Transcript Race-relationsx

A brief look at black/white
race relations in the U.S.
Brea Barthel
11/13/13
First, a word on words
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“African-American” current preferred term
“Black” usually okay
“People of color” okay; includes all non-whites
“Colored” considered racist
“Negro” no longer acceptable; don’t say it
The N-word (“nigger”) highly offensive;
people get fired for using it
(But some older terms live on)
• HBCU: “historically black colleges and
universities”
• NAACP: “National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People”
• UNCF: “United Negro College Fund”
Race relations in 2013
To quote Charles Dickens,
“It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times”
The best of times
• Mixed-race president & African-American wife
• Mayor-elect of NYC & African-American wife
Source: abcnews.go.com
Source: touchfm.org
“post-racial America”? Not!
The worst of times?
• “Birther movement” claims Obama is a Kenyan
• Number of hate groups (neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan, other
white supremacists) & membership increased after
Obama elected (Southern Poverty Law Center)
• Income inequality “defining issue of our times”
(Obama, http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/opinion/sutterexplainer-income-inequality/)
• Changes in voter registration laws hurt blacks
Pre-1860s: Slavery
• People legally defined as property
• U.S. Constitution: a slave counted as three-fifths of a
person for national census (population affects each
state’s number of members of Congress)
• Legal in New York until 1827
• Legal in the south until 1865
• “Abolitionists” fought to end slavery
• “Underground Railroad”: individuals & groups helped
people escape slavery, even though that was illegal
1861-1865: Civil War
• Bloodiest war in U.S. history (750,000+ deaths)
• States in the South “seceded” from (left) the U.S. to
create the Confederate States of America
• North (“Union” or “Yankees”; blue uniforms) vs.
South (“Confederates” or “rebels”; gray uniforms)
• War has different names:
in border states, “War between the states”
in Southern states “War of Northern Aggression”
1865: 13th amendment
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as
a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
(“their”? “United States” was considered plural, emphasizing
states; soon after considered singular, emphasizing united.)
Source: http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html
1860’s – 1960’s: segregation
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“Jim Crow” laws separated blacks & whites
Different schools, other legal restrictions
Violators punished severely
Blacks lynched (hung)
for minor or made-up
reasons; lynchings often
became public events
• “Strange Fruit”: song
drew attention to issue
Source: satiricalpolitical.com
1960s: Civil Rights movement
• National movement for legal changes
• Some major figures:
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
Malcolm X
Thurgood Marshall
Rosa Parks
Fannie Lou Hamer
Rosa Parks, with Martin
Luther King in background
http://www.ibtimes.com/i-have-dream-speech-full-transcriptvideo-read-dr-martin-luther-king-jrs-1963-speech-its-50th
1960s: Legal changes
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Voting rights acts
Equal Rights act
“Affirmative Action” for jobs & schools
Quota systems tried, then dropped
Backlash from whites
• Claims of “reverse discrimination”
• Challenges to voting rights act
Current issues & events
• Racial profiling: police targeting blacks for “stop
& frisk”
• Racial differences in frequency of arrest,
decision of guilt, length/type of sentences,
decision of death penalty
• Trayvon Martin: killed by
“vigilante” in Florida in 2012
• Obama: “If I had a son, he would
look like Trayvon Martin.”
Issue:
Mass incarceration
13th amendment: "Neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction."
• High % of blacks in prison
• Forced labor
• Mistreatment
Poverty
Most poor people are not black, and
most black people are not poor
BUT
• higher poverty rates
Blacks = 25.8% / Whites 11.6%
Source: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-17.pdf
• Lower rates of home ownership
• Much lower average total family wealth
History affects today’s relations
• Strong geographic separation in housing:
▫ “White Flight” to suburbs in 1950s-1980s
▫ “the chocolate [black] city and its vanilla suburbs”
• Rise of street gangs in “inner cities”
• Suspiciousness & tension on both sides
Best times? No. Worst times? No.
• Many organizations work to reduce racial
tension
• More acceptance of diversity in workplaces
• Improvement in media representation:
blacks shown in positions of power more often