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Reading Race/Ethnicity Project (100 pages) TABLE OF CONTENTS Getting Started
Defining Race ”Taking off the Color Blinders: Geneticists and Historians Grapple with the Gray Areas of Race“ Washington Post QuickWriting & Networking
Defining Ethnic Key Words & QuickWriting Writers at Work ”Ethnic,“ Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture & Society Networking
Identifying Ourselves (Optional Reading, Research, Writing)
Naming Stories ”My Name,“ Sandra Cisneros (vignette) ”I Am Joaquin: Yo Soy Joaquin,“ Rodolfo Gonzales (poem) ”Red Stone Panther,“ Allison Adelle Hedge Coke (poem) QuickWriting & Networking
Ethnic Identification Stories Tracing Your Ancestry: Ancestry Chart (flow chart) QuickWriting & Networking Research Option: Doing Ethnography
Readers at Work: A Guided Reading Assignment Census 2000: Population by Race & Hispanic Origin (table) ”Census,“ Langston Hughes ”What the Census Doesn’t Count,“ Russell Thornton Reading Selections: Categories for Analysis Whiteness ”White Ethnicity,“ Jolanta Drzewiecka & Kathleen Wong (Lau) ”Cultural Baggage,“ Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times Magazine ”Growing Up White in America,“ Bonnie Kae Grover, Critical White Studies African American ”That Word ‘Black,’“ Langston Hughes (newspaper column) ”What Does It Mean to Be Black?“ Alice Walker (talk) ”A Moment of Truth,“ Glenn C. Loury (essay) ”A Black Way of Seeing,“ Paul Robeson, Jr. (introduction) Latino Between Two Worlds: California-Mexico Border (photographs) "To live in the borderlands…," Gloria Anzaldua (poem) ”What Does It Mean to Be an American Latina?“ Lorenzo Munoz ”Ending Poem,“ Aurora Levins Morales & Rosario Morales "Black and Latino," Roberto Santiago (essay) “Going Beyond Black and White, Hispanics in Census Pick 'Other,'“ Mireya Navarro, NY Times Asian American ”Growing Up Asian in America,“ Kesaya E. Noda (essay) ”Asian American Assimilation vs. Acculturation,“ Asian Air (essay) ”Model Minority Guilt,“ Marites Mendoza (personal essay) ”Are Asians Becoming White?“ Min Zhou, UCLA Today American Indian, Alaska Native, & Native Hawaiian
”CHEROKEE“ (advertisement) ”Native Identity,“ Duane Champagne ”Have You Ever Seen a Real Indian?“ American Indian College Fund (advertisement) The American Indian Mascot Controversy News Briefs & Images ”American Indians Offended Cleveland in Civil Rights Game“ (news article) ”Man Who Created Chief Illiniwek Log Wants It Back“ (blog) ”Reading ‘The Indian Wars,’“ C. Richard King & Ellen J. Stautowsky (letter-essay) ”The Powwow at the End of the World,“ Sherman Alexie (poem) ”Engulfed by Climate Change, [Alaska Native] Town Seeks Lifeline, New York Times ”Pondering Poi Dog: Place and Racial Identification of Multiracial Native Hawaiians,“ Shawn Malia Kana’iaupuni; Carolyn A. Liebler (abstract) Writers at Work: A Guided Writing Assignment
”The New Face of America“ (Time magazine cover, Nov. 18, 1993) ”Race is Over,“ Stanley Crouch, New York Times Magazine (Op-Ed) Writer at Work: Lilah Shah, ”Being [Asian] Indian in America: My Ethnic Roots and Me“
READING RACE/ETHNICITY __________________________________________
Race is complicated. Nothing in the discussion is black and white.“ Joel Achenbach, ”Taking off the Color Blinders,“ Washington Post
The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of color lines. Mike Hill, After Whiteness
Ethnicity is still a complex and changing subject, which still has real political and social consequences in shaping American thinking about race relations. Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America
What if we switched to talking about social equality? Lisa Yun, Associate Professor, Asian American Studies, Binghamton U., SUNY
Race, Still Our Most Divisive Force Juan Williams, NPR Morning Edition, January 25, 2007
Americans have known substantial divisions over class, gender and religion, but the greatest divider of all has been race. There are widely held assumptions on both sides that keep us from more fully understanding and appreciating ‘the other.’
But if you only have love for your own race Then you only leave space to discriminate And to discriminate only generates hate And if you hatin you’re bound to get irate Yeah madness is what you demonstrate And that’s exactly how anger works and operates You gotta have love just to set it straight Take control of your mind and meditate Let you soul gravitate to the love y’all
”Where is the Love?“ Black Eyed Peas
Getting Started
Defining Race
Read the following news report about a group of social scientists and geneticists who gathered to ”sort out the meaning of race, and didn’t, quite.“
Taking Off the Color Blinders Geneticists and Historians Grapple With the Gray Areas of Race Joel Achenbach Washington Post Staff Wednesday, September 15, 2004; Page C01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21995-2004Sep14.html Date of Access: June 21, 2006 A hundred social scientists and geneticists gathered this week in Alexandria to sort out the meaning of race, and didn't, quite. They gave it a game effort. They tackled every thorny question stretching across their academic disciplines, the historians hearing about clusters of genetic alleles [DNA sequences that code for a gene] and the geneticists hearing about race as a power relationship. They explored the distinction between race and geographic variation. They pondered replacing the word "race" with "ethnic group." They talked about racism, multiculturalism, college diversity goals, racial self-identification in the U.S. Census, micro-ethnic groups, the racialization of Mexican Americans and how come no one ever asks why all the white kids sit together in the cafeteria. When Leith Mullings, an anthropologist from the City University of New York, sardonically said that "only people of color have race, and only women have gender," everyone knew what she meant. A professor who argues that race is a biological myth sat next to a professor who wants the U.S. government to pay reparations to African Americans. Their positions are not inconsistent, but they require a bit of explaining. Race is complicated. Nothing in the discussion is black and white. "It doesn't exist biologically, but it does exist socially," said Alan Goodman, incoming president of the American Anthropological Association, which sponsored the meeting at the Holiday Inn in Old Town. The event served as a brainstorming session for a $4 million project, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation, to create a traveling museum exhibit on race. If all goes well, the exhibit will debut in two years at the Science Museum of Minnesota, in St. Paul. The working title is "Understanding Race and Human Variation." Beyond that, things get fuzzy. If there was a consensus that emerged from two days of conversation, it's the notion that race is a cultural construct. Investigations into the human genome have so far failed to turn up any evidence that there's such a thing as, for example, a Caucasian. Human beings are genetically rather homogeneous compared with other animals. But the lack of biological support for traditional categories of race does not change the fact that race is a lived reality. The exhibit should discuss this "paradox of race/no-race," in the words of anthropologist Micaela diLeonardo. It will take a long time for people to grasp the illusory nature of race at the biological level, Goodman said. It's like understanding that the Earth isn't flat. It looks flat when you're walking around, but if you go up high enough in an airplane you can see the curvature. Someday, he said, people will no longer be flat-Earthers about race. They will see with different eyes. He identifies himself, incidentally, as a white person. "Culturally I'm white-ified," he said. "People see me as white. That has something to do with how I look, but it has nothing to do with biological variation." The revolution won't happen overnight. Americans in particular are socialized to notice race immediately, to put people in rigid categories, not always with the best of intentions. Race might not exist biologically, but, on the flat Earth, it's very noticeable. "We live in a culture in which race is a dominant paradigm," Goodman said. "I see human variation in this room, but I don't see race." There was at least one geneticist on hand who wasn't quite ready to do away with race entirely. "It's been said that race is biologically meaningless, and I disagree with that," Lynn Jorde of the University of Utah told a reporter. He provoked much debate in the meeting with his talk about "clusters" of genetic markers that correspond to geographic origin or ancestry. These clusters are correlated with some traditional concepts of race, he said, though there is too much genetic overlap to support the notion that some people are simply white, black, etc. Still, talk of any biological element to race drew rebukes from some participants. Evolutionary geneticist Joseph Graves, author of "The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America," said scientists have misunderstood the nature of human genetic variation. It doesn't translate into racial categories. "There are no races in anatomically modern humans," Graves said. Gary Segura, a political scientist at the University of Iowa, said that people tend to pay far too much attention to just a few of the morphological differences among humans. People vary in dozens of different ways, he said. "We tend to fetishize the shape of the eyes, the shape of the nose, the color of the skin and the texture of the hair," he said. But he made a prediction: If all the experts in the world suddenly announced that there's no such thing as race, and if newspapers ran the story on the front page, it still wouldn't change the way whites and blacks interact in Alabama. The conundrum for the experts is finding a way to explain to the lay public why race doesn't exist in one way but in another way is critically important. There was little sympathy here for creating a "colorblind" society, a notion advanced most often by political conservatives. At one point Fatimah Jackson, a University of Maryland anthropologist, criticized the government practice of gathering racial statistics. Former U.S. Census Bureau official Kenneth Prewitt stood up and asked if that meant the census should have no question about race. Jackson answered that she didn't know why the government should spend money getting data on something that has no biological basis. "Civil rights!" someone said. This was all very stimulating, and intellectually enriching, and by the end of the second day, the Earth didn't seem as flat. But no one would go so far as to call the meeting clarifying. "It is difficult to sort through," said museum consultant Deborah Mack. "We welcome this kind of all-over-the-place discussion," said Robert Garfinkle, of the Science Museum of Minnesota, putting the best spin on things. "How can all this be distilled?" asked one of the organizers, Yolanda Moses, speaking to everyone at the end of Monday's marathon session of talks. She reminded the participants that the museum people "came here to hear clarity around these issues." And everyone, of all shades and shapes and textures, laughed.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21995-2004Sep14_2.html Retrieved June 11, 2006
QuickWriting
”Race is complicated,“ as pointed out in this article. Write to reflect on your understanding of race now. You can use some of these statements from the conference to get started: ”Only people of color have race.“
Race is a biological myth: ”It doesn’t exist biologically, but it does exist socially.“ Race is a social construct.
”Americans in particular are socialized to notice race immediately.“ ”We live in a culture in which race is a dominant paradigm.“
”If all the experts in the world suddenly announced that there's no such thing as race, and if newspapers ran the story on the front page, it still wouldn't change the way whites and blacks interact in Alabama.“
(For more about QuickWriting, see pp. 0-00.)
Networking
Join a small group and work together toward a definition of race. Discuss your written reflections, do some research, and collaborate on a definition. Share your definition or understanding with the whole class. Further discuss: Why has race come to be so associated with Americans? Why are ”Americans in particular…socialized to notice race?“ Was race ever ”black and white“? Why wouldn’t an announcement that ”there’s no such thing as race“ change the way whites and blacks interact in Alabama?
Defining Ethnic
Key Words & QuickWriting List words, images, or ideas that you associate with the word ethnic. What comes to mind? Then write quickly for five minutes, trying not to censor yourself.
Writers at Work When I think ethnic, I think of different styles. It may be a style of dress. It may be a style of cooking. I also think of the different music people listen to that has an ethnic feel. I don’t think ethnic has to be identified as a particular nationality—Irish, for example. I think it is anything that has a slightly foreign twist to it. They say America is the melting pot--I’d like to think of the word ”ethnic“ as the spice. Katherine Cremeans
‘Ethnic’ I think has almost become an insult. Instead of invoking curiosity or respect, in many this word strikes fear or ignorance. I don’t like this word. It assumes that there is an identity against which or in terms of which we are judged. We either fit in comfortably or are found to be different. I am intrigued by ethnicity probably because I am as blah as blah can be as a white, Euro-mutt. My family hasn’t held onto cultural traditions at all. Leigha Butler I often feel absent of ethnicity—a WASP from a city of 8 million. I blend on holidays. I don’t get to wear ceremonial garb or eat special food. I’ve lost touch with any cultural heritage I may have had—the Irish, Danish and German parts of my mixed ethnicity into a pale ivory. And looking at me, my ethnicity is difficult to judge. Like my accent—there is none. No New York, no Southern twang, no Bostonian ‘ah’ or Canadian ‘eh.’ I can be judged by nothing more than the words that come out of my mouth. Lauren Andrews ____________________________
In KEYWORDS: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (NY: Oxford University Press, 1983—revised edition), Raymond Williams focuses on the sociology of language, demonstrating how words that are key to understanding our society take on new meanings and how these changes reflect the political bent and values of society. Read about how the meaning of ethnic has changed since the 14th Century. ____________________________________________________________________ Ethnic has been in English since the middle of the 14th Century. It is from ethnikos, Greek—heathen (there are possible but unproved connections between ethnic and heathen, Old English). It was widely used in the senses of heathen, pagan or Gentile, until the 19th Century, when this sense was generally superseded by the sense of a R A C I A L characteristic. Ethnics came to be used in the United States as what was described in 1961 as ‘a polite term for Jews, Italians and other lesser breeds.’ ….In mid 20th Century ethnic reappeared, probably with effect from the earlier American use of ethnics, in a sense close to FOLK, as an available contemporary style, most commonly in dress, music and food. The use ranges from serious affiliation to a N A T I V E and subordinate tradition, as among some social groups in USA, to a term of fashion in metropolitan commerce (119-120). ______________________________________________________________________
Networking Join a small group to discuss your understanding of ”ethnic.“ How do you distinguish ethnicity from race? In Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America, Mary C. Waters writes: ”Ethnicity is still a complex and changing subject, which still has real political and social consequences in shaping American thinking about race relations.“ Begin talking about the role that ethnicity plays in shaping American thinking about race relations. Why does Waters specify ”American thinking“? In what ways do ethnic groups function on your campus? Do students cluster by race/ethnicity? Option: Create an ”ethnic“ collage with words and images. Look for notices about ”ethnic“ events, pictures of ”ethnic“ clothing/fashion, and word usage. How is ”ethnic“ being used?
Identifying Ourselves: Naming Stories
Names given to us play a role in how we identify ourselves and how others identify us. Names can be part of your family’s unique history. A name can be passed on or given simply because parents (or a parent or close relative) liked the name. A name can be created and be truly unique. Name-giving practices also vary from culture to culture; some given names are strongly associated with cultural backgrounds as in the following naming stories.
My Name Sandra Cisneros
Photograph by Ruben Guzman
Sandra Cisneros was the only daughter in a family of seven children; her father was Mexican and her mother, Chicana. Cisneros draws on her childhood experiences and ethnic heritage in The House on Mango Street, a collection of vignettes about Esperanza who, like Cisneros, grew up in a Chicago burrio. In this selection, Esperanza tells her story of her name.
”I am Joaquin: Yo soy Joaquin“ ____________ Rodolfo Gonzales
Rodolfo ”Corky“ Gonzales (1928-2005), the son of a migrant worker, was an American boxer, poet and political activist. A spokesman for the Mexican-American movement, he fought for Chicano liberation. In this selection from his epic poem, Gonzales shared his new vision of the ”Chicano,“ who was ”neither Indian nor European, neither Mexican nor American“, but a combination of conflicting identities—a new ”raza“ (”race“).
Bantam Books, 1967 (98-100)
Red Stone Panther Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
Photo by Timothy Vaughan Hedge Coke Allison Adelle Hedge Coke is Huron; Eastern Tsalagi; French Canadian; and Portuugese. She grew up in North Carolina, Canada, and on the Great Plains. Hedge Coke has written extensively about her Native American heritage and was named the Writer of the Year in Poetry in 2005 by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers for her book Off Season City Pipe (Coffeehouse Press) from which this selection is taken. ”Red Stone Panther“ is the naming story of her son Travis.
QuickWriting Write what you know about your naming story. Read the following questions and then begin writing. Were you named after anyone (someone in your family, a celebrity…)? Was your name common at the time you were named? Is your name unique? Are there different versions of your naming story? (If you don’t know your naming story, do some research about the meaning of your name). Does your name signify your cultural heritage? Do you use your full name or a shortened version? Do you have any nicknames? What sometimes annoys you about your name? Have you ever been asked, ”How do you say your name?“ Is there another name you would prefer? Have you changed or considered changing your name? Finally, identify yourself by some primary characteristics—How would you characterize yourself?
Networking Option 1: Share your naming story with some of your peers. Discuss what you’ve discovered from these stories. If members of your group come from different cultural backgrounds, how do name-giving practices vary from one culture to another? Did anyone include race or ethnicity as a primary characteristic? Report back to the whole class for further discussion.
Option 2: If this is a project you are working on at the start of a course, prepare a one-minute oral presentation in which you introduce a classmate to the whole class, beginning with the naming story and then selecting one or two details from an interview. Related to this project, you could ask about the racial/ethnic make-up of the high school and the kind of community (urban or rural, for example) the person came from. Do not give a brief biographical summary (hometown, high school, major, etc.). Your goal is to help you and your peers remember the person’s name and also to begin identifying each other. (See ”Guide for Oral Presentations: Brief Introductions,“ p. 0.)
Ethnicity is a social construction that indicates identification with a particular group which is often descended from common ancestors. Trace your ancestry if you can, or as far as you can, using the following chart.
Tracing Your Ancestry (3 generations)
*Name country of origin if known. Great-grandfather
Paternal grandfather
Great-grandmother
Father
Great-grandfather
Paternal grandmother
Great-grandmother
ME__________________
Great-grandfather
Maternal grandfather
Great-grandmother Mother
Great-grandfather
Maternal grandmother
Great-grandmother
QuickWriting ”And what is your ethnic background?“ Review your ”Tracing My Ancestry“ chart and write briefly about your cultural background. Networking Share what you wrote in a small group. Then address these questions: Do you have only a symbolic identification with your ancestry or do you have specific knowledge about language, customs, or traditions? Do you believe that ethnic identity is determined by where someone’s ancestors came from? Research Option: Doing Ethnography More Stories: Ourselves Among Others You have begun exploring your own ethnic identification story. What are some other stories? How do other people identify themselves ethnically? Doing ethnographic research is one way to gather data. Interview 3-5 people outside your classroom community about how they identify themselves ethnically. Try to choose a range of people in age and cultural background. You will need to prepare yourself for this experience in order to get thoughtful responses. Some people you interview may have thought a great deal about their ethnic identity while others may not have thought much about it. Still others may not fully understand or may be confused about race and ethnicity and may need clarification. You will be conducting an interview, which is different from conducting a survey with set questions; however, you need to make up some questions to help people get started and to have in reserve in case they stop talking and you want to know more or want to steer them in another direction. Use a small notebook to take (field) notes. If you have access to a tape recorder, you may want to tape record interviews. Usually people do not mind being recorded if you ask and explain that you are doing a research project. In any case, ask them how they want to be identified (by initials or first name, for example). You can fill out the beginning of the Ethnographic Interview Record form provided and then later transfer selected ”key“ quotes and notes to the last three sections. Do not include all your notes. Under ”Comments,“ the last section of the form, discuss briefly what you learned from the interviews you conducted (your findings) that may be helpful in understanding the problems of ethnic identification. Did people you interviewed determine their ethnic identity based on where their ancestors came from? If their cultural backgrounds were mixed, did they personally identify with one group or try to embrace more than one? For a sequence of steps for conducting a successful ethnographic interview, read and study ”The Ethnographic Interview“ by anthropologist James Spradley. (See Resources, pp. 0-00.) Take notes that you think will be helpful. Then make a plan and write out some questions. Ethnographic Interview Record * Project: Ethnic Identification Interviewer:________________________________ Date of Interview: Informant (name of person being interviewed): Informant's occupation or student status: Informant's gender: Age: Informant's ethnic identification: How does the person identify himself or herself ethnically? Note whether the person responds immediately or has to stop and think. (Does the person belong to or associate with any cultural groups? Is the person’s ethnic identification limited to holidays or some food?) Exact Quotations (Include some key quotations from your notes or recording.)
Summary of Interview (State briefly the interviewee’s responses.)
Comments (Give your response to the interview in terms of this project. Include observations that may be helpful in understanding problems of ethnic identification.)
*This form is adapted from ”The Ethnographic Interview,“ James Spradley.
Networking Get together in a small group and discuss how people you interviewed identified themselves ethnically and/or share one of your interviews. Readers at Work: A Guided Reading Assignment
Identifying Ourselves: Census 2000
Many viewed the liberalization of immigration policy in 1965 as an extension of the Civil Rights Movement aimed at abolishing racial discrimination against African Americans. The 1965 policy reform ended bias in favor of Northern European immigrants. Under the old system, admission largely depended upon an immigrant's country of birth. Seventy percent of all immigrant slots were allotted to natives of just three countries — United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany — and went mostly unused, while there were long waiting lists for the small number of visas available to those born in Italy, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and elsewhere in eastern and southern Europe. The new system eliminated the various nationality criteria, supposedly putting people of all nations on an equal footing for immigration to the United States….Proponents repeatedly denied that the law would lead to a huge and sustained increase in the number of newcomers and become a vehicle for globalizing immigration….The unexpected result has been one of the greatest waves of immigration in the nation's history. Center for Immigration Studies http://www.cis.org/articles/1995/back395.html In 1977, the federal government established four racial categories for gathering data: (1) American Indian or Alaskan Native; (2) Asian or Pacific Islander; (3) Black; (4) White. Classification was based on self-classification or on observation by an interviewer or other person filling out the questionnaire. In the Census 2000 questionnaire, racial and ethnic classifications were changed to reflect the diversity of the U.S.’s population. Decisions about how to identify an individual’s race or ethnicity were up to each individual or family rather than an outside interviewer. How would you identify yourself using the Census 2000 questionnaire? Census 2000: Population by Race & Hispanic Origin
Directions: Circle non-Hispanic/Latino or Hispanic/Latino. If you are Hispanic/Latino, check your origin as well. Continue and circle a category in "single" or "all-inclusive race."
Non-Hispanic or Latino Hispanic or Latino If you are Hispanic or Latino, please check origin: · Mexican · Puerto Rican · Cuban · Central or South American · Other Hispanic · Unknown Note: People of Hispanic origin may be of any race and should answer the question on race by marking one or more race categories shown on the questionnaire. Hispanics are asked to indicate their origin in the question on Hispanic origin, not in the question on race because in the federal statistical system, ethnic origin is considered to be a separate concept from race. Single-Race: · White alone · Black or African American alone · American Indian & Alaska Native alone----Principal tribe:_________ · Asian alone Specify:________ · Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander alone · Some Other Race alone · Two or more races All-Inclusive Race: · White alone or in combination · Black or African American alone or in combination · American Indian & Alaska Native alone or in combination---Principal tribe:______ · Asian alone or in combination----Specify:_______________________ · Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander alone or in combination · Some Other Race alone or in combination----Specify:__________ U.S. Census Bureau Networking
Every census must adapt to the decade in which it is administered. New technologies emerge and change the way the U.S. Census Bureau collects and processes data. More importantly, changing lifestyles and emerging sensitivities among the people of the United States necessitate modifications to the questions that are asked. One of the most important changes for Census 2000 was the revision of the questions on race and Hispanic origin to better reflect the country’s growing diversity. U.S. Census Bureau
Join a small group and discuss how you categorized yourself and whether or not you had any problems. To what extent do you think the changes made on this questionnaire reflect ”the country’s growing diversity“? See also Table 1 for results and the definitions of race categories provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Table 1. Population by Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States: 2000
[Insert Table 1 & definitions of race categories.]
The story ”Census“ by Langston Hughes (published in 1965) bears directly on debates about the 2000 Census: What counts? What fails to count?
In ”Census,“ the fictional character Jesse B. Semple explains a decade before the Civil Rights Movement: It were not until I came to Harlem that one day a Census taker dropped around my house and asked me where were I born and why, also my age, and if I was still living. I said, ‘Yes, I am here, in spite of all.’ ”All of what?“ the census taker responds. ”Give me the Data.“
Langston Hughes (1902 –1967), best known as a poet during the Harlem Renaissance, also wrote novels, plays, short stories, and a newspaper column. A fictional voice emerged from weekly columns Hughes wrote for the Chicago Defender—that of Jesse B. Semple, better known as "Simple." While the character initially appeared as a Harlem man who needed encouragement to support the racially segregated U.S. armed forces, Simple evolved into a popular and enduring fictional character. Stories developed from Simple’s appearances in the Chicago Defender were subsequently collected and published. C E N S US
from Simple’s Uncle Sam (NY: Hill & Wang, 1965): 1-3 "What the Census Doesn't Count" (Op-Ed) Russell Thornton
Russell Thornton, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles and author of the groundbreaking work American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492 in which he examines the decline of the native population. Thornton’s reassessment of the aboriginal Indian population results in a much larger American Indian population than was previously thought. ____________________________________________________________________________________ March 23, 2001 New York Times
The 2000 census was the first in which Americans could choose to identify themselves as having more than one race, and some 6.8 million people, about 2.4 percent of the population, did so. What does this identification mean for these Americans? Do others accept it? Is race really something we can choose, or is it something chosen for us? Race, we now know, is a social notion, not a biological reality. Physical appearances used to construct races--particularly skin color--are all but meaningless as indicators of important biological differences. Nevertheless, the races society has created are real to many people and have important psychological and social implications for individuals. According to the 2000 census, three of every 10 Americans are members of one of four defined minority groups--African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and Latinos. Some seven of every 10 Americans consider themselves white. The 2000 census remains silent on whether the people around a given person consider him or her to be white, Asian-American or something else altogether. And that relative suspension of social judgment is the 2000 census's greatest innovation; it recognizes who you think you are as an important piece of information. Since the census began, the government has attempted to enumerate citizens in terms of the important categories of the period. The first census, in 1790, was primarily concerned with counting land-holding white males. Subsequent censuses became more inclusive. In 1890, for example, all Native Americans were first counted as part of the United States population; 80 years later the census included a question about Latinos. All censuses through 1990 classified each American as being of only one of the designated races--except for the "mulatto" category common through the 19th century, which mainly concerned people who appeared to census enumerators to be somewhere between black and white. The mulatto category was the ancestor of today's mixture option, with the difference that today it is up to the individual rather than the census enumerator to name and describe the mixture. The mulatto concept lived on somewhat quietly from 1900 to 1960 in the practice of having census workers split the differences themselves, so to speak, in problematic cases of mixture, or classify people in the category "all other races." In particularly difficult cases, the enumerators were to ask members of a person's community about what race that person was thought to be. This practice shows that in those years the important question was what society thought you were--not your own thoughts on who you were. The 2000 census finally acknowledge the private reality of racially mixed citizens, capping the trend toward self-reporting begun with the 1960 census. But racial mixture in our country, of course, dates back centuries, despite the many state laws prohibiting marriages between whites and nonwhites. Among Native Americans, the story has long been--and it is not a very amusing story--that the first Indian-white child in North America was born nine months after the first white man arrived. Similarly, the mulatto census category accounted for significant percentages of the population in some states. It was not merely a demographic footnote. The Native American case is in many ways an extreme one. In the 2000 census, 2.6 million Americans reported they were Native American. Some 1.5 million others reported that they were Native American and another race, typically white. This ratio--37 percent of a group reporting themselves as racially mixed--far exceeds percentages for other groups. For example, only about 5 percent of African-Americans reported mixed ancestry. A high percentage of racially mixed Native Americans is not surprising for those familiar with Native American history. The Native American population of what is now the United States declined from more than five million around 1492 to as few as 250,000 by 1900. It then began to increase, in part because of intermarriage, especially with whites; indeed, given the small numbers, it could hardly have increased without intermarriage. This situation created identity struggles for children of these marriages as they sought to define who they were and have others accept it. Children of Native American and African-American intermarriages, for example, typically could not get others to accept their "Indian-ness" and almost always were defined as African-American. In such cases, we can see a variety of choices being made. Individuals may choose one identity for themselves, but others in society may make another choice for them. The black-Indian child may think of himself as Indian, but if no one around him does, then he has run up against the limit of his own power to choose a racial identity. And this constriction of choice extends backward in our history as it is verified by the terms we use: the racial categories themselves, black, white, and so on, were not necessarily "chosen" in the past, any more than we are completely free to choose them today. We might imagine race as something that shifts unstably between individual freedom of choice (as in the new census) and a group's complete lack of freedom to choose. The reality of American life and our past exists between these twin poles, and the choices involved in it can perhaps never be entirely free. A man who looks African-American is typically going to be treated as an African-American. That the man may also be Native American, Asian-American and/or white, and may have designated himself accordingly in the 2000 census, may be of no importance to anyone other than himself. Americans are now relatively free to decide who they are, in racial terms, when filling out a census. But that is one of the few times when they are free to do so. Race is a social, not private, reality. And the census should not be misused to make racial policies, which have much more to do with how we act toward each other than what we think about ourselves.
________________________________________________________________________________________ * Op-Ed is a short form for an article that appears Opposite an Editorial in a newspaper.
Analyze
1. Based on information provided by Thornton, create an analytical framework for what the government has attempted to count over time: 1790, 1890, 1970, 2000.
Additional Notes: Although individuals have been identified as white or black since the 1790 census, African-American slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person until the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868. Self-reporting began in 1960. In 1970, for the first time, respondents were asked to check off whether they were of Spanish or Hispanic origin or descent. U.S. Census Timeline http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0905361.html
How and when was the category ”mulatto“ used? What term has replaced ”mulatto“ and why this change? What changes did the government make in the 2000 census and why? If the fictional character Jesse B. Semple were here for the most recent Census, would he have similar ”complaints“?
2. What key question does Thornton pose? What does he claim? Quote Thornton directly.
3. How does he support his claim? Go back and re-read his argument. List supporting points.
4. Is his argument logical and convincing?
5. What is Thornton’s background in relation to this topic? Is his opinion published in a credible source?
Reflect QuickWriting
Does Thornton’s main claim ring true from your own observations and experience? QuickWrite for 5 minutes and include some examples if you can. Discuss Consider the logical implications of Thornton’s position. What problem does the 2000 census present and what is your response to this dilemma? Learn More When did the race categories we are familiar with today first appear? Are they the same as the categories that were used 100 years ago? Do some online research on the historical circumstances and historical meanings surrounding the concept of race in the U.S. Search under ”origins of race,“ ”slavery,“ ”African American.“ Research the history of the one-drop rule for African ancestry. Compare the definitions and percentages used by different states in the Jim Crow South. What percent of people today who are socially defined as Black have exclusively African ancestry? How are American Indians classified today? How has the function of racial categories changed since the Civil Rights era? Does racial classification serve different purposes now? Not all ethnic groups are racial groups. Hispanics or Latinos, for example, can be of any race, as the U.S. Census Bureau points out in the 2000 Census. Look up definitions of ethnicity. How does ethnicity tend to be used today? How would you distinguish ethnicity from race? Option: You can work individually or collaboratively in a small group followed by a discussion of your findings.
Write Pretend you are at a conference like the one described for the purpose of understanding race. ”Trying to sort out race is difficult,“ says the conference organizer. ”We welcome a kind of all-over-the-place discussion, which we hope will lead to greater understanding.“ Participants are asked to help get the conversation started by arguing, questioning, problem-posing, or clarifying in writing (500 words) something that they would like to ”sort out“ regarding race. You could, for example, question the government practice of gathering racial statistics if race has no biological basis; make an argument for replacing the word ”race“ with ”ethnic group“; try to explain to the lay public why race doesn’t exist in one way but in another way is critically important; focus on the historical context for race in the U.S., a context you think needs to be better understood.; argue that while race is a biological myth, the U.S. government should pay reparations to African Americans. These ideas are meant to get you started thinking. While the conference discussion may be ”all over the place,“ your writing should be focused on something you would like to ”sort out“ regarding race. Options: Your writing could be distributed and discussed in small groups of conference participants (your peers). Alternatively, you could write blog entries and respond to each other and then perhaps have a live discussion. (See ”Blogs,“ pp. 0-00.) After your oral or online discussion, you could then revise your draft and exchange drafts with a peer or peers.
Revise Exchange drafts with a peer. Read each other’s drafts once through quickly for an overall impression. Then read the draft a second time and respond to the following questions:
1. What is the writer trying to accomplish? State as accurately as possible what you believe to be the author’s intention. If the writer focuses on a problem, what is the problem and what is the writer’s purpose in addressing the problem? 2. What is the most important information (facts, experiences, and/or data) the writer uses to support his/her main argument? 3. What assumptions underlie the writer’s thinking? (Assumptions are usually unstated. Does the writer take anything for granted that might be questioned?) 4. What consequences are likely to follow if people take the writer’s line of reasoning seriously? (What are the logical implications—stated or unstated—of the writer’s position?) What consequences are likely to follow if people fail to ignore the writer’s reasoning? 5. What is the point of view presented? (What is the writer looking at or analyzing and what is the writer’s viewpoint?) 6. Is the tone (the way the writer relates to readers who are other conference participants) appropriate and consistent? If not, refer specifically to the text. 7. To what extent do you think what the writer has presented is likely to make a contribution to the conference goal of understanding the concept of race? What do you suggest the writer concentrate on when revising?
Writers: When your draft is returned to you, consider the responses and ask for clarification if needed. Then make some notes to help you to revise. If you are keeping a learning blog where you record your reading, thinking, writing notes, add your revision notes in this space. (See ”Blogs,“ pp. 0-00.) Categories for Analysis
The categories for analysis included in this project are the ones used in Census 2000. You have several options. You can (1) use all or some of the categories; (2) read & write more—or less—in each category; (3) select one or more categories to analyze in depth; or (4) read in each category, do shorter writing assignments, and build toward more in-depth writing at the end of the project. _______________________________________________________________________________________________
Whiteness
”White“ refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as ”White“ or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish. U.S. Government Census 2000
Most whites have not thought much about their race. Few, upon being asked to identify themselves by attributes, would name whiteness among their primary characteristics…. Race seems to be, to a large extent, relational. Whiteness, acknowledged or not, has been a norm against which other races are judged.
"How Whites See Themselves." Critical White Studies. Ed. Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic. Philadelphia, Temple UP, 1997: 1.
”Decentering whiteness“ is at the center of Lifting the White Veil by Jeff Hitchcock. Hitchcock argues for the need to study whiteness as one culture among many race-based cultures in the U.S. He envisions ”a multiracial America in which white culture will no longer be seen as ‘normal’ but one of a mosaic of racial cultures each occupying decentered positions in a society with a multiracial/multicultural center.“ White Ethnicity Jolanta Drzewiecka and Kathleen Wong (Lau) Jolanta Drzewiecka is a professor at the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication, Washington State University and Kathleen Wong (Lau) is a professor in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University. ”The formation of white identity in the United States is different than the formation of other ethnic identities,“ write Jolanta Drzewiecka and Kathleen Wong (Lau) in their academic essay on the dynamic construction of white ethnicity. They argue that what makes white identity different is its invisibility to those who are white: ”’Whiteness’ can seem to disappear so that one’s cultural practices are not seen as being ‘white-specific’ but universal to all human beings.“ In the following selection, they discuss the problematic nature of ethnic identity and community for ”white ethnics.“
White Ethnic Identity and Community
Waters (1990) observes that ”the very idea that Americans have of ‘community’ is very much tied up in their minds with ethnicity“ (p. 153). Thus, an identification with a particular ethnicity is a basis for establishing a community. This identification, however, is a problematic for European Americans. Immigrants from Europe who were not Anglo-Saxon clearly saw advantages in becoming white. It strengthened their claim to better jobs, allowed them to blend in with the new environment and protect themselves from Anglo-Saxon prejudice (Roediger, 1991). Consequently, language, and gradually the traditions have been lost. By the third generation, ethnic differences disappeared (Alba, 1990). As Gans (1979) argued, later-generation white ethnics have only a symbolic identification with their ancestry. They do not have any specific knowledge about language, customs, or traditions, and so they identify with the ethnicity only in name. Ethnic identity becomes for them a leisure-time activity, and it influences their lives only when they choose. As Gans points out, the enactment of ethnic identity may also be based on imitating media portrayals of ”what, e.g., an Italian should do.“ This choice of when and how to enact one’s ethnic identification is even more complicated for people who are children of several generations of ethnically mixed white parents. Waters (199) argues that white ethnicity is a matter of personal choice, not only about whether to maintain one’s ties to ethnic ancestry but also which ties and to which ancestry. The choice of a particular ethnicity in one’s ancestry as primary identification is affected by many different factors. In addition, the choice of a particular white ethnicity, a symbolic ethnicity, does not have any real consequences on where one lives and works and who one interacts with. Its influence on one’s life is limited to holidays or special occasions. People imagine themselves to be a part of the symbolic community where others they may never meet are imagined to be enacting the same cultural practices on the same holidays and occasions. Waters (1990) points out an interesting paradox: Even though white ethnicity is a matter of choice and it does not seem to influence everyday living, people ”cling tenaciously to their ethnic identities“ (p. 147). She explains that this paradox is an effect of two contradictory patterns: individualism and a desire for community. As U.S. Americans stress the importance of individual values and choices, they also assert the value of conformity and the need to connect to others. Having an ethnic identity, according to Waters, fulfills these desires. One can make an individual personal choice to identify with a specific ancestral ethnicity. Since individuals have differing ethnic backgrounds, one can feel different from and like everybody else. This identification also makes one a part of a community. This argument can be extended further to suggest that white middle-class Americans are free to select and claim any cultural practices and construct symbolic communities. Though these practices may not be tied to their history, they can become a basis of an eclectic cultural identity. This ”cosmopolitan“ attitude is based on the privileged assumption that ”we are all people and that all cultures are interesting and have something to offer“ (205-206). References Alba, R.D. (1990) Ethnic identity: The transformation of white America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gans, H. (1979). ”Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America.“ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2, 1-20. Roediger, D. (1991). The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class. New York: Verso. Waters, M.C. (1990). Ethnic Options: Choosing identities in America. Los Angeles: University of California Press. *from ”The Dynamic Construction of White Ethnicity in the Context of Transnational Cultural Formations,“ Jolanta A. Drzewiecka and Kathleen Wong (Lau). Whiteness. Ed. Thomas K. Nakayama, and Judith N. Martin. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999: 198-199; 205-206. Drzewiecka and Wong (Lau) also note in their essay that ”for some white Americans, whiteness is often seen as ‘empty’ in comparison to the recognized cultural formations of nonwhite Americans,“ as Barbara Ehrenreich illustrates in a magazine article that follows. ”Cultural Baggage“ by Barbara Ehrenreich New York Times Magazine 5 April 1992: SM16, 3 pgs. Barbara Ehrenreich is a political essayist and social critic who writes about a diverse range of issues. She has written a dozen books, including Nickle and Dimed: Surviving in Low-Wage America, and writes regularly for a number of magazines, including the New York Times Magazine where this article first appeared.
An acquaintance was telling me about the joys of rediscovering her ethnic and religious heritage. ”I know exactly what my ancestors were doing 2,000 years ago,“ she said, eyes gleaming with enthusiasm, ”and I can do the same things now.“ Then she leaned forward and inquired politely, ”And what is your ethnic background, if I may ask?“ ”None,“ I said, that being the first word in line to get out of my mouth. Well, not ”none,“ I backtracked. Scottish, English, Irish—that was something, I supposed. Too much Irish to qualify as a WASP; too much of the hated English to warrant a ”Kiss Me, I’m Irish“ button; plus there are a number of dead ends in the family tree due to adoptions, missing records, failing memories and the like. I was blushing by this time. Did ”none“ mean I was rejecting my heritage out of Anglo-Celtic self-hate? Or was I revealing a hidden ethnic chauvinism in which the Britannically derived serve as a kind of neutral standard compared with the ethnic ”others“? Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, I watched one group after another—African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans—stand up and proudly reclaim their roots while I just sank back ever deeper into my seat. All this excitement over ethnicity stemmed, I uneasily sensed, from a past in which their ancestors had been trampled upon by my ancestors, or at least by people who looked very much them. In addition, it had begun to seem almost un-American not to have some sort of hyphen at hand, linking one to more venerable times and locales. But the truth is, I was raised with none. We’d eaten ethnic foods in my childhood home, but these were all borrowed, like the pastries, or Cornish meat pies, my father had picked up from his fellow miners in Butte, Mont. If my mother had one rule, it was militant ecumenism in all matters of food and experience. ”Try new things,“ she would say, meaning anything from sweetbreads to clams, with an emphasis on the ”new.“ As a child, I briefly nourished a craving for tradition and roots. I immersed myself in the works of Sir Walter Scott. I pretended to believe that the bagpipe was a musical instrument. I was fascinated to learn from a grandmother that we were descended from certain Highland clans and longed for a pleated skirt in one of their distinctive tartans. But in ”Ivanhoe,“ it was the dark-eyed ”Jewess“ Rebecca I identified with, not the flaxen-haired bimbo Rowena. As for clans: Why not call them ”tribes,“ those bands of half-clad peasants and warriors whose idea of cuisine was stuffed sheep gut washed down with whisky? And then there was the sting of Disraeli’s remark—which I came across in my early teens—to the effect that his ancestors had been leading orderly, literate lives when my ancestors were still rampaging through the Highlands daubing themselves with blue paint. Motherhood put the screws on me, ethnicity-wise. I had hoped that by marrying a man of Eastern-Jewish ancestry I would acquire for my descendants the ethnic genes that my own forebears so sadly lacked. At one point, I even subjected the children to a seder of my own design, including a little talk about the flight from Egypt and its relevance to modern social issues. But the kids insisted on buttering their matzohs and snickering through my talk. ”Give me a break, Mom,“ the older one said. ”You don’t even believe in God.“ After the tiny pagans had been put to bed, I sat down to brood over Elijah’s wine. What had I been thinking? The kids knew that their Jewish grandparents were secular folks who didn’t hold seders themselves. And if ethnicity eluded me, how could I expect it to take root in my children, who are not only Scottish-English-Irish, but Hungarian-Polish-Russian to boot? But, then, on the fumes of Manischewitz, a great insight took form in my mind. It was true, as the kids said, that I didn’t ”believe in God.“ But this could be taken as something very different from an accusation—a reminder of a genuine heritage. My parents had not believed in God either, nor had my grandparents or any other progenitors going back to the great-great level. They had become disillusioned with Christianity generations ago—just as, on the in-law side, my children’s other ancestors had shaken off their Orthodox Judaism. This insight did not exactly furnish me with an ”identity,“ but it was at least something to work with: we are the kind of people, I realized—whatever our distant ancestors’ religions—who do not believe, who do not carry on traditions, who do not do things just because someone has done them before. The epiphany went on: I recalled that my mother never introduced a procedure for cooking or cleaning by telling me, ”Grandma did it this way.“ What did Grandma know, living in the days before vacuum cleaners and disposable toilet mops? In my parents’ general view, new things were better than old, and the very fact that some ritual had been performed in the past was a good reason for abandoning it now. Because what was the past, as our forebears knew it? Nothing but poverty, superstition and grief. ”Think for yourself,“ Dad used to say. ”Always ask why.“ In fact, this may have been the ideal cultural heritage for my particular ethnic strain—bounced as it was from the Highlands of Scotland across the sea, out to the Rockies, down into the mines and finally spewed out into high-tech, suburban America. What better philosophy, for a race of migrants, than ”Think for yourself“? What better maxim, for a people whose whole world was rudely inverted every 30 years or so, than ”Try new things“? The more tradition-minded, the newly enthusiastic celebrants of Purim and Kwanzaa and Solstice, may see little point to survival if the survivors carry no cultural freight—religion, for example, or ethnic tradition. To which I would say that skepticism, curiosity and wide-eyed ecumenical tolerance are also worthy elements of the human tradition and are at least as old as such notions as ”Serbian“ or ”Croatian,“ ”Scottish“ or ”Jewish.“ I make no claims for my personal line of progenitors except that they remained loyal to the values that may have induced all of our ancestors, long, long ago, to climb down from the trees and make their way into the open plains. A few weeks ago, I cleared my throat and asked the children, now mostly grown and fearsomely smart, whether they felt any stirrings of ethnic or religious identity, etc., which might have been, ahem, insufficiently nourished at home. ”None,“ they said, adding firmly, ”and the world would be a better place if nobody else did, either.“ My chest swelled with pride, as would my mother’s, to know that the race of ”none“ marches on.
Growing Up White in America
Bonnie Kae Grover
This brief essay is from Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Philadelphia: Temple U. Press, 1997: 34-35.
Analyze
Create an analytical framework in which you consider, based on the reading you have done, what makes ”white“ identity different from other racial/ethnic identities. (See Analytical Framework, pp. 0-00.) You can add another category to this framework as you continue to read.
Reflect QuickWriting: Is ”white“ culture really white culture or is it just American culture?
Discuss Use your QuickWriting as a basis for small group discussion. Option: Report back to the whole class for further discussion. Learn More Learn about white identity formation and stages of development. Study how the category whiteness changed over time. Do some historical research about how some American immigrant ethnic groups (German, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Polish, for example) started out as nonwhite and later became part of white America. When were Mexicans considered white and why did the designation change? Why did some Latina/os check ”white“ on the 1990 census and some not? What are some of the issues being investigated in the relatively new field of white ethnic studies? In the 2000 Census, people who wrote in entries and identified themselves as ”Arab“ were included in the ”white“ category, yet Arab Americans frequently experience racism and are portrayed negatively in movies. Learn more about the discrimination problems Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners face. Option: You can work individually or collaboratively in a small group followed by a discussion or presentation of your findings. Write Changing immigration and demographic patterns have caused ”whiteness“ to come under increasing scrutiny in the culture at large. Whiteness Studies constitutes an effort to focus on the racial status of whites with some of the intensity and concentration that has been reserved for ”other“ or non-white racial/ethnic groups. Explore whiteness—Being White—by conducting some ethnographic research, reporting your findings, and arguing a point of view based on this experience as well as relevant reading. Conduct field research—Interview 5-7 people about how they experience whiteness. Prepare a set of research questions. Adapt the Ethnographic Interview Record (p.00). Consider the following questions: If you were asked to identify yourself, is ”white“ one of the first things you would think to say? How do you define whiteness? (What does ”being white“ mean to you?) What difference does ”being white“ make? (How are you treated in relation to whiteness?) What does ”white privilege“ mean to you?“ When did you first become aware of whiteness? When do you think about whiteness? Are there times when whiteness does not seem important? See Spradley, ”Ethnographic Interviewing“ (pp. 0-00.) Try, as Spradley suggests, having a conversation in which you can interject questions you want to ask in context rather than asking questions necessarily in order. Your informants may not think about this subject on a daily basis and may not be familiar with the term ”whiteness.“ Sometimes you may have to rephrase a question or explain what you are trying to get at. Sometimes a response naturally leads to a question further down on your list. Some questions will be more successful than others. Be responsive to your informants and prepared to go in a new direction. Have a research goal in mind (what do you want to find out?) and pertinent questions but be flexible so that the interview if more of a conversation than a Question and Answer session. Analyze your interview data. Your writing should demonstrate critical thinking—a problem you would like to pose, a point you’d like to make, something interesting you learned—based on both your research and reading. Address whiteness, not race or ethnicity in general. Include a little background information about those you interviewed—just enough for some identification. Your research report should include only relevant material from interviews. Do not string together quotes from your interviews; use quotes to support your argument or viewpoint based on findings from your interviews. Think of your micro-research project as part of a larger project. Your investigation, though limited, can contribute to the conversation going on in this exciting new field and in your classroom community.
African American ”Black or African American“ refers to people having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as ”Black, African Am., or Negro,“ or wrote in entries such as African American, Afro American, Nigerian, or Haitian.
I believe that when you make Black America better, you make all of America better.
--Tavis Smiley, host of Tavis Smiley on PBS and The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI and author and editor of eleven books, including The Covenant with Black America
Who wants to be well-adjusted to injustice? What kind of human being do you want to be? A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.
--Cornel West, renowned professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University; writer, public speaker, cultural critic, social activist, and major figure in African American academia. His books include Race Matters and Future of Race.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., prepares to speak to a crowd of 200,000 marchers in Washingtion, DC.
--Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the most visible advocates of nonviolence and direct action as methods of social change; symbol of the African American civil rights struggle; recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964; assassinated in 1968
That Word ‘Black Langston Hughes While Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is best known as a poet during the Harlem Renaissance,a fictional voice emerged from weekly columns Hughes wrote for the Chicago Defender—that of Jesse B. Semple, better known as "Simple." While the character initially appeared as a Harlem man who needed encouragement to support the racially segregated U.S. armed forces, Simple evolved into a popular and enduring fictional character. In an earlier selection (Readers at Work, p. 0-00), Simple talked about census-taking; in this selection, he talks about the word ”black.“
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What Does It Mean to Be Black? Alice Walker
Alice Walker is known for her literary fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple, as well as many volumes of poetry and bestselling nonfiction collections including In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens and the collection of talks We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (2006) from which this selection is taken.
When I was pondering this question, I was also living in North America, in the United States, where having black skin was a crime during all the years black people were locked up in slavery….
Whenever I think of what blackness is, I think of night. There it is, following each and every day, faithful as the sun. Everything gestates and grows then, in the restful dark. I think of black hollyhocks with their magical hint of red; I think of those black polished stones the Japanese obviously revere because they use them in so many places. I think of black skin. When I am in Senegal, where some of the blackest people live, I am awestruck by the beauty of their skin. It is like night, and like black hollyhocks (in their case, there is a hint of blue); it is like polished black stones that feel charged with energy, over which their sweat, like water in a river, runs, causing a glistening that, moon-like, reflects light. When I am in Senegal, where some of the blackest and most attractive people live, I am in pain a lot of the time because the business in skin bleaching creams is so strong. There are women whose faces are raw and red from bleaching and because they cannot afford to cover more than their faces it is as if they are wearing masks. Which of course they are….It is black to struggle with issues like this. It is black to care….It is black to care about suffering….To be black means to have body and soul together. That is why, customarily, we used to define a ”together“ person as ”having soul.“
______________________________________________________________________________________________ from ”Orchids,“ A talk at a retreat sponsored by the International Association of Black Yoga Teachers (2003) published in We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness (Meditations). NY: The New Press (2006): 222-223, 224, 227, 240.
In Black Looks: Race & Representation (Boston: South End P, 1992), feminist bell hooks calls for ”loving blackness“ as political resistance: Loving blackness ”transforms our way of looking and being,“ creating the conditions necessary ”to move against the forces of domination“ and ”reclaim black life“ (20). A Moment of Truth
Glenn C. Loury
Glenn C. Loury is a distinguished economic theorist and a prominent cultural critic and public intellectual. In 1982, at the age of 33, Loury became the first tenured black professor in the economics department at Harvard University. While he knew he was ”smart,“ he told New York Times reporter Adam Shatz in an interview (2002) that at the time he worried whether his white colleagues thought he was a token. Perhaps his personal insecurities led him to criticize affirmative action. Whatever the reasons, he took a neoconservative position on race, declaring that blacks should assume responsibility for their own problems, and rose rapidly in Republican public-policy circles. He eventually shifted to a moderate liberal stance and in 1991 moved to Boston University where he served as founding Director of the Institute on Race and Social Division and is currently University Professor, Professor of Economics. In his book The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (Harvard UP: 2002), Loury defended affirmative action and denounced ”colorblindness“ as a euphemism for indifference to the fate of black Americans. (He is currently writing a memoir about his change of mind.)
Loury was raised by working-class parents in Chicago’s South Side, when, in his words,“ the color line was an inescapable fact of life.“ In this selection from his (1993) essay ”A Personal Perspective on Race and Identity,“ Loury recalls an early formative experience. A MOMENT OF TRUTH A formative experience of my growing-up on the South Side of Chicago in the 1960s occurred during one of those heated, earnest political rallies so typical of the period. I was about eighteen at the time. Woody, who had been my best friend since Little League, suggested that we attend. Being political neophytes, neither of us knew many of the participants. The rally was called to galvanize our community's response to some pending infringement by the white power structure, the exact nature of which I no longer remember. But I can still vividly recall how very agitated about it we all were, determined to fight the good fight, even to the point of being arrested if it came to that. Judging by his demeanor, Woody was among the most zealous of those present. Despite this zeal, it took courage for Woody to attend that meeting. Though he often proclaimed his blackness, and though he had a Negro grandparent on each side of his family, he nevertheless looked to all the world like your typical white boy. Everyone, on first meeting him, assumed as much. I did, too, when we began to play together nearly a decade earlier, just after I had moved into the middle-class neighborhood called Park Manor, where Woody's family had been living f |
