Racism, Discrimination, and Segregation in America

Origins of Racism

• “Scientific Racism”

• Ethnocentrism• “One Drop” Rule

• Race is a social construct!

Race: category of people labeled and treated as similar because of some common biological traits, such as skin color, texture of hair, and shape of eyes

Race has no “scientific” basis, e.g., DNA

Slavery• Not always tied to racism.

The word “slave” comes from sclavus meaning “slavic people” or people from East or Central Europe. Slavery was a part of many ancient civilizations including Aztec, Sumer, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Persia, Byzantines, Vikings, Arab and African kingdoms.

• Lasted from 1607 – 1865

• “Inferiority of race” used as a justification

• System of deference resulted Deference = submission or courteous yielding to the opinion, wishes, or judgment of another.

• 13th Amendment Freed the slaves in 1865 (end of the Civil War)

• 14th Amendment made African Americans US Citizens in 1867

• 15th Amendment gave all American men the right to vote in 1868

Strange Fruit

Abel MeeropolBillie Holiday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Lynching

Without Sanctuary: Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

• Definition: to lynch means to put to death (usually by hanging) by mob action without due process of the law or legal sanction.

• Term coined in 1830s after vigilante William Lynch.

• Many types of people were lynched throughout history, from outlaws in the American West to immigrants in American cities, but that the vast majority of lynching victims have been African-American men.

• Between 1882 and 1968, mobs lynched 4,743 persons in the United States, over 70% of them African-Americans.

• By the late 1920s, 95% of U.S. lynchings occurred in the South.

• By 1950, lynchings virtually disappeared due to anti-lynching efforts headed by the NAACP.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)Definition: a white supremacist group originating in the South after the Civil War. The KKK has been responsible for countless acts of terrorism, violence, and lynching all intended to intimidate, murder and oppress African Americans, Jews, and other minorities.

Membership

1920 = 4,000,000

1930 = 30,000

1980 = 5,000

2008 = 6,000

Alleged Klan Members:

Harry Truman

Warren G. Harding

16 Senators

11 Governors

? # Representatives

Jim Crow LawsDefinition: Laws that separated/segregated African Americans and other non-white racial groups from White Americans.

Some commonly segregated spaces as a result of Jim Crow were: • schools• public areas• transportation• restrooms• restaurants

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

• The Plessy decision made Jim Crow laws legal.

• Therefore, according to the Supreme Court, segregation is legal.

Definitions:

De jure = by law

De facto = in practice

Emmett Till

Matthew Shepard http://www.matthewshepard.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Our_Story_Main_Page

The Death of Emmett Till: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjfGcRM35xg

• 14 year old from Chicago visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi (1955)

• Supposedly whistled at a white woman in a grocery store on a dare

• The woman’s husband and his half brother went to Till’s house that night

• Till was kidnapped, beaten, shot, and then his body was dumped into a river

• Till’s mother insisted on an open-casket• The 2 men went to trial, but were acquitted

by the all white jury members• Later, in exchange for $4000, the men told

Look magazine how they brutally murdered Till

Civil Rights v. Human RightsDefinition: inherent rights that all people have simply because they are human. Not necessarily guaranteed by a government.

Definition: a contract between citizens and their government, where the government spells out rights afforded to its citizens.

Examples:

Right to bear arms

Freedom of or from religion

Right to vote

Freedom from excessive bail

Examples:

Right to food and water

Right to marry

Right to refuse to kill

Right to rest and leisure

BUT, there’s a lot of overlap. Many of the rights found in our US Constitution are also found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For example: freedom from slavery or servitude, freedom from cruel or unusual punishment, right to equal protection under the law.