Class 39/12/2014Readings: “Racial Ideologies from the 1920s to the Present” &“I Didn’t Get That Job Because of a Black Man.”

Class Goals

• How have racial ideologies changed since the early 20th century?

• What role did the civil rights movement play in promoting change?

• What are some of the different forms racism and racial ideologies take today?

• How did the election of President Obama change the racial scenario?

Defining terms

• Racial prejudice: belief. Examples?• Racial Discrimination: practice. Examples?

• Racial ideology: a set of principles and ideas that (1) divides people into different racial groups; and (2) serves the interest of one group.

How has racism changed since the early 20th century?

• 1700s-1865: Enslavement of African-Americans.

• 1865-1965: Persistence of legal discrimination and acceptance of overt discrimination.

• 1965-present: Overt discrimination is legally impermissible.

• What has changed? What has not? How have racial ideologies changed?

During the Great Depression, the majority of the 1.5 million Mexicans living in the United States were deported.

During WW II,Japanese families were placed ininternment camps

During the Tuskegeesyphilis experiment,black men were diagnosed with syphilis yetneither treated for it nor told they had it.

Slavery by Another Name

• http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/watch/

Jim Crow

• Between 1896 and 1954, it was legal to deny African Americans, Mexicans, American Indians, and Asians access to public schools and other facilities designated for whites

What role did the civil rights movement play in promoting change?

• Sit-ins• Freedom rides• Boycotts• Why were these

necessary?

What are some of the different forms racism takes today?

• Today, racial discrimination is illegal.

• Today, racial discrimination is stigmatized.

• How, then, does racial inequality persist?

Half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, school segregation continues to be a problem.

Racial inequality is justified through different forms of racism.

• Biological racism• Cultural racism• Colorblind universalism

• How would people who believe these forms of racism explain the fact that African-American men are much more likely than white men to be in prison?

Colorblind racism

• Concept developed primarily by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva.

• People use “racial frames” to justify racial inequality.

• People deploy “rhetorical strategies” when asked about their attitudes.

Racial Stories

• "I Did Not Get That Job Because of a Black Man...": The Story Lines and Testimonies of Color- Blind Racism”

• “One sign that ideology has gained dominance is that its logic has come to be perceived as ‘common sense.”

• Interviews with whites revealed that there are common storylines people deployed.

Story-lines of color-blind racism

• “The past is the past”• I didn’t own any slaves”• “If Jews, Italians, and Irish Made it, How Come

Blacks Have Not?”• “I didn’t get a job because of a black man.”• These story-lines help whites maintain a color-

blind sense of self while maintaining racial inequality.

Racism in the age of Obama

• How did racial politics play a role in the election of President Obama to the presidency?

Class Goals: Review

• How have racial ideologies changed since the early 20th century?

• What role did the civil rights movement play in promoting change?

• What are some of the different forms racism and racial ideologies take today?

• How did the election of President Obama change the racial scenario?

Weekly Question 1

• Describe and provide an example of a story-line discussed by Bonilla-Silva, Lewis, and Embrick (2004). How does this story-line justify current racial inequality? How is this story-line differ from what whites would have said prior to 1965?