The American Dream of the South

The readings lately have focused on how the freed blacks began structuring their identities and communities during reconstruction, but what I have found to be lacking in these articles is a direct look at the restructuring of white southerners’ identities.  While it is obviously very important and meaningful to look at how freed blacks created their own lives after spending so much time in bondage, I am interested in the process of white southerners creating their new identities given that it was their ideals that reinforced slavery and continued to reinforce white supremacy during Reconstruction.

During slavery, owning slaves was not merely a status symbol, but an ideal for most southern white men.  Slaves allowed white men to move up on the social hierarchy.   The more slaves one owned, the more power and status one had.  Owning slaves during that time can be equated to the amount of cars or vacation houses someone owns today.  This, however, is more than just a game of who can collect the most slaves—for them it was the American Dream.   Owning slaves is what non-slaveholders aspired to do, which according to Johnson is why they continued to support the system of slavery, even though they were not an active participant in it (80).  Furthermore, it was what was expected of white southern men.  Households that did not consist of at least one slave made white slaveholding southerners uncomfortable.  It was the ideal for slaves to exist in each household and it was assumed by many slaveholders that eventually those households without slaves were just waiting for their finances to work out so that they would be able to purchase a slave (90).  Ownership of slaves was the defining characteristic of a decent, respectable home in the south; in Johnson’s words, slaves were necessary “to make a white household white (90).”  No respectable man would decide to have his wife and children labor in the fields or in the house. In order to truly be a white man, you had to own a slave to do all the work for you and your family. 

In Soul by Soul, Johnson argued that slaveholders formed their identities based on their ownership of slaves, which makes sense given that the economic and social aspirations of white southerners revolved around the acquisition of slaves.  Slavery was not just an economic system, it was a lifestyle that determined all aspects (political and social) of one’s life.  Without slaves, white southerners had no concept of who they were.  They based their identity on the slaves they owned (or could potentially own) as well as what those slaves could do for them.  Slaves, in other words were an essential part of who slaveholders considered themselves to be or who they thought they could become.  With identities that are predicated on owning and controlling slaves, it is not surprising that white southerners had a difficult time dealing with the new social order after emancipation.  

If you look at owning slaves as the American Dream in the South at the time, it is not surprising that there was a breakdown in the identities of white southern men during Reconstruction.  In addition to trying to figure out what freedom would mean for themselves and free blacks, they also had to rethink what it meant to be a white southern male, and how losing slavery as a measure of statuses would affect the southern social hierarchy.  While this is of course not to say that the struggle to create an identity among free blacks is not important, I think that it would be interesting to explore the recreation of white identities and how this impacted/fueled the racial tensions after slaves were emancipated.  What role do you think this “loss” of the “American Dream” played in post slavery racial relations?

Racial Tension Today: A Story of Advancement, Stagnancy, or Backtracking?

In the New York Times opinion pages this September, a scholar by the name of Charles Blow wrote an article commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington. Blow’s approach to writing on this topic begins in an endearing manner, for he states that he so badly wants his article to be a celebration of how far America has come in these last fifty years. He wants to celebrate the great Martin Luther King Jr., his leadership of the brave march, and the progress that has been made in the realm of race relations in the United States since then. However, he admits he cannot simply write a celebratory article. Despite this realization, he does not fail to recognize the leaps that America has indeed made since that memorable day, as he states, “Most laws that explicitly codified discrimination have been stricken from the books... and diversity has become a cause to be championed in many quarters...” However, Blow feels the need to recognize the not only stagnant nature of race relations in America today, but the fact that the nation is actually reversing course.

Blow discusses three significant points which stand out to me in his argument that America is backtracking in its path toward racial equality. First, Blow expresses a worry that our nation has plateaued, positioning us in a place where we have surface level conversations about race but refuse to confront implicit biases as well as structural and systematic racial inequality. Secondly, he reveals that African Americans and whites regard racial progress in two very different ways, causing a resegregation in the American people. According to Blow, three times as many African Americans as whites feel as though they are treated unequally at work, restaurants, stores, schools, and in health care. Twice as many African Americans as whites feel as thought they receive unequal treatment from the police and the courts. Thirdly, the shocking facts of segregation in modern school systems are quite revealing of the state of racial progress in our country. A study done at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill reveals that “students are more racially segregated in schools today than they were in the late 1960’s and prior to the enforcement of court-ordered desegregation in school districts across the country.

Ultimately, these three points that Blow addresses all point toward a question that he suggests which I find quite necessary in trying to answer: “I wonder if we, as a society of increasing diversity but also drastic inequality, even agree on what constitutes equality.” This is a strong point, in my opinion, and something that I am beginning to think is a significant obstacle for us as Americans today. America is a melting pot of cultures and a melting pot of opinions. Today, I think we are living in a particularly complicated combination of mindsets when it comes to racial issues. We seem to be in a time and place in history where there are large gaps in the thought processes of different generations. Much of the generation who lived through the civil rights movement is attached to strong opinions which were formed during the critical years of the movement. Many continue to protect their reasoning for inflicting oppression or fighting against oppression. People of our generation often have the notion that racism has been left in the distant past. Many white people feel so distant that they view the white population of the times of slavery up until the civil rights movement as an evil race of people who no longer exist.

Given the large gaps in trains of thought, we are left with a melting pot of people: young adults who throw around racial jokes while assuming that it no longer inflicts any harm, older men and women who are either stubborn in thought or hyperaware of racial tension, students and others who are trained to see inequality within everyday life to figure out how to advance equality, people who avoid the talk of racism because they think that too much attention on the subject will only perpetuate it, and everyone in between with their wide array of stances. Although, like Blow, I would like to say we are no longer in transition - that have overcome the issue of racism in America - but we have not.

What do you think has caused the stagnant racial nature of our country? Do we even agree on what equality actually means? What needs to be discussed to make these “puddle deep” conversations about race more fruitful?


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/blow-50-years-later.html

The Health of Slaves: Attained or Prescribed?

Health is a complicated word: it encompasses the mental, social, and physical wellbeing of an individual. When one has agency, or the ability to control their mental, social and physical health, they are much more likely to function at a higher level. With less stressors, comes better health; there is an intrinsic link between the elevated levels of cortisol that a person with little agency has in comparison to the influxes of cortisol that are released for a person with more agency. Why is this important? How does it pertain to African American history? The combination of a Health Equity Internship, Urban Community Health, Organic Chemistry, and African American history has provided me with the opportunity to delve into higher-level thinking—to look more closely at the social determinates of health during slavery. The social determinates of health continually transform and change. What did they look like during slavery? What benefits or disadvantages did they pose to both slave and master? What larger implications do they have?

According to the World Health Organization, social determinates of health are defined as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels”. The social determinates of health during slavery are extremely multifaceted because slave masters were the agents of the appalling system and slaves had little opportunity to escape the oppressive system. The context in which the social determinates of health is often discussed is poverty: How does being born into a rural area with lack of access to nutritious food, parks, education, or job opportunities affect an individual? The negative effects that such stressors have on an individual are disturbing: higher rates of infant mortality, obesity, abuse, violence, disease and sickness, and psychological imbalances such as depression. Yet imagine! During slavery, slaves were completely stripped of their humanity—stripped access to nutritious food, clothing, education, and much more. It seems like almost a miracle that any lived. How was sickness, depression or other side effects of the negative impacts that the social determinates of health had on their life handled? Were there ways in which slaves attempted to attain agency of their health? Clearly acts of rebellion, such as running away could have been an attempt to have the opportunity to be responsible for their own clothes, health, and happiness. Yet so often, this is not the narrative that is told. Instead, slaves are normally portrayed as escaping with a desire to attain freedom—to have access to education and the given human rights. The question then becomes: is there not an intrinsic link? Is having a desire to be the agent of one’s own health not rooted in a desire to be free from repression?

The benefits of controlling the social determinate's of a slaves health were dramatic for white slave owners. By having the ability to control their health, they also had the ability to control their minds, happiness, and functionality. In stark contrast, there were many disadvantages for the slaves: they often died at young ages due to the deterioration of their health (which was a result of their lack of agency). Slave owners desire to keep their slaves healthy with the hope of having a higher yield of crop, and thus money is perplexing. Yet like many things in life, someone or something must give. 

Works Cited

Alderman, Larry, prod. In Sickness and in Wealth. N.d. Unnatural Causes. California News Reel with Vital Pictures Inc. Web. 28 Aug. 2013.

"Progress on the Implementation of the Rio Political Declaration." WHO, 2013. Web. 28 Sept. 2013. http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/

Shaping one's own destiny

I found this weeks reading of Ex-Slaves and the Rise of Universal Education particularly interesting. As we are containing through the time periods of African American history in class, we are seeing what slaves and ex-slaves are doing for themselves and their community. A quote from this reading really jumped out at me:

“Each race of men, each class in society have to shape their own destinies themselves… The colored people are called today to mark out on a map of life with their own hands their future course of locality in the great national body of politic. Other hands cannot mark for them; other tongues cannot speak for them; other eyes cannon see for them; they must see and speak for themselves and make their own characters on the make, however crooked or illegible.” (10)

This quote is extremely true and is still true today for all minorities. African Americans were not going to be removed from slavery from outside sources alone, they as a collective group had to bear the hard work to start that process. Even in society today, no one is going to do the hard work for someone else. If a minority group is being treated unfairly, their voice will not be heard until they fight for what they want. This reading sheds light on how hard African Americans shaped their destinies through education. White slave owners or citizens would never have given slaves or free blacks a chance to go to school to become educated; it was the drive to learn and become an educated race that pushed them in the right direction. Education was a key factor for this race and taking matters into their own hands is exactly what they needed. They were going to do whatever it was to make schooling for African Americans possible, even when the Board of Education and Freedmen’s Bureau tried to shut down the schools, they were not going to let that happen. I think this drive to be educated was a step in the right direction that set forth and example for the African American race that they have to do things on their own if they want change. They cannot sit around and wait for someone else to change their outcome for them. This is also seen in later years during the Civil Rights Moment. Change will not come unless there is action, and the action must come directly form the people who seek a new destiny. This quote is now one of my new favorite quotes because regardless of what race, gender, social status you are, your destiny is in your hands and it is your right to fight for it; and there have been many examples in history to show for it. 

When Will Our Society Progress?

          The whole institution of slavery is completely ironic and the rationalizations behind it have never made any sense to me.  The stripping away of humanity, the commodification, the exploitation of it all and more than anything else they way it was rationalized is completely insane, whether it be for religious reasons or whatever other assumptions they were making for their own sake.  There were the people who basically initiated the idea of it, the people who were raised surrounded by it, and obviously the people whose lives and freedom were stolen from them because of it, but what I have always wondered about and struggled with are the people who did not own slaves.  Maybe it was because they could not afford to or simply because they chose not to.  But how was there no one saying that this entire idea was totally inhumane and completely wrong in every sense?  How was there no one who tried to stop it?  If there was, I’ve never heard of them.  And that to me is a depressing thought.  Obviously when slavery was the norm and all that anyone knew, to stand up against all of society and tell them that the way they were living their lives was terrible and they should be ashamed of themselves, especially when the government was supporting it, would be a very difficult thing to pluck up the courage to do.  But it just blows my mind that for so long the majority of people seemed to think that slavery was totally okay and had no oppositions to it.  I'm sure there were people who did not approve of what was happening, but clearly they did not really try very hard to do anything about it seeing as it stayed in motion for so long.

          While my entire life, from what I have learned about it, I have been ashamed that it is a part of our country's history and that it was in existence for so long, and the brutality of it all is completely horrifying, reading this book has only magnified all of that in learning about all the little things our mainstream history textbooks never included.  Then again, I'm not sure I would have been able to process it all at the age I was learning about it, but I think it is important that we are aware of all the "dirty details" now.  In my opinion, this is why our society is stuck in what I believe to be a hole where we think we are past the issues of racism etc., by having changed the laws and working towards having a society of equality but I feel that a majority of people in this world only know what they were told in school.  This book creates a whole different side to it, a whole new set of horrors.  We cannot progress as a whole without fully being aware of what we are progressing from, even though the real dirty truth is not what we want to hear or believe.

          What I really dislike about the way society has developed is the stereotypes.  I’m not going to pretend that I don’t every stereotype people, because I do, unfortunately we all do.  Every time I see someone and think a certain thing or react a certain way to someone, it immediately pisses me off.  I wish so badly that stereotypes did not exist so that I could just look at someone that I do not know at all and not immediately proceed to assume things about them.  I hate that we are so surrounded by it every day, and we engage in the racism and discrimination that runs in our society whether we are aware of it or not, no matter of what race or ethnicity or background we come from.  I used to not realize that I did this, I thought I have never been racist at all, I don’t assume things about people I don’t know, that’s crazy!  But I think the difference is whether or not you choose to let it define you, whether or not you choose to let it direct the way you interact with other people.  Every day I think about how I hope there will be a day when these thoughts will no longer rush into my head.  I always wonder how I would see the world and view other people if I had never been made aware of these stereotypes in the first place.  

Natural Hair: Professional or Unkempt

                Recently more and more African-American women have begun to embrace their natural hair, wearing their curls in afros, cornrows, and dreadlocks. However, critics claim that the natural look is unprofessional in that it is radical and untamed. Because of policies based on this argument, 7 year old Tiana Parker of Oklahoma was faced with the decision to either shave off her dreadlocks or transfer schools. Remnants of racial discrimination developed by race classification linger in today’s society calling for African-Americans to choose to conform to societal expectations (that derive from racist opinions dating back to slavery) or rebel against the norm and embrace their natural roots.

                During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, white slaveholders sought validation for the institution of slavery. Using the European cultural matrix, those pioneering the study of race reasoned that the physical differences and practices of Africans were signs of their inferiority. In Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson argued that “blacks… are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.” Jefferson, Kant, Locke and Hume—all major philosophers with input in race classification—had a powerful influence on white people’s perception of black people. However over the years, science was able to debunk the unsupported claims derived from race classification. Although we now know that the only race is the human race, social and cultural ideas about race still linger.

                In order to better adapt to their geographic location, the human race developed variations in genetics, skin tone, and hair texture. Although there are variations in hair amongst those of European descent and amongst those of African descent, the perceived differences of the two in general is great. Hair that is long and straight became the ideal hair type of femininity. To meet these standards African American women use heat and chemicals to alter their hair or resort to weaves and wigs. Because of lingering ideas from race classification, the natural hair of African Americans is seen by some as dirty and unkempt. These ideas were a problem for Tiana Parker who was called to the office of her elementary school for having dreads. Deborah Brown Community School’s policy says that they have the “right to contact parents/guardians regarding any personal hygiene issues.”  It is a common belief that dreadlocks are dirty (although they can be washed like any other hair style). But the charter school’s policy also says that “afros and other faddish styles are unacceptable.” Afros are the way that black people’s hair naturally grows. To ban afros is to insist that the female students conform to meet social expectations. 

               The majority of Deborah Brown Community School’s population is African American students. I do not believe that they made this policy with racist incentives. They may have had an idea of what was appeared professional and what did not. But that idea is racist to claim that the natural hair of black people does not qualify as professional. Do you think that the school was misguided by social norms with racist origins? What was their motivation behind the policy?

http://www.today.com/moms/school-barred-7-year-olds-dreadlocks-changes-dress-code-policy-8C11122821

Commodification and Corruption in the Slave Trade

The slave market was the ultimate depiction of commodification.  The absence of any human-like characteristic, in the mind of the slave owners and buyers, was evident in the slave market.  Slaves were presented, described, and desired for as objects. Johnson states that the slave market results in people “performing their own commodification” (Johnson 164).  The slaves were judged and picked based off every characteristic they possessed.  How ironic is it that these slaves, who contained no humanlike characteristics in the mind of slave owners,  now are being stripped, inspected, and judged for defects.   The slaves were not even considered to be the same species as human, but now other humans  are judging the slaves on all the same qualities they posses.  One aspect of Johnson’s description and argument shocked me more than rest.  Johnson argues that slaves could create themselves in the market (176).   I understand the background from which he makes that claim, however I strongly disagree.

Johnson’s argument was referring to the opportunity for slaves to answer the slave buyer’s questions in order to fulfill their personal desires.  That does seem like a reasonable opportunity, however it did not work way.  The slaves were mentally abused during the slave trade almost as severely as they were physically abused for misbehaving.  The buyers entered the slave trade with plans to create alliances with the slaves in order to obtain the most information possible.  The buyers fired questions at the slaves and expected the correct answers.   In the slaves’ perspectives, they were conversating and, quite-literally, selling themselves to a person that could possible own full control of them.  Meanwhile, regardless of the last owner, the slaves were well aware they could not trust any of these people.  Slave owners would constantly threaten the slaves to be sold into the slave market, creating a severe negative association.  On the other hand, some owners would promise their slaves a good masters if they behaved well, which created a positive image for the actual trade (177).  Just like slave owners in general, the entire slave trade was a large contradiction. 

The idea of slaves being able to create themself in the slave market is so far from accurate, in my opinion.  The slaves were being judged and chosen for every small detail of their being; their liveliness, stance, muscle, skin color, skin complexion, and so many more characteristic were amongst the many being noted.  Yes, the slaves were able to answer questions themselves, but they really had no choice in what they said.  If the slaves lied, they would immediately be punished.   Anyways, what was it all for?  The slaves could answer the questions and present themselves in the best light possible, all to be sold to a new master who would control them and probably abuse them, as well.  I am aware that the slaves hoped for a kind master that would give them more freedom, with the ultimate goal being entire freedom.  How realistic was that?

The slave trade is a microcosm of the institution of slavery, in that it is unexplainable inequality, unfairness, and inhumane.   I was very taken back by Johnson’s Acts of Sale.  Prior to reading Soul by Soul, I had not been to exposed to a great deal of information about the actual slave trade.  It is so difficult to try to understand how American humans, at a time when freedom was such a big deal, could morally accept an institution as corrupt as slavery.  

Perceived Blackness: An Inherent Link to Opportunity?

Is the hierarchy of “blackness” that existed in the trade market and on plantations reflective upon racial dynamics today? How was “lightness” and “darkness” perceived? How is it currently perceived?

In Soul By Soul, Walter Johnson explains that the color of a slave’s skin depended not solely upon their visible color; instead, the categorized pigmentation of the skin of a slave was dependent upon the work that the slave did, in addition to slave-owners perception of the color of the slave. This statement astounded me, as I knew that blacks were often subdivided into more specific racial categories such as “mulatto”, “very black”, or “very light”, however I was unaware that the work or state of a slave, and how slave owners perceived them had the potential to contribute to their blackness or lightness. Why did the skin color of a slave have the potential to dictate what type of work they did? Imagine! White people also have varying pigmentation—some individuals are extremely tan, others have pale skin, and some might have a more olive skin tone. If the degree of whiteness that a Caucasian individual exhibits is insignificant, why did the degree of blackness of a slave carry such momentous weight? Johnson suggests that it is because it was a social indicator—yet another way to categorize and dehumanize slaves. On page 159, he states, “The racism in the slave pens, however, was less an intended effect than a tool of the trade”. I disagree. Racism in the slave pens served a purpose—it enabled slave owners to create a hierarchical system within the oppressive system of slavery that already existed. Such hierarchical systems created an enormous amount of tension within the slave community, enabling slave owners to maintain even more power. Slaves were already subordinate to their masters; creating tension within slaves’ community and forcing them to yield to the meaning that the shade of their skin implied is wrong. It is absolutely revolting.

Because race is a social construct, it is intrinsically linked to history, such as slavery, which created categorical exclusion and differentiation between races. Society’s perceived implications of race during the periods of slavery have thus shaped the racial issues that exist in the United States today. On page 155, Johnson writes, “for slave buyers, the bodies of light-skinned women and little girls embodied sexual desire and the luxury of being able to pay for its fulfillment—they were projections of slaveholders’’ own imagined identities as white men and slave masters”.  Zuhey Coria Lopez, a college student writes about how people are categorized by shades affects dark skinned women. I found her insight to be helpful in understanding the complexity. She states,

“Light skin is considered beautiful and as the best way to look because white people had more power than people of color and were seen as the best. White people were seen as the ones who did not commit crimes. The advantage for light skinned minorities caused them to act or want to be white in order to receive privileges. However, because society views white as being the best, this leads to internalized oppression. Dark skinned women are not satisfied with the way they look. Instead of women living a normal life and appreciating themselves for what they have and look, they worry about their exterior. Since everyone wants to look beautiful, people of color are willing to change themselves in order to look better.”

This quote perfectly captures how blacks are oppressed not solely by color, but also by their shade of blackness. I wonder if slaves of darker color ever experienced these feelings? Did lighter skinned slaves feel entitled to “act or want to be white in order to receive privilege”?

A study done by Arthur H. Goldsmith, Darrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr. titled From Dark to Light: Skin Color and Wages among African Americans recently proved that “lightness—possessing white characteristics as measured by skin shade—is rewarded in the labor market” (729). One of the most interesting findings was that whites only earn about 3.1 percent more than light-skinned blacks. Lighter skinned blacks were found to have around an 8 percent advantage over medium and dark-skinned blacks (713). This is another example of how variations of color are important. But are they as important as physical stature, beauty or hard work ethics?

Lopez , Z. C. L. (2009). Internalized oppression in the u.s. is hard to change, but never impossible . Retrieved from http://www2.ucsc.edu/visionaryvoices/Oakes/web_pages/zuhey_coria_lopez/lopez_essay.htm

Arthur H. Goldsmith, Darrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr. From Dark to Light: Skin Color and Wages among African-Americans

The Journal of Human Resources , Vol. 42, No. 4 (Fall, 2007), pp. 701-738

Published by: University of Wisconsin Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40057327

Overt Racism or Cultural Ignorance?

The letter pictured above was sent home with the students of Western Union Elementary School in North Carolina earlier this year. The letter states that the students were encouraged to wear "African American attire" or "animal print clothing with animals native to Africa" in celebration of a Black History Day event. This suggestion caused uproar among the parents of the students and, after the story spread rapidly across social media sites, the entire nation. Luan Ingram, the Chief Communications Officer for the school district, came forward and stated, "while [the letter] was well-intended, it was poorly worded." She then added, "We are reminding all of our principals to be very sensitive in word choices when communicating with parents concerning different ethnic groups and cultures that make up our world."

While many felt that this letter was extremely inappropriate and an example of the continuous racism in our supposed “post-racial” culture, others found the letter to be harmless, believing our society to be too hypersensitive to innocuous missteps on the road to racial equality. This debate reminded me significantly of the Making Sense of Race forum I attended here at Rhodes, in which we discussed whether the category of race is more of a problem or solution in regards to contemporary racism and, subsequently, whether the term should be altogether abandoned. Is the fact that people have to be reminded to “be very sensitive in word choices” when discussing different ethnic groups a remedy or a drawback in the ongoing fight for equality? Although many different views and opinions were expressed during the forum, it was widely agreed upon that the social construct of race should not be abandoned. Even if well intentioned, it seems a bit of a cop-out to attempt to fix such a prevalent human problem by simply ignoring its existence. Instead of pretending that these differences (of skin color, class, etc., etc.) don’t exist, we as a human race need to learn to embrace these differences rather than judge them. However, as made obvious by the photo above, this is easier said than done, simple in theory but not necessarily in practice.

As one man commented, "we should not discourage multicultural dialogue with an over reaction to a benign gesture. Overt racism is one thing, but mere cultural ignorance is another." With that being said, should we fault Western Union for their attempt to teach their students about other cultures? Perhaps we should merely criticize their sloppy execution of it. It seems to me that the school did not intend to issue offense to anyone, but succeeded in doing so anyway. Does it matter whether it was intended or not? Finally, did they succeed in supplementing the fight for equality or did they deter it?