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Using The Shifting Grounds of Race by Scott Kurashige focuses on the role of African Americans and Japanese Americans played in the social and political struggle that re-formed twentieth-century Los Angeles. By linking important historical events, such as Black Civil rights movement, NAACP, and Japanese Alien Land Law, internment camps, Kurashige also explains the classical black & white separation to then explore the multiethnic magnitudes of segregation and integration. Understanding how segregation, oppression, and racism shaped the area of Los Angeles became a shared interest between African American and Japanese Americans living together within diverse urban communities. Using this newly profound empowered a mental state that prepared
The terrible transformation could be described as “numbing and burdening everything in its path, like a disastrous storm” (24). Everything became dependent on one’s racial status, even their legal status, and slavery became not only reliant on ones’ races, but also their heritage meaning it was passed down from parent to child. New colonies began to form that were not in favor of enslavement based solely on race, however the older colonies continued to grow and enforce their laws of slavery based on race. There were many factors that lead to the horrific treatment African Americans came to endure. One was that colonial leaders began to fear poor and unfree colonists of all kinds.
Chapter 1 of “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander, that is also a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, wrote this chapter to inform us the history of racism in America, and if African Americans really treated equally. When the Emancipation Proclamation was passed, many whites were scared that the slaves are now free because they might want revenge, so the whites made a stereo type that all black men are criminals. When the Reconstruction ended, the south had a redemption. The convicts had no legal rights, so they became the “slaves” to help rebuild after the civil war. Then the prison population of blacks rose so the whites can use them as free labor.
Around this time period white rich men owned slaves. Black men knew their place in society by respecting the white men. If a black man began to contradict them, there would be serious consequences. The consequences would differ depending on who the white man was.
Race Was Invented To Justify Slavery Once people are defined as inhuman because of the color of their skin, you are free to treat them like animals. This is exactly what happened to blacks in America. The first blacks who arrived in Virginia where from Europe, not Africa. They came to Virginia in 1619 and were not initially considered slaves.
4. I agree with Eric Foner, “Prejudice by itself did not create North American slavery”, but other contributions besides preconception did. Slavery was brought to North America by the Columbian exchange. In this exchange Europeans and Americans brought animals, disease, and food. Africans brought their culture when enslaved.
The purpose Howard zinn had in writing this book was “in telling the history of the United States: that we must not accept the memory of the states as our own. Nations are not communities and never has been. 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 world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners”. From this quote I concluded that Howard Zinn was going to write this book from both sides in history
Before the American Civil War, we struggled with the concept of slavery based on our economic and moral differences. People who lived in the North believed that slavery should be abolished since they did not grow crops that needed an abundance of slaves. Moreover, they thought that slaves should be treated like all human beings based on the constitution. On the other side, Americans who lived in the South thought slavery should not be abolished as their crops demanded twice as much work than the ones in the North; therefore, they needed much more workers working in their field and that’s where slaves came into view. They also thought that Africans were inferior because of their skin color and origin.
Additionally, in The New Jim Crow, we are able further understand this when Michelle Alexander goes in depth on the topic and explains how racism and prejudice has formed in the US and created a divide between the slaves and the poor white people. Then she tells us how this divide established due to the elite plantation owners’ search for the ideal slaves and how it ended up oppressing the black people. Furthermore, she explains how during the Reconstruction Era, white elites were still using methods, such as the vagrancy laws, the Black Codes and the Jim Crow, in attempts to control the black population. Moreover, she goes on to explain that as time goes on, this new system of slavery has continued to oppress minorities and poor whites, dividing the country. As a repercussion of this divide, people such as Donald Trump have been successful in their endeavors, consequently not learning from history, inevitably doomed to repeat it.
During the early 1800’s, President Thomas Jefferson effectively doubled the size of the United States under the Louisiana Purchase. This set the way for Westward expansion, alongside an increase in industrialism and overall economic growth. In fact, many citizens were able to thrive and make a better living in the agricultural business than anywhere else. All seemed to be going well in this new and ever expanding country, except for one underlying issue; slavery. Many African Americans were treated as the lowest of the classes, even indistinguishable from livestock.
In the essay, “A Genealogy of Modern Racism”, the author Dr. Cornel West discusses racism in depth, while conveying why whites feel this sense of superiority. We learn through his discussion that whites have been forced to treat black harshly due to the knowledge that was given to them about the aesthetics of beauty and civility. This knowledge that was bestowed on the whites in the modern West, taught them that they were superior to all races tat did not emulate the norms of whites. According to Dr. West the very idea that blacks were even human beings is a concept that was a “relatively new discovery of the modern West”, and that equality of beauty, culture, and intellect in blacks remains problematic and controversial in intellectual circles
Until 1865, the enslavement of African Americans was legal in the United States (History.com Staff). Most of the nation believed that African Americans weren’t equal to Whites and could be treated as property. Even after slavery was abolished, these racist ideals were ingrained in the minds of most Southerners. In the 1930s, racial ignorance still caused society to believe that African Americans were sinful and a lesser race.
The 1920s produced a highly egocentric generation in the history of America. Typical American literature of the time centered around wealth and success. This created an attitude of self-centeredness as well as a mindset focused on possessions and social class. However, with the release of one of her first successful books, The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck brought some refreshing reality to American society.
During the Enlightenment period, any scientific knowledge eventually leads to the episteme associated with the Western society, empowering them to be justified for any relentless dominance toward their colonist. Regardless, it is easy to confuse the enlightenment itself with the racist thoughts brought up during enlightenment times. One of the biggest ideas that lead to racism during the Enlightenment time is the misuse of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin simply suggested “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment” (Origin of Species, 1859)
Three principles of thoughts that shaped the modern western culture were the ideas of racism, humanism, and nationality. Each of these three principles had a tremendous effect on the western culture, and changed the social norms of the day that went unchallenged. These effects would radically change the how the western culture would perceive race, national pride, and themselves as people. The invention of racism came into prominence through the demanding increase of labor needed in the new word.
