two interesting quotes from her. First she would tell slaves that she was assisting to escape, “You’ll be free or die.” Amazingly she was not afraid of death as she said, “There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.” He also tells us that some poor whites would help with slaves escaping just because they hated the rich plantation owners. But slave-owners didn’t like this so they paid poor whites to be overseers. But through slavery, the blacks formed a community with one another as Zinn states on page 133, “The slave community acted like a generalized kinship system in which all adults looked after all children and there was little division between ‘my children for whom I’m responsible’ and ‘your children for whom you’re responsible’… It was part and parcel, as we shall see, of the social process out of which came black pride, black identity, black culture, the black community, and black rebellion in America.” England was not in favor of slavery in the U.S. and the U.S. thought about war. But the slaves would not have fought as was quoted from page 137, “If war be declared… Will we fight in defense of a government which denies us the most precious right of citizenship?” Some white abolitionists in the north did help out the anti-slavery movement, but blacks still had to deal with racism in the north. Therefore the free blacks took it upon themselves to lead the anti-slavery movement. John Brown tried to start a rebellion, but it was squashed before it began. Still even with the anti-slavery movement in the north, clearly there was still racism as the Supreme Court ruled in 1857 on page 139 that slave Dred Scott could not sue for freedom because “he was not a person, but property.” Many people view Lincoln as a person who didn’t have any prejudices, but even he didn’t see blacks as equal to whites. He said on page 142, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” After the Emancipation Proclamation many former slaves fought for the Union even though they were pretty much still slaves for the army. Without their help the war would have went on for much longer. Even though Lincoln freed the slaves, they didn’t think much of him as he didn’t allow them a chance to succeed in their lives after slavery. After the war several laws were passed that made it a crime to discriminate against blacks, but a few years later none of the laws were enforced. An African American Supreme Court justice was forced to say, “Our constitution is color-blind.” The lack of enforcement made it easy for hate groups to terrorize the blacks. So even after the Civil War, life was not much better for African Americans.
3. I thought the author backed his thesis well throughout the chapter. He used several amazing quotes to validate his argument. Many people think that life for the slave instantly got better after the Civil War, but Zinn does an excellent job of proving that this was not the case in this chapter.
4. In studying Lincoln in history classes throughout my previous education, I always thought that he viewed African Americans as equals. By some of his quotes in this chapter, you can see that this was not the case. How sad it is that we only hear about the good things that our early presidents did. It is clear to me that at a young age our nation wants us to view these men as some of the greatest men in our country’s history so they skew much of their backgrounds so we only see the positive side of them.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Kindred Summary
1. I think the main point that the author was trying to make in this novel is that so many people think they have it bad off now in the present. After reading this book, the author is showing us how terribly bad the conditions really were for the slaves thirty years before the Civil War.
2. The author begins the book with the account on how Dana, a black woman, saves a little white boy named Rufus from drowning. She is brought back to real life however when Mr. Wyeling, the boy’s father, points a gun at her intending to shoot her. After that Octavia Butler gives us a little bit of Dana’s background in her real world. She is moving in to a new house with her white husband, Kevin. They are both “wannabe” writers who haven’t had success with their writing. But when Kevin gets his first book published, he asks Dana to marry him. They are just starting their new lives together when as summarized earlier, when Dana is taken to Maryland during the year 1815. Each time that she is transported back in time, she is almost killed. When that happens she is transported back to her real life back in California. Similarly whenever Rufus is in danger, she is transported back to Maryland to help him survive sure death. The book continues in these cycles until the end of Rufus’s life. The second time she is transported back in time, she is called to save Rufus from burning his house down. After she does this she tries to escape the Wyelin plantation. As she is wandering through the woods, she comes upon an old house in which a black family was living. She witnesses the black man being taken away from his wife, because he didn’t have any free papers. In the process she is found by a patrolman, who beats her with a stick and probably would have done worse things if she had not caused him to lose consciousness with her own blow to his face. She then blacks out and is taken back to California. The next time she is taken back to Maryland, Rufus has just fallen from a tree and has broken his leg. This time Kevin is taken with her though. They help get Rufus back to his house. Kevin says he is going south and that Dana is his free slave. This helps Dana from being treated like the other slaves on the plantation. She teaches Rufus how to read and makes the mistake of trying to teach a slave boy, Nigel, how to read. Mr Wyelin catches her and takes her out to wip her. She is then taken back to reality, but without Kevin, who is left in Maryland. Before her next visit eight days go by. She is taken back to get help for Rufus after he is almost killed in a fight with Isaac. Dana helps Alice, who needs to live in order to keep Dana’s birth line intact, to get a head start with her husband. She then takes Rufus back to get him help. When she goes back to see Kevin, she finds that five years have past and that Kevin left to go north. Dana stays hoping for Kevin’s return. After almost a year, Kevin does return and they try to escape to the north together. But they are met on the road by Wyelin and Rufus, who threaten to shoot them if they do not stay. This is how they are taken back to reality. She is then taken back to find Rufus as a full grown drunk man about to die as his face is face-down in a puddle. She is then taken back as Rufus beats her, because he thinks she is going to have sexual relations with one of his slaves, Sam. Finally the last time that she is taken back she is brought back to save Rufus from killing himself when he finds out that his wife and Dana’s ancestor has committed suicide. But eventually she is forced to kill Rufus and that ends her fantasy as she will never again be transported back to Maryland after Rufus’s death.
3. I don’t know how much actual documentation she had from the slave time period that she used to validate her writing, but this seemed to be a fairly good description of what the life of a slave was like. She mentioned several hardships that they faced back in that time period. Some hardships she mentioned from the book were the tough labor in the fields, the whippings, the loss of family members through trading slaves, the disrespect, and mindset that they would have to deal with these hardships throughout their entire lives. I think Butler did an excellent job of getting all these negative aspects of slavery mentioned in one story.
4. The reading definitely showed how brutal slavery was. The author did marvelous job of displaying this in her book. I personally thought it was a superior novel and enjoyed reading it. For a person who hates to read, that is saying a lot. But reading this book definitely makes us realize how good we have it in this present age compared to how awful it must have been to live as a slave back in those times.
2. The author begins the book with the account on how Dana, a black woman, saves a little white boy named Rufus from drowning. She is brought back to real life however when Mr. Wyeling, the boy’s father, points a gun at her intending to shoot her. After that Octavia Butler gives us a little bit of Dana’s background in her real world. She is moving in to a new house with her white husband, Kevin. They are both “wannabe” writers who haven’t had success with their writing. But when Kevin gets his first book published, he asks Dana to marry him. They are just starting their new lives together when as summarized earlier, when Dana is taken to Maryland during the year 1815. Each time that she is transported back in time, she is almost killed. When that happens she is transported back to her real life back in California. Similarly whenever Rufus is in danger, she is transported back to Maryland to help him survive sure death. The book continues in these cycles until the end of Rufus’s life. The second time she is transported back in time, she is called to save Rufus from burning his house down. After she does this she tries to escape the Wyelin plantation. As she is wandering through the woods, she comes upon an old house in which a black family was living. She witnesses the black man being taken away from his wife, because he didn’t have any free papers. In the process she is found by a patrolman, who beats her with a stick and probably would have done worse things if she had not caused him to lose consciousness with her own blow to his face. She then blacks out and is taken back to California. The next time she is taken back to Maryland, Rufus has just fallen from a tree and has broken his leg. This time Kevin is taken with her though. They help get Rufus back to his house. Kevin says he is going south and that Dana is his free slave. This helps Dana from being treated like the other slaves on the plantation. She teaches Rufus how to read and makes the mistake of trying to teach a slave boy, Nigel, how to read. Mr Wyelin catches her and takes her out to wip her. She is then taken back to reality, but without Kevin, who is left in Maryland. Before her next visit eight days go by. She is taken back to get help for Rufus after he is almost killed in a fight with Isaac. Dana helps Alice, who needs to live in order to keep Dana’s birth line intact, to get a head start with her husband. She then takes Rufus back to get him help. When she goes back to see Kevin, she finds that five years have past and that Kevin left to go north. Dana stays hoping for Kevin’s return. After almost a year, Kevin does return and they try to escape to the north together. But they are met on the road by Wyelin and Rufus, who threaten to shoot them if they do not stay. This is how they are taken back to reality. She is then taken back to find Rufus as a full grown drunk man about to die as his face is face-down in a puddle. She is then taken back as Rufus beats her, because he thinks she is going to have sexual relations with one of his slaves, Sam. Finally the last time that she is taken back she is brought back to save Rufus from killing himself when he finds out that his wife and Dana’s ancestor has committed suicide. But eventually she is forced to kill Rufus and that ends her fantasy as she will never again be transported back to Maryland after Rufus’s death.
3. I don’t know how much actual documentation she had from the slave time period that she used to validate her writing, but this seemed to be a fairly good description of what the life of a slave was like. She mentioned several hardships that they faced back in that time period. Some hardships she mentioned from the book were the tough labor in the fields, the whippings, the loss of family members through trading slaves, the disrespect, and mindset that they would have to deal with these hardships throughout their entire lives. I think Butler did an excellent job of getting all these negative aspects of slavery mentioned in one story.
4. The reading definitely showed how brutal slavery was. The author did marvelous job of displaying this in her book. I personally thought it was a superior novel and enjoyed reading it. For a person who hates to read, that is saying a lot. But reading this book definitely makes us realize how good we have it in this present age compared to how awful it must have been to live as a slave back in those times.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Takaki Chapter 3
1. The third chapter in Takaki’s book was that the slavery in the American colonies evolved over a longer period of time than most people think. A lot of people probably think that the American colonies were filled with slaves shortly after the English arrived. But the slave process took much longer than that to develop. At first the main workers on the plantations were white indentured servants, but over time African American’s were used more and more often as slaves.
2. The beginning of the chapter highlights how little English people thought of African Americans. The English referred to them as: deeply stained with dirt, foul, dark or deadly, malignant, sinister, wicked, a people of beastly living, without a God, law, and religion all on pages fifty-one and fifty-two. Shakespeare noted the importance of the slaves to the plantation owners when in his play the white man Prospero says this about his slave Caliban on page fifty-two, “We cannot miss him… He does make our fire, fetch our wood, and serves in offices that profit us.” Olaudah Equiano, a slave onboard a trading ship, recalled this when he was nervous about being eaten by the English, “They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work…” The chapter then explains how in the early days of the English colonies most of the workers were white indentured servants and similar to the African slaves they also came involuntarily. But both groups, white or black they shared the same class exploitation and abuse as unfree laborers. The Virginia legislature then had problems with whites and blacks running away together. As time went on, black slaves were separated from white servants and the blacks were given longer times to serve as slaves for running away. As time went on, the Africans were being made to serve for life and were viewed as their master’s property. Over time it was found that twenty black slaves could be kept cheaper than one white indentured servant. In 1667 Virginia passed a law that said a baptized slave had to remain a slave to their owner and a few years later a law was passed that no slave even if baptized and free could buy a white person. In 1705, a law was passed that said, “all servants imported and brought into this country, by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country…shall be…slaves, and as such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards.” But even late into the 1600’s land owners still favored white servants over Africans. But as less white servants came, the number of Africans imported continued to rise. Part of this was because the lifespan was longer and the Africans were cheaper as they were slaves for their entire lives. The white servants continued to grow more disgusted with their bondage to their owners and wanted land of their own, so after some rebellions, the owners became more afraid of a huge rebellion of all the servants. The plantation owners saw that the Africans would be easier to control because they could be denied rights because of their skin color. As the Africans became increasingly prevalent states denied them the right to vote, hold office, and testify in court. Thomas Jefferson wanted to avoid the class conflict by letting all white men own a farm. A slave named Benjamin Banneker thought that since the British colonies were overthrown in the Revolutionary War, slavery should be abolished and all blacks should be free. But unfortunately this would not happen for a long time.
3. This was a very informative chapter as it explained the whole process that led up to slavery in the colonies. I think a crucial point is that slavery did not happen over night. Since it was a slow process, I think that was why it was harder for the whites to let it go after the Civil War. The fact that most white plantation owner depended on slavery so much and that it had become an accepted norm made it much harder for them to let it go and move on without slavery and why white privilege is still a problem today.
4. I guess I had always thought that slavery was in effect the minute that the English landed in the Americas rather than it actually taking about a hundred years to come into effect. I also never heard that Thomas Jefferson was a huge slave owner. He knew it was wrong, but just couldn’t let it go. This was a good read as Takaki organized his writing very well.
2. The beginning of the chapter highlights how little English people thought of African Americans. The English referred to them as: deeply stained with dirt, foul, dark or deadly, malignant, sinister, wicked, a people of beastly living, without a God, law, and religion all on pages fifty-one and fifty-two. Shakespeare noted the importance of the slaves to the plantation owners when in his play the white man Prospero says this about his slave Caliban on page fifty-two, “We cannot miss him… He does make our fire, fetch our wood, and serves in offices that profit us.” Olaudah Equiano, a slave onboard a trading ship, recalled this when he was nervous about being eaten by the English, “They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work…” The chapter then explains how in the early days of the English colonies most of the workers were white indentured servants and similar to the African slaves they also came involuntarily. But both groups, white or black they shared the same class exploitation and abuse as unfree laborers. The Virginia legislature then had problems with whites and blacks running away together. As time went on, black slaves were separated from white servants and the blacks were given longer times to serve as slaves for running away. As time went on, the Africans were being made to serve for life and were viewed as their master’s property. Over time it was found that twenty black slaves could be kept cheaper than one white indentured servant. In 1667 Virginia passed a law that said a baptized slave had to remain a slave to their owner and a few years later a law was passed that no slave even if baptized and free could buy a white person. In 1705, a law was passed that said, “all servants imported and brought into this country, by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country…shall be…slaves, and as such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards.” But even late into the 1600’s land owners still favored white servants over Africans. But as less white servants came, the number of Africans imported continued to rise. Part of this was because the lifespan was longer and the Africans were cheaper as they were slaves for their entire lives. The white servants continued to grow more disgusted with their bondage to their owners and wanted land of their own, so after some rebellions, the owners became more afraid of a huge rebellion of all the servants. The plantation owners saw that the Africans would be easier to control because they could be denied rights because of their skin color. As the Africans became increasingly prevalent states denied them the right to vote, hold office, and testify in court. Thomas Jefferson wanted to avoid the class conflict by letting all white men own a farm. A slave named Benjamin Banneker thought that since the British colonies were overthrown in the Revolutionary War, slavery should be abolished and all blacks should be free. But unfortunately this would not happen for a long time.
3. This was a very informative chapter as it explained the whole process that led up to slavery in the colonies. I think a crucial point is that slavery did not happen over night. Since it was a slow process, I think that was why it was harder for the whites to let it go after the Civil War. The fact that most white plantation owner depended on slavery so much and that it had become an accepted norm made it much harder for them to let it go and move on without slavery and why white privilege is still a problem today.
4. I guess I had always thought that slavery was in effect the minute that the English landed in the Americas rather than it actually taking about a hundred years to come into effect. I also never heard that Thomas Jefferson was a huge slave owner. He knew it was wrong, but just couldn’t let it go. This was a good read as Takaki organized his writing very well.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Johnson Chapter 8 post
1. For chapter eight I think Johnson’s thesis is his very last sentence It reads, “Sooner or later, the dominant groups must embrace this hook they’re on, not as some terrible affliction or occasion for guilt and shame but as a challenge and an opportunity. It’s where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going.”
2. Johnson begins his eighth chapter by stating that subordinate groups are on the hook everyday and that so are the dominant groups. But the dominant groups are more likely not to notice it because they have a multitude of ways to through privilege to get away with not noticing it. He says one way people get off the hook is denying that there is a hook in the first place. But he says that they are in a poor position because of that because they rarely know what they’re talking about. People of dominant groups define the experience for the other groups without even experiencing it. Another way of denial is by people of dominant groups seeing people of subordinate groups as better off than they are even though this is clearly not the case. Therefore oppression is blamed on the people who suffer most from it while the people of privilege remain invisible and untouched. Another claim that Johnson points out is that people think that everyone prefers things the way they are right now. For example, a white person may say that an African American would rather live with other African Americans rather than in an integrated neighborhood. Another problem is that people hate to take the blame for the problem. Johnson says on page 117, “Since I can make a good case that I’m not a bad person, then the trouble wouldn’t have anything to do with me.” But he later falsifies this claim on page 118 when he says, “But the truth is that my silence, my inaction and especially my passive acceptance of the everyday privilege that goes along with group membership are all it take to make me just as much a part of the problem as any member of the Klan.“ We would rather people see us as individuals than part of a social category. But at the same time when it is to our advantage we would like people to treat as if we were in that privileged category. Whites being treated well is not a problem, rather other people not being treated the same way is the problem. The problem is that people of the privileged category are unaware of the fact that they get treated better than people not of that category. Many people of the privileged class feel they are not treated any better, but in reality there is no neutral ground on which to stand. The privileged often say they are bombarded with the claims that they are treated better all of the time and they are insulted by it. But Johnson then offers this quote, “In reality, ‘all the time’ come down to ‘enough to make me look at what I don’t want to look a, enough to make me uncomfortable.’ And usually that doesn’t take much.” Johnson ends the chapter stating that this will never end until the privileged embrace the hook that they are on.
3. I believe the author makes some very valid claims in this chapter. People of the privileged class hate hearing that they are treated better than others and don’t have as many problems. They never want to accept the fact that they are treated better and have advantages in all aspects of life. In order for the power and privilege to end people of the privileged class will have to accept this and give up some of their advantages to change the situation.
4. I thought this chapter was excellent and explained a lot of the reasons why people in privileged places don’t like to talk about the subject and why nothing ever gets done to fix the situation. But even if every single person in the privileged class read this chapter, I honestly don’t even think that would help either.
2. Johnson begins his eighth chapter by stating that subordinate groups are on the hook everyday and that so are the dominant groups. But the dominant groups are more likely not to notice it because they have a multitude of ways to through privilege to get away with not noticing it. He says one way people get off the hook is denying that there is a hook in the first place. But he says that they are in a poor position because of that because they rarely know what they’re talking about. People of dominant groups define the experience for the other groups without even experiencing it. Another way of denial is by people of dominant groups seeing people of subordinate groups as better off than they are even though this is clearly not the case. Therefore oppression is blamed on the people who suffer most from it while the people of privilege remain invisible and untouched. Another claim that Johnson points out is that people think that everyone prefers things the way they are right now. For example, a white person may say that an African American would rather live with other African Americans rather than in an integrated neighborhood. Another problem is that people hate to take the blame for the problem. Johnson says on page 117, “Since I can make a good case that I’m not a bad person, then the trouble wouldn’t have anything to do with me.” But he later falsifies this claim on page 118 when he says, “But the truth is that my silence, my inaction and especially my passive acceptance of the everyday privilege that goes along with group membership are all it take to make me just as much a part of the problem as any member of the Klan.“ We would rather people see us as individuals than part of a social category. But at the same time when it is to our advantage we would like people to treat as if we were in that privileged category. Whites being treated well is not a problem, rather other people not being treated the same way is the problem. The problem is that people of the privileged category are unaware of the fact that they get treated better than people not of that category. Many people of the privileged class feel they are not treated any better, but in reality there is no neutral ground on which to stand. The privileged often say they are bombarded with the claims that they are treated better all of the time and they are insulted by it. But Johnson then offers this quote, “In reality, ‘all the time’ come down to ‘enough to make me look at what I don’t want to look a, enough to make me uncomfortable.’ And usually that doesn’t take much.” Johnson ends the chapter stating that this will never end until the privileged embrace the hook that they are on.
3. I believe the author makes some very valid claims in this chapter. People of the privileged class hate hearing that they are treated better than others and don’t have as many problems. They never want to accept the fact that they are treated better and have advantages in all aspects of life. In order for the power and privilege to end people of the privileged class will have to accept this and give up some of their advantages to change the situation.
4. I thought this chapter was excellent and explained a lot of the reasons why people in privileged places don’t like to talk about the subject and why nothing ever gets done to fix the situation. But even if every single person in the privileged class read this chapter, I honestly don’t even think that would help either.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Summary of Johnson's chapter 6
1. Johnson’s theme in chapter six is that instead of blaming the problem of privilege and power on individuals, it should rather be blamed on the social groups, whether they be at school, in a job, or in our entire country. He says that the problem cannot be corrected unless groups of people take a stand against the minority or against the path of least resistance. In order to do that, groups of people need to give up their privileges that they have in order to make a statement to the rest of our nation.
2. Johnson begins the chapter explaining that the reason no one discusses power and privilege is because they are too afraid that they will be judged unfairly because of it. He explains the reason for this on page 77 when he says, “everything bad in the world is seen as somebody’s fault, which is why talk about privilege so often turns into a game of hot potato. Individualistic thinking keeps us stuck in the trouble by making it so hard to talk about it.” He then says that power and privilege have nothing to do with individuals it has to do with the social categories we wind up in. Johnson explains that the place to start is realizing that individualistic thinking is wrong and that the social world consists of a lot more than individuals. He explains that we learn our identity in this country through social groups such as families, schools, religion, and the mass media through examples set by family, school, religion, teachers and public figures. Johnson says that another reason why this is a problem is because people follow the paths of least resistance. He explains this to mean that people often take the easy way of helping people of the same social status as them rather then the more uncomfortable option of helping someone who has a different social status. He states, “Managers of this profile [white, straight, male and nondisabled] probably won’t realize they’re following a path of least resistance that shapes their choice until they’re asked to mentor an African American woman or someone else they don’t resemble.” He says people stick to this path because they are afraid of what will happen if they don’t. He then concludes that social life works through the relationships between individuals and social systems. In order to fix the problem Johnson also suggests that we need to see how systems are organized in ways that encourage people to follow paths of least resistance, because power and privilege are rooted in systems that we all participate in and make happen. He says on page 85, “If we have a visions of what we want social life to look like, we have to create paths that lead in that direction.” He says it is important to raise awareness, because most people don’t even know that they’re following paths of least resistance. The problem is that the vast majority of good people are silent on these issues and that it is the “good” people’s responsibility to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
3. I think his idea of paths of least resistance is definitely true. Most people look to get out of sticky situations the easy way rather then stand up for what is right. I agree that it will take a large group to make concessions and stand up for the people of lesser social status in order to do something about the problem. This chapter is well written and easily understandable and he makes many valid points about why nothing is being done about power and privilege.
4. In my opinion, a group of people in the dominant social group will not be formed anytime soon. Our society is a capitalistic society, this means that the people at the top of the food chain are greedy and always want more. So they would never in their wildest dream want to stand up for the people who are in lesser social groups, because if they do that they will lose their power and privilege.
2. Johnson begins the chapter explaining that the reason no one discusses power and privilege is because they are too afraid that they will be judged unfairly because of it. He explains the reason for this on page 77 when he says, “everything bad in the world is seen as somebody’s fault, which is why talk about privilege so often turns into a game of hot potato. Individualistic thinking keeps us stuck in the trouble by making it so hard to talk about it.” He then says that power and privilege have nothing to do with individuals it has to do with the social categories we wind up in. Johnson explains that the place to start is realizing that individualistic thinking is wrong and that the social world consists of a lot more than individuals. He explains that we learn our identity in this country through social groups such as families, schools, religion, and the mass media through examples set by family, school, religion, teachers and public figures. Johnson says that another reason why this is a problem is because people follow the paths of least resistance. He explains this to mean that people often take the easy way of helping people of the same social status as them rather then the more uncomfortable option of helping someone who has a different social status. He states, “Managers of this profile [white, straight, male and nondisabled] probably won’t realize they’re following a path of least resistance that shapes their choice until they’re asked to mentor an African American woman or someone else they don’t resemble.” He says people stick to this path because they are afraid of what will happen if they don’t. He then concludes that social life works through the relationships between individuals and social systems. In order to fix the problem Johnson also suggests that we need to see how systems are organized in ways that encourage people to follow paths of least resistance, because power and privilege are rooted in systems that we all participate in and make happen. He says on page 85, “If we have a visions of what we want social life to look like, we have to create paths that lead in that direction.” He says it is important to raise awareness, because most people don’t even know that they’re following paths of least resistance. The problem is that the vast majority of good people are silent on these issues and that it is the “good” people’s responsibility to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
3. I think his idea of paths of least resistance is definitely true. Most people look to get out of sticky situations the easy way rather then stand up for what is right. I agree that it will take a large group to make concessions and stand up for the people of lesser social status in order to do something about the problem. This chapter is well written and easily understandable and he makes many valid points about why nothing is being done about power and privilege.
4. In my opinion, a group of people in the dominant social group will not be formed anytime soon. Our society is a capitalistic society, this means that the people at the top of the food chain are greedy and always want more. So they would never in their wildest dream want to stand up for the people who are in lesser social groups, because if they do that they will lose their power and privilege.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Summary of Reading #6
1. Patterns of inequality result from and perpetuate a class system based on widening gaps in income, wealth, and power, between those on top and everyone below them. It is a system that produces oppressive consequences. p. 44
2. The author begins by stating that people think racism is silly and can’t understand why it is still present. He says that two reasons why there is racism are because it hasn’t been around very long and because it occurred at the same time that capitalism became the dominant economic system. The reason there are still privileges in the workforce is that social life is determined by where you fall in the workforce. During the early years of our country, other races besides the dominant “white” race settled for a low social life because of slavery and after slavery extremely low paying jobs. He said his first reason as to why there is still racism is because it hasn’t been around very long. The unfair privileges in the workforce are getting better, but are still extremely present. He then goes on to say that the top twenty percent of the richest households control fifty-six percent of all income. While at the same time the bottom twenty-five percent of the nation’s income is distributed to the bottom sixty percent of the population. He then says that it is extremely hard for a person to improve their place in the American class system. He summarizes this on page forty-five by saying, “Such dynamics of capitalism have played a key role in the trouble surrounding privilege, especially in relation to race and gender.” Johnson then says that unequal rights in the workplace began with the slavery of one million Africans so capitalists could make a gigantic profit on cheap labor. After the Civil War along with the African Americans, Chinese and Japanese immigrants were also used for cheap labor. He then says on page forty-six, “To justify such direct forms of imperialism and oppression, whites developed the idea of whiteness to define a privileged social category elevated above everyone who wasn’t included in it. He says one reason that there is a huge gap between the class levels is because when low or middle class white workers wanted better wages, the capitalists would threaten to fire them for cheaper “nonwhite” labor. This created anger among white people against people of other races rather than the wealthy who are the people who are actually to blame. He says on page forty-nine, “Class dynamics that arise from capitalism interact with that trouble [privilege] in powerful ways that both protect capitalism and class privilege and perpetuate privilege and oppression based on difference. He then writes that most people belong to a privileged class and an oppressed class at the same time. He says the only way to fix the privilege situation is to see that we can’t belong to a privileged class and an oppressed class at the same time. He summarizes this in his last sentence of the chapter in which he writes, “We won’t get rid of racism, in other words, without doing something about sexism and classism, because the system that produces the one also produces the others and connects them.
3. I think that the evidence supports his conclusion. The reason why so many minorities are still in the lower class in our country is because at the beginning of the capitalism movement they were at the bottom. Even though we may not think so in this present time, that still has a lingering effect, even though it was 150 years ago. Back then the whites were privileged far above all other races. While it is not nearly as bad now as it was back then, it definitely still has an effect. I would take a guess that a large percentage of the nation’s upper class is white. While there are people of other races that have advanced themselves to that level because of hard work, it is still monumentally difficult in this age for anyone of any race to advance to that upper class.
4. I agree with what he is saying. But I think that it is hard for anyone to advance to the upper class now. Even with a college degree, a person is still going to end up with a middle class or even lower class job most of the time. It takes a lot of luck for a person even with hard work to get to that level. But I do agree that certain people do have privileges over others in the workplace and I feel it will be like that for awhile.
2. The author begins by stating that people think racism is silly and can’t understand why it is still present. He says that two reasons why there is racism are because it hasn’t been around very long and because it occurred at the same time that capitalism became the dominant economic system. The reason there are still privileges in the workforce is that social life is determined by where you fall in the workforce. During the early years of our country, other races besides the dominant “white” race settled for a low social life because of slavery and after slavery extremely low paying jobs. He said his first reason as to why there is still racism is because it hasn’t been around very long. The unfair privileges in the workforce are getting better, but are still extremely present. He then goes on to say that the top twenty percent of the richest households control fifty-six percent of all income. While at the same time the bottom twenty-five percent of the nation’s income is distributed to the bottom sixty percent of the population. He then says that it is extremely hard for a person to improve their place in the American class system. He summarizes this on page forty-five by saying, “Such dynamics of capitalism have played a key role in the trouble surrounding privilege, especially in relation to race and gender.” Johnson then says that unequal rights in the workplace began with the slavery of one million Africans so capitalists could make a gigantic profit on cheap labor. After the Civil War along with the African Americans, Chinese and Japanese immigrants were also used for cheap labor. He then says on page forty-six, “To justify such direct forms of imperialism and oppression, whites developed the idea of whiteness to define a privileged social category elevated above everyone who wasn’t included in it. He says one reason that there is a huge gap between the class levels is because when low or middle class white workers wanted better wages, the capitalists would threaten to fire them for cheaper “nonwhite” labor. This created anger among white people against people of other races rather than the wealthy who are the people who are actually to blame. He says on page forty-nine, “Class dynamics that arise from capitalism interact with that trouble [privilege] in powerful ways that both protect capitalism and class privilege and perpetuate privilege and oppression based on difference. He then writes that most people belong to a privileged class and an oppressed class at the same time. He says the only way to fix the privilege situation is to see that we can’t belong to a privileged class and an oppressed class at the same time. He summarizes this in his last sentence of the chapter in which he writes, “We won’t get rid of racism, in other words, without doing something about sexism and classism, because the system that produces the one also produces the others and connects them.
3. I think that the evidence supports his conclusion. The reason why so many minorities are still in the lower class in our country is because at the beginning of the capitalism movement they were at the bottom. Even though we may not think so in this present time, that still has a lingering effect, even though it was 150 years ago. Back then the whites were privileged far above all other races. While it is not nearly as bad now as it was back then, it definitely still has an effect. I would take a guess that a large percentage of the nation’s upper class is white. While there are people of other races that have advanced themselves to that level because of hard work, it is still monumentally difficult in this age for anyone of any race to advance to that upper class.
4. I agree with what he is saying. But I think that it is hard for anyone to advance to the upper class now. Even with a college degree, a person is still going to end up with a middle class or even lower class job most of the time. It takes a lot of luck for a person even with hard work to get to that level. But I do agree that certain people do have privileges over others in the workplace and I feel it will be like that for awhile.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Reading 5: Privilege, Oppression, and Difference
1. Basically the point of this chapter is that the author believes that white males have more power and privilege than any other group of people in the United States. The first sentence is a good summary of what is to come in the rest of the chapter. It reads, “The trouble that surrounds difference is really about privilege and power- the existence of privilege and the lopsided distribution of power that keeps it going. The trouble is rooted in a legacy we all inherited, and while we’re here, it belongs to us.
2. The author starts out by saying that generally we are fearful of people who are different than us. The author gives an example of how a lady in a wheelchair saw that children became more afraid of her year by year as they became older. The author then explained how white people in the country are more privileged than people of other races. An example is used that a woman in Africa is viewed as African, but when she comes to America she is viewed as black. Another example is given as a Norwegian man sees certain privileges when he comes to the United States because he is white. After that it is explained that because a person has a disability, they are labeled with that and it affects the rest of their life. The author says that “white” people and males have more privileges than other people and that they become defensive about it. The author believes that the only way for this to change is for the people with privileges to accept it and give it up. One type of privilege people have is unearned privileges, which are things all people should have but some people don’t. The other privilege that the author describes is conferred dominance which says one group has power over another. The author then provides a long list of privileges that white people have over African-Americans and other minorities. The author goes on providing a long list of ways that men have advantages over women. After this another list is provided listing ways heterosexuals have advantages over gays. Finally another list is provided including privileges that non-disabled people have over people with disabilities. The author says that the consequences of this are that there is uneven job distribution, wealth, income, and everything that goes along with that. The author says that even though these people may not feel privileged, they still are no matter what they think. Even though many people have these privileges, sometimes they still aren’t happy because of their guilt.
3. The author his many valid points in his argument. There definitely are advantages to being of a certain race or gender. This author has made it seem like a white male pretty much has it made and doesn’t need to work hard to be successful in this country. On the other hand he makes it seem as though an African American woman has a slim chance to make something of herself. While I agree that white males may have some advantages, they are not as blatant as the author describes them to be.
4. This author brought up some interesting points in this article. Also I think this article maybe a little out of date. It seems like some things that were on his lists have been improved in the last 10 years or so. For example the author says on page 27, “Whites can reasonably expect that if they work hard and ‘play by the rules,’ they’ll get what they deserve, and they feel justified complaining if they don’t. It is something other racial groups cannot realistically expect.” I feel that a person of a race besides white can do all these things and get a good job. This was a very true article, but I think the author went a little overboard.
2. The author starts out by saying that generally we are fearful of people who are different than us. The author gives an example of how a lady in a wheelchair saw that children became more afraid of her year by year as they became older. The author then explained how white people in the country are more privileged than people of other races. An example is used that a woman in Africa is viewed as African, but when she comes to America she is viewed as black. Another example is given as a Norwegian man sees certain privileges when he comes to the United States because he is white. After that it is explained that because a person has a disability, they are labeled with that and it affects the rest of their life. The author says that “white” people and males have more privileges than other people and that they become defensive about it. The author believes that the only way for this to change is for the people with privileges to accept it and give it up. One type of privilege people have is unearned privileges, which are things all people should have but some people don’t. The other privilege that the author describes is conferred dominance which says one group has power over another. The author then provides a long list of privileges that white people have over African-Americans and other minorities. The author goes on providing a long list of ways that men have advantages over women. After this another list is provided listing ways heterosexuals have advantages over gays. Finally another list is provided including privileges that non-disabled people have over people with disabilities. The author says that the consequences of this are that there is uneven job distribution, wealth, income, and everything that goes along with that. The author says that even though these people may not feel privileged, they still are no matter what they think. Even though many people have these privileges, sometimes they still aren’t happy because of their guilt.
3. The author his many valid points in his argument. There definitely are advantages to being of a certain race or gender. This author has made it seem like a white male pretty much has it made and doesn’t need to work hard to be successful in this country. On the other hand he makes it seem as though an African American woman has a slim chance to make something of herself. While I agree that white males may have some advantages, they are not as blatant as the author describes them to be.
4. This author brought up some interesting points in this article. Also I think this article maybe a little out of date. It seems like some things that were on his lists have been improved in the last 10 years or so. For example the author says on page 27, “Whites can reasonably expect that if they work hard and ‘play by the rules,’ they’ll get what they deserve, and they feel justified complaining if they don’t. It is something other racial groups cannot realistically expect.” I feel that a person of a race besides white can do all these things and get a good job. This was a very true article, but I think the author went a little overboard.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Race:The Power of Illusion Movie
1. My thesis to the movie would be: Race is not determined through genetics. Rather race was determined by the color difference of various humans’ skin color. Race is determined by the exterior portion of our body, not the interior.
2. The argument that our race is not determined by our genetic structure was supported in the movie as the group of students in a workshop determined who they were most similar with. They originally thought they would be most similar to people of the same race. But in the end they found out that most of the time their genetic structure was more similar to a person of a different race. They also used evolutionary evidence to support this way of thinking by stating that all human races originally evolved from Africa and moved their separate ways throughout the world. This was meant to explain why genetics don’t determine race. The students were also asked to explain where their ancestors were from. Then they tried to see if their genetic structure matched the same structure of a person actually living there presently. In most cases the students genetic makeup was most similar to an area that was not from where their ancestors came from.
3. A question that I have is that if genetics don’t support the color of a person’s skin than how come when a African American and a white American have offspring the color of the child’s skin is usually in between the color of the two parents? How come, if genetics don’t matter, a white couple does not give birth to a darker skinned baby or how come two darker skinned parents don’t give birth to lighter skinned babies from time to time? In the documentary it explains that the mitochondrion DNA came from the mother. What if a gene from the father’s makeup partly determines the color of the child? They explained in the documentary that they still have not determined all the genes of a person’s body and what they lead to. So maybe there is a gene that does determine the skin color of a child. But as stated in the movie, what color our skin is, is the trait that has the most effect on an individual. Statements having to do with black people being more athletic or white people being more intelligent are clearly not true claims. The study did show that all of the genes that the people had were mixed between races. These traits are affected by our surroundings and the environment that we grew up in than the DNA that we have or the color of skin that we have.
4. I thought that the documentary was very interesting. All of the students were positive their DNA would be most like another person of their own race. But nearly all of them came away surprised at the end of the experiment. This study shows that too much of an influence is put on what color of skin we have, because people with different colors of skin are made up with virtually the same DNA. I think many people do still believe that the color of a person’s skin makes them completely different from a person of a different color of skin. Therefore I hope that many of those people would have a chance to view this excellent documentary.
2. The argument that our race is not determined by our genetic structure was supported in the movie as the group of students in a workshop determined who they were most similar with. They originally thought they would be most similar to people of the same race. But in the end they found out that most of the time their genetic structure was more similar to a person of a different race. They also used evolutionary evidence to support this way of thinking by stating that all human races originally evolved from Africa and moved their separate ways throughout the world. This was meant to explain why genetics don’t determine race. The students were also asked to explain where their ancestors were from. Then they tried to see if their genetic structure matched the same structure of a person actually living there presently. In most cases the students genetic makeup was most similar to an area that was not from where their ancestors came from.
3. A question that I have is that if genetics don’t support the color of a person’s skin than how come when a African American and a white American have offspring the color of the child’s skin is usually in between the color of the two parents? How come, if genetics don’t matter, a white couple does not give birth to a darker skinned baby or how come two darker skinned parents don’t give birth to lighter skinned babies from time to time? In the documentary it explains that the mitochondrion DNA came from the mother. What if a gene from the father’s makeup partly determines the color of the child? They explained in the documentary that they still have not determined all the genes of a person’s body and what they lead to. So maybe there is a gene that does determine the skin color of a child. But as stated in the movie, what color our skin is, is the trait that has the most effect on an individual. Statements having to do with black people being more athletic or white people being more intelligent are clearly not true claims. The study did show that all of the genes that the people had were mixed between races. These traits are affected by our surroundings and the environment that we grew up in than the DNA that we have or the color of skin that we have.
4. I thought that the documentary was very interesting. All of the students were positive their DNA would be most like another person of their own race. But nearly all of them came away surprised at the end of the experiment. This study shows that too much of an influence is put on what color of skin we have, because people with different colors of skin are made up with virtually the same DNA. I think many people do still believe that the color of a person’s skin makes them completely different from a person of a different color of skin. Therefore I hope that many of those people would have a chance to view this excellent documentary.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Reading #3
1. In the English colonies, slavery developed quickly into a regular institution, into the normal labor relation of blacks to whites. With it developed that special racial feeling- whether hatred, or contempt, or pity, or patronization-that accompanied the inferior position of blacks in America for the next 350 years: that combination of inferior status and derogatory thought we call racism.
2. Zinn’s argument is that the Africans who were brought to America as slaves had no chance to escape it. One reason is because the settlers needed help with the labor in the Americas because they were not used to the climate and the workload was too much for them. They knew if they tried to enslave the Native Americans they would have no chance because they were terribly outnumbered. Another reason is that Africans had already been used as slaves in Europe so they were the obvious choice for the Americas. Slave trade became a huge portion of the economy as slave trade became very profitable. The long journeys to the slave boats and the terrible rides on the slave boats made the Africans have a helpless feeling that made it impossible to resist.
3. I agree with Zinn that the Africans had little opportunity to escape the brutal actions of the English. The English had great pride in their country and their empire therefore they did not want to lose a grip on their territory in the Americas due inability to cope with the new climate and support themselves on this new land. At this time the English were not the most dominant nation in the world. They could not use Asian, Middle Eastern, or other European cultures as slaves because those cultures were almost as far along as the English were. Zinn mentioned that it would be impossible to enslave the Native Americans due to the fact that the English were vastly outnumbered by them. The book mentioned the possibility of using low class whites as slaves, but that would not be very effective either as they would be less able to work on the land than the upper class English would. Using the Africans was the perfect option for helping the English establish themselves in America. As the text stated, the Africans were wonderful farmers. They also obeyed orders without much resistance and worked very hard for the English. That is why I believe, like Zinn, that the Africans had virtually no chance in avoiding becoming slaves. You could say that the Africans could have resisted capture in Africa, but to my knowledge at this point in history the English controlled most of the African territory. Zinn is against the ruling by the English that having slaves was the right thing to do. This made his argument a little more shaded toward the slaves’ point of view. But I have the same view so I would probably be a little biased as well
4. As I stated in the last paragraph I agreed with his assessment of slavery. This article proves that the English were not only cruel to the Native Americans. They were also extremely cruel to the Africans. The article stated that on the marches to the coast of Africa 2 out of every 5 of the Africans died and on the way to America on the way one out of every three died. So that means that if they started out with a group of 300 Africans by the time that group got to the Americas only 80 would still be alive. These malicious actions are never really looked at in history with the scope that they should be looked at with. Then once the Africans got to the Americas they were treated poorly for the rest of their lives as slaves. Are the people that built our nation really people that we should really look up to?
2. Zinn’s argument is that the Africans who were brought to America as slaves had no chance to escape it. One reason is because the settlers needed help with the labor in the Americas because they were not used to the climate and the workload was too much for them. They knew if they tried to enslave the Native Americans they would have no chance because they were terribly outnumbered. Another reason is that Africans had already been used as slaves in Europe so they were the obvious choice for the Americas. Slave trade became a huge portion of the economy as slave trade became very profitable. The long journeys to the slave boats and the terrible rides on the slave boats made the Africans have a helpless feeling that made it impossible to resist.
3. I agree with Zinn that the Africans had little opportunity to escape the brutal actions of the English. The English had great pride in their country and their empire therefore they did not want to lose a grip on their territory in the Americas due inability to cope with the new climate and support themselves on this new land. At this time the English were not the most dominant nation in the world. They could not use Asian, Middle Eastern, or other European cultures as slaves because those cultures were almost as far along as the English were. Zinn mentioned that it would be impossible to enslave the Native Americans due to the fact that the English were vastly outnumbered by them. The book mentioned the possibility of using low class whites as slaves, but that would not be very effective either as they would be less able to work on the land than the upper class English would. Using the Africans was the perfect option for helping the English establish themselves in America. As the text stated, the Africans were wonderful farmers. They also obeyed orders without much resistance and worked very hard for the English. That is why I believe, like Zinn, that the Africans had virtually no chance in avoiding becoming slaves. You could say that the Africans could have resisted capture in Africa, but to my knowledge at this point in history the English controlled most of the African territory. Zinn is against the ruling by the English that having slaves was the right thing to do. This made his argument a little more shaded toward the slaves’ point of view. But I have the same view so I would probably be a little biased as well
4. As I stated in the last paragraph I agreed with his assessment of slavery. This article proves that the English were not only cruel to the Native Americans. They were also extremely cruel to the Africans. The article stated that on the marches to the coast of Africa 2 out of every 5 of the Africans died and on the way to America on the way one out of every three died. So that means that if they started out with a group of 300 Africans by the time that group got to the Americas only 80 would still be alive. These malicious actions are never really looked at in history with the scope that they should be looked at with. Then once the Africans got to the Americas they were treated poorly for the rest of their lives as slaves. Are the people that built our nation really people that we should really look up to?
Friday, August 24, 2007
Reading 2
“The ‘Tempest’ in the Wilderness” Summary
1. Indians, “such people” of this “brave new world,” personified the Devil and everthing the Puritans feared – the body, sexuality, laziness, sin and the loss of self-control. They had no place in a “new England.”
2. Ronald Takaki is arguing that the Native Americans had no chance to establish peace with the new European Americans. He also argues that the European settlers purposely did not want to establish peaceful relations with the Native Americans that way they could have all of the American land to themselves. They also thought that the worst possible thing that could happen was for the European settlers to fall into the Native’s way of looking at the earth. Takaki mentions on page forty and forty-one, “They represented what English men and women in America thought they were not – and more important, what they must not become. As exiles living in the wilderness far from ‘civilization,’ the English used their negative images of Indians to delineate the moral requirements they had set up for themselves.” Due to this Takaki feels that the Europeans Americans felt that they must eliminate the Native Americans from the Americas so they could have the land to themselves. He says on page forty-eight that Jefferson’s main focus was expansion and not the survival of the Native Americans. He quoted Jefferson later in his article when Jefferson said, “These will relapse into barbarism and misery, lose numbers by war and want, and we shall be abliged to drive them, with the beasts of the forest into the Stony mountains.”
3. It is often said that if the Native Americans would have adopted Christianity than the European settlers would have included them in their society. But why would the Native Americans have wanted to do that? They lived together in a very peaceful atmosphere, where the European invaders instantly killed or destroyed Native American property if they didn’t get exactly what they wanted. Why would they want to live in that kind of society, since when they offered food and help to the European Americans during the winter, the Americans tried to steal more from them and would burn down their villages? The Native Americans lived relatively peaceful together so when met by this violence, it is very clear why the Native Americans did not want to change to that kind of lifestyle. When the Europeans landed in America it was inevitable with the two drastically different lifestyles of the Europeans and the Native Americans that they would not be able to live together without violence. His conclusion that the Native Americans were brutally forced out of their lands by the Europeans is correct, but as I just stated I don’t think it could have ended any differently than it did.
4. This article was very similar to the other article that we just read. Many people see Thomas Jefferson as one of our nation’s heroes. But similarly to Columbus, he did many inexplicable things to the Native Americans. We aren’t told this in our history classes. It is truly sad that the Native Americans greeted the Europeans peacefully and the response from the settlers was the exact opposite. But greed won out in the end. The greed for America and to be the capitol of the world triggered these inhumane actions toward the Native Americans. Interestingly, I don’t think the Native Americans had much greed toward the Europeans. But that’s how the history of the world has progressed. Native Americans were just a few of the many cultures that were unjustly persecuted. Finally, I think Takaki did a neat thing by including Shakespeare’s play to further state what the English thought of the Native Americans.
1. Indians, “such people” of this “brave new world,” personified the Devil and everthing the Puritans feared – the body, sexuality, laziness, sin and the loss of self-control. They had no place in a “new England.”
2. Ronald Takaki is arguing that the Native Americans had no chance to establish peace with the new European Americans. He also argues that the European settlers purposely did not want to establish peaceful relations with the Native Americans that way they could have all of the American land to themselves. They also thought that the worst possible thing that could happen was for the European settlers to fall into the Native’s way of looking at the earth. Takaki mentions on page forty and forty-one, “They represented what English men and women in America thought they were not – and more important, what they must not become. As exiles living in the wilderness far from ‘civilization,’ the English used their negative images of Indians to delineate the moral requirements they had set up for themselves.” Due to this Takaki feels that the Europeans Americans felt that they must eliminate the Native Americans from the Americas so they could have the land to themselves. He says on page forty-eight that Jefferson’s main focus was expansion and not the survival of the Native Americans. He quoted Jefferson later in his article when Jefferson said, “These will relapse into barbarism and misery, lose numbers by war and want, and we shall be abliged to drive them, with the beasts of the forest into the Stony mountains.”
3. It is often said that if the Native Americans would have adopted Christianity than the European settlers would have included them in their society. But why would the Native Americans have wanted to do that? They lived together in a very peaceful atmosphere, where the European invaders instantly killed or destroyed Native American property if they didn’t get exactly what they wanted. Why would they want to live in that kind of society, since when they offered food and help to the European Americans during the winter, the Americans tried to steal more from them and would burn down their villages? The Native Americans lived relatively peaceful together so when met by this violence, it is very clear why the Native Americans did not want to change to that kind of lifestyle. When the Europeans landed in America it was inevitable with the two drastically different lifestyles of the Europeans and the Native Americans that they would not be able to live together without violence. His conclusion that the Native Americans were brutally forced out of their lands by the Europeans is correct, but as I just stated I don’t think it could have ended any differently than it did.
4. This article was very similar to the other article that we just read. Many people see Thomas Jefferson as one of our nation’s heroes. But similarly to Columbus, he did many inexplicable things to the Native Americans. We aren’t told this in our history classes. It is truly sad that the Native Americans greeted the Europeans peacefully and the response from the settlers was the exact opposite. But greed won out in the end. The greed for America and to be the capitol of the world triggered these inhumane actions toward the Native Americans. Interestingly, I don’t think the Native Americans had much greed toward the Europeans. But that’s how the history of the world has progressed. Native Americans were just a few of the many cultures that were unjustly persecuted. Finally, I think Takaki did a neat thing by including Shakespeare’s play to further state what the English thought of the Native Americans.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
About Me
Me name is Nathan Inniger. I am a sophomore Sport Management Communication major. I am a huge sports fan and love the Buckeyes, Browns and Indians.
Activity #1
1. But even allowing for the imperfection of myths, it is
enough to make us question, for that time and ours, the excuse
of progress in the annihilation of races, and the telling of
history from the standpoint of the conquerors and leaders of
Western civilization.
2. His main argument is that historians give credit too
easily to some of the great explorers and leaders of our
history without giving the same attention to how many of them
forced brutal tactics on several races in order to acclaim
their fame. He is assuming that many history lessons taught to
American children don’t tell of the terrible acts that many
conquistadores such as Christopher Columbus forced upon other
races, ethnicities, or religions. He explains this when he
states in his book, “If history is to be creative, to
anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it
should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing
those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief
flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join
together, occasionally to win….That being as blunt as I can, is
my approach to the history of the United States.” He also
states in his book, “The history of any country, presented as
the history of a family conceals fierce conflicts of interest
(sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors
and conquered, masters and slaves capitalists and workers,
dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world
of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job
of thinking people… not to be on the side of the executioners.”
By these two statements he is clearly stating that we as a
nation learn too much about how these conquistadors benefited
our country rather than the damage they did to other cultures.
3. I would definitely apply his argument to the way
history should be taught in our schools. I took history from
fifth to eighth grade and twice in high school and I had never
heard about these alarming actions that Columbus headed.
Generally in my history courses we are taught that anything our
government or other historical heroes did on benefited our
country. We are not told about how Columbus was brutal to the
Native Americans he encountered. We are not told about
Constitution from the standpoint of slaves and so on. I agree
that many of our nation’s heroes have had a wonderful effect on
our nation, but we are rarely told about their flaws. I think
instances like this should be more closely examined in history
classes especially in high school and on up.
4. I was honestly stunned when I read this article. I had
never heard these terrible revelations about Christopher
Columbus before or if I had heard them they had just been a
side note while discussing him. I always knew Columbus as being
the guy who discovered American in 1492 and established
friendly relations with the Native Americans in Virginia. I
think that Howard Zinns’s article was wonderfully written. It
not only had portions of Columbus’s account, but also another
different account from a Las Casas who was against Columbus’s
actions. This helped make his argument more believable and
accurate. After reading this article I am now going to ask
other members in my family is they have any knowledge of this
so I can see if maybe during me history learning experience I
missed something or if Zinn’s article is as valid as he made it
seem to be.
enough to make us question, for that time and ours, the excuse
of progress in the annihilation of races, and the telling of
history from the standpoint of the conquerors and leaders of
Western civilization.
2. His main argument is that historians give credit too
easily to some of the great explorers and leaders of our
history without giving the same attention to how many of them
forced brutal tactics on several races in order to acclaim
their fame. He is assuming that many history lessons taught to
American children don’t tell of the terrible acts that many
conquistadores such as Christopher Columbus forced upon other
races, ethnicities, or religions. He explains this when he
states in his book, “If history is to be creative, to
anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it
should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing
those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief
flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join
together, occasionally to win….That being as blunt as I can, is
my approach to the history of the United States.” He also
states in his book, “The history of any country, presented as
the history of a family conceals fierce conflicts of interest
(sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors
and conquered, masters and slaves capitalists and workers,
dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world
of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job
of thinking people… not to be on the side of the executioners.”
By these two statements he is clearly stating that we as a
nation learn too much about how these conquistadors benefited
our country rather than the damage they did to other cultures.
3. I would definitely apply his argument to the way
history should be taught in our schools. I took history from
fifth to eighth grade and twice in high school and I had never
heard about these alarming actions that Columbus headed.
Generally in my history courses we are taught that anything our
government or other historical heroes did on benefited our
country. We are not told about how Columbus was brutal to the
Native Americans he encountered. We are not told about
Constitution from the standpoint of slaves and so on. I agree
that many of our nation’s heroes have had a wonderful effect on
our nation, but we are rarely told about their flaws. I think
instances like this should be more closely examined in history
classes especially in high school and on up.
4. I was honestly stunned when I read this article. I had
never heard these terrible revelations about Christopher
Columbus before or if I had heard them they had just been a
side note while discussing him. I always knew Columbus as being
the guy who discovered American in 1492 and established
friendly relations with the Native Americans in Virginia. I
think that Howard Zinns’s article was wonderfully written. It
not only had portions of Columbus’s account, but also another
different account from a Las Casas who was against Columbus’s
actions. This helped make his argument more believable and
accurate. After reading this article I am now going to ask
other members in my family is they have any knowledge of this
so I can see if maybe during me history learning experience I
missed something or if Zinn’s article is as valid as he made it
seem to be.
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