Politics Beyond the Beltway 11/1: Race

Today's lecture was about a number of things but mostly it was about race. Just going to touch on a few of the many topics we covered.

The fundamental issue of race is more about how culturally dominant groups deal with others. The culturally dominant group is the one that makes the rules and create the standards. The numerically and financially dominant group in America has always been white.

It could be said that as the culturally dominant group shifts from white to hispanic (hispanics have the highest birth rate in America), there is a fear of losing Caucasian cultural traditions, with this fear being demonstrated through Draconian immigration laws in some states.

Anytime we are talking about issues of race we are talking about the dominant and not the subordinate.

Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish author who, in 1944, wrote a book titled "An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy" in which he wrote about the problems faced by African Americans in attempting to participate fully in America society.  Myrdal basically pinpoints the problem that on one hand Americans promoted and celebrated the idea that all people are created equal and have the same human rights while on the other hand African Americans, as a minority of the population were treated as second-class citizens, denied the same rights as whites, and thus unable to fully participate in society. When he referred to the race problem in America as "the white man's problem" he meant that whites were in fact responsible for the inability of blacks to fully participate in society.

Some great reading includes C. Vann Woodward's "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" as well as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letters from a Birmingham Jail".  Just a note about Woodward...many years ago he was fired by the University of Florida History Department for being sympathetic to blacks. He eventually wound up teaching at Yale University. 

Why is it that blacks and whites are so distrustful and suspicious of one another?

When black slaves were freed in the American south, while they may have been free politically they were not free economically. They were denied jobs, housing and ownership of businesses. Many blacks wound up working for whites in the same positions they had when they were technically called "slaves". So while they may have been freed, they really were not free at all.

In World War II, black males who were not allowed to serve, and left behind on the homefront were resentful towards white women because they were given the bulk of factory jobs. Blacks were discriminated against in urban housing projects during the war. During the war there were race riots in many large cities.

Lots more but too much to post....anyway food for thought.