Race in America Laws of racial segregation directed against blacks Racism is the belief that the physical characteristics of a person or group determines their capabilities and that one group is naturally superior to other groups ID: 429199
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Slide1
Race in AmericaSlide2
Race in America
Laws
of racial segregation
directed
against
blacks.
Racism is the belief that the physical characteristics of a person or group determines their capabilities and that one group is naturally superior to other groups.
Discrimination means one group enjoys an undeserved advantage over another group with the same capabilities.
Racism
has been a major factor of society in the United States throughout its
histo
ry
.Slide3
Race in America
Racism was prominent during the colonial period in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the North American colonies were a part of the worldwide British Empire.
Britons
had traditionally associated dark skin color with negative behavioral traits such as evil and filth.
Colonists
brought this prejudice with them to North America when they crossed the ocean to settle in the seventeenth century
.
Slavery ended in
1865.Slide4
Race in America
Passing
new laws enforcing racial segregation (separation of black people from whites) known as Jim Crow
laws.
B
eliefs
about the inferior nature of blacks were perpetuated throughout much of the twentieth century
.
D
iscriminatory
measures passed by state and local governments that sought to keep blacks at a lower social and economic position
.
B
lacks
could not buy houses in the same neighborhoods as
whites.
"separate but equal"
principle.Slide5
Race in America
Blacks could not eat in the same restaurants, drink out of the same water fountains, watch movies in the same theaters, play in the same parks, or go to the same schools as whites.
Blacks
had to sit in the back of buses and streetcars and give up their seats to whites when instructed to do so.
Blacks
could not nurse whites in hospitals.
Signs
reading "Colored Only" or "White Only" could be seen everywhere.Slide6
Race in America
There
were certain unwritten social expectations. For example, a black man was not to shake hands with a white
man.
H
e
could not make eye-contact with a white woman or else he would be accused of highly inappropriate sexual advances.
When
speaking, blacks were expected to address whites as "Mr.," "Sir," or "Ma'am."Slide7
Race in AmericaSlide8
Race in America
Alabama governor George Wallace attempted to block the entrance of blacks at the University of Alabama
.Slide9
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
Ethics:
Moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior
.
“
My first lesson in how to live as a Negro came when I was quite small.
“
T
he
railroad
tracks. Lack of green.
Gangs.
“
When night fell, my mother came from the white folks' kitchen.
“
Punishment.
Never fight white folks.
“Each
time I closed my eyes I saw monstrous white faces suspended from the ceiling, leering at me
.” White houses = symbol of fear.Slide10
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
Move to Mississippi –
heart of the
Black Belt.
B
lack
churches and black
preachers, black schools, black teachers,
black
groceries. “In
fact, everything was so solidly black that for a long time I did not even think of white
folks”.
Only jobs available in white neighborhoods.
Applying for a job.
“I
stood straight and neat before the boss, answering all his questions with sharp
yessirs
and
nosirs
. I was very careful to pronounce my sirs distinctly, in order that he might know that I was polite, that I knew where I was, and that I knew he was a white man
.”Slide11
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
“Boy”.
Wants to learn new things on the job.
"
Whut
yuh
tryin
' t' do, nigger,
git
smart
?“
"Well, don't, if
yuh
know
whut's
good for
yuh
!"
"Say, are you crazy, you black bastard
?“
"Nigger, you think you're white, don't you?"
"This is a white man's work around here, and you better watch yourself!"
C
alled
a lazy black son-of-a-bitch.Slide12
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
Call Pease or Mr. Pease? How to make him quit his job.
"Didn't
yuh
call '
im
Pease? If
yuh
say
yuh
didn't, I'll rip
yo
' gut string loose with this f--kin' bar,
yuh
black granny dodger!
Yuh
can't call a white man a lie 'n'
git
erway
with it, you black son-of-a-bitch!"
“When
I told the folks at home what had happened, they called me a fool. They told me that I must never again attempt to exceed my boundaries. When you are working for white folks, they said, you got to "stay in your place" if you want to keep working
.”Slide13
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
Next job
in a clothing
store.
Beating up the black woman.
Woman gets arrested for drunkenness.
"Boy, that's what we do to niggers when they don't want to pay their bills
,“
Knows enough
to keep
his mouth
shut
.
Riding his bicycle home.
"Nigger,
yuh
sho
better be damn glad it
wuz
us
yuh
talked t'
tha
' way.
Yuh're
a lucky bastard, 'cause if
yuh'd
said
tha
' t' somebody else,
yuh
might've been a dead nigger now
."Slide14
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
Blacks can’t be seen walking in white neighborhood.
Making deliveries:
"Boy, tell your boss not to send you out in white neighborhoods this time of night
.“
Next job as
hall-boy in a
hotel.
Bringing liquor to rooms with naked prostitutes: “
Your presence awoke in them no sense of shame, for you were not regarded as human.
“
Black boy forced to marry black girl pregnant by a white man.
Black boy castrated for sleeping with a white prostitute.
We were given to understand that the boy who had been castrated was a "mighty, mighty lucky bastard." Slide15
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
Moves from Jackson to Memphis, works at optical factory.
“
Here my Jim Crow education assumed quite a different form. It was no longer brutally cruel, but subtly cruel. Here I learned to lie, to steal, to dissemble. I learned to play that dual role which every Negro must play if he wants to eat and live
.”
Getting books from the library. Negroes have no need for learning.
Roman Catholic
man and
felt a vague sympathy for Negroes, being himself an object of
hatred (by Protestants).
"Please let this nigger boy have the following books."Slide16
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
How do Negroes feel about the way they have to live? How do they discuss it when alone among themselves? I think this question can be answered in a single sentence. A friend of mine who ran an elevator once told me:
"
Lawd
, man!
Ef
it
wuzn't
fer
them polices 'n' them of
lynchmobs
, there wouldn't be
nothin
' but uproar down here!"Slide17
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
C
ruel
childhood lesson of learning how to live with the prejudice and discrimination
.
Whites view themselves as superior to blacks and thus act in ways to express their superiority.
Captures
the dominant white attitude that imposed a low social status on blacks
.
The whites demanded respect from blacks and for the most part, blacks gave it to them. Slide18
“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
T
he
majority of blacks chose to accept the role made by whites for blacks
.
D
isplays
the majority of blacks, including his mother, as submissive to whites.Slide19
"Cora Unashamed"
“Melton
was one of those miserable in-between little places, not large enough to be a town,
nor small
enough to be a village -- that is, a village in the rural, charming sense of the
world. Melton
had no charm about it. It was merely a nondescript collection of houses and buildings
in a
region of farms -- one of those sad American places with sidewalks, but no paved
streets; electric
lights, but no sewage; a station, but no trains that stopped, save a jerky local,
morning and
evening
.”Slide20
"Cora Unashamed"
Cora Jenkins
is 40 years old, was
what the people
referred to
when they wanted to be polite, as a Negress, and when they wanted to be rude, as a
nigger --
sometimes adding the word "wench" for no good
reason.
She worked
for the
Studevants
, who treated her like a dog.
M
aid
of all work -- washing, ironing, cooking, scrubbing, taking
care of
kids, nursing old folks, making fires, carrying
water, giving the dog a bath.
She
stood it. Had to stand it; or work for
poorer white
folks who would treat her worse; or go jobless
.Slide21
"Cora Unashamed"
The
Studevants
thought they owned her, and they were perfectly right: they did.
There was something
about the teeth in the trap of economic circumstance that kept her in their
power practically
all her
life.
How
did the
trap
close
so tightly
?
Poor family.
Oldest of 8 children. She raised them all. All gone now.
Father alcoholic, collects junk.
Mother sick.Slide22
"Cora Unashamed"
She wore
the
Studevants
' old clothes, and ate the
Studevants
‘ leftover food.
One by one, the girls
left,
mostly in disgrace
. There
was something about the cream-and-tan Jenkins
girls that
attracted the white farm hands
.
Cora
had a lover
once, a foreigner.
He was the first man and the last she ever
remembered wanting
. She had never known a colored lover. There weren't any around. Slide23
"Cora Unashamed"
“Love
didn't take long -- Cora with
the scent
of the
Studevants
' supper about her, and a cheap perfume. Joe, big and strong
and careless
as the horses he took care of, smelling like the stable
.”
Cora
gets pregnant. Not
tried to hide it.
S
he
didn't feel that it was a
disgrace.
Cora was humble and shameless before the fact of the child. There were no Negroes in
Melton to
gossip, and she didn't care what the white people said.Slide24
"Cora Unashamed"
About that time, Mrs. Art
Studevant
had a child, too,
Jessie, and
Cora
nursed
it
.
Cora’s child dies.
She cussed out God for taking away the life that she herself had given. She screamed, "
My baby
! God damn it! My baby! I bear her and you take her away
!“
All through the ugly town Cora wept
and cursed
, using all the bad words she had learned from Pa in his drunkenness.Slide25
"Cora Unashamed"
The years passed
.
Jessie graduates from high-school.
Jessie almost like an adopted daughter to Cora.
Her mother was always a little ashamed of stupid
Jessie.
She remained
a plump, dull, freckled girl, placid and strange. Everybody found fault with her
but Cora.
Nowhere in Melton, nor with anyone, did Jessie feel so comfortable as with Cora
in the
kitchen.Slide26
"Cora Unashamed"
Jessie gets pregnant. Father
is Willie
Matsoulos
, whose folks
runs an ice-cream stand.
Crying and praying followed all over the
house.
Scandalization
! Oh, my Lord! Jessie was in trouble
.
Mrs. Art had ambitions which didn't include the likes of Greek ice-cream
makers‘ sons.
Jessie is secretly made to have an abortion.
Cora's face went dark. She bit her lips to keep from cursing
.
Jessie gets sick and dies
.Slide27
"Cora Unashamed"
She
never saw the Greek boy any more. Indeed, his father lost his license, "due to
several complaints
by the mothers of children, backed by the
Woman's
Club," that he was
selling tainted
ice-cream
.
Jessie’s funeral. All normal, except
that Cora was there
.
"They killed you! And for
nothin
'... They killed your child... They took you
away from
here in the Springtime of your life, and now
you'se
gone, gone,
gone! They
preaches you a pretty sermon and they don't say
nothin
'. They sings
you a
song, and they don't say
nothin
'. But Cora's here, honey, and she's gone tell '
em
what
they done
to you. She's
gonna
tell '
em
why they took you to Kansas City
. They
killed you, honey. They killed you and your child. I told
'
em
you
loved it, but they didn't care. They killed it before it was... "