Dixienet website quiz 6

The website that I chose was the Dixienet website. The Dixienet website has many different items. Some items include T-Shirts that have Confederacy on the front of it also Rebel T-Shirts Confederate Battle Flag and a Rebel Flag. Their was one T-shirt that stuck me and that was the one that displaced a Confederate flag on top of the car from the Dukes of Hazzard which they called the General Lee. All these items that you can purchase on the website really talk about the South as its own nation having its own way of life. In the article by McPherson I tend to agree with him.
All of your favorite items are on their such as flowers, download music, buy jewelry, and books about the Confederacy. They shape the items to the southern way of life by displaying the elegance of the past with the advancements made in the future. Dixienet website wants to go with a classic but modern look about them. It is kind of similar to Abercrombie and Fitch in its presentation of its clothing. This website gives people a look back at for many individuals was a great time of economic and social prosperity. Many of the shirts on the websites displaced white male dominance rather than a female superiority. The shirts often are displaced as how the Confederacy were fighters against the evil system of the north. They often express fun and having a good time. The shirts never mention racism on them.
Are these shirts the right thing to have out their in the times we live in ? I believe these shirts could be seen as offensive to blacks in the south because it represents a racist period where they did not have rights and were not treated as equals. This shirts are not all that bad in the contexts of what has been on TV when you consider there have been shows glorifying the Confederate flag.
When looking through the website there was some interesting shirts and other items that displaced the Confederacy or the old south. It makes some people feel good in the south that their old way of life is not dead. It brings people back to the nastralgic era where the south used to be something. With these shirts they can express themselves in a way that they see is unacceptable in most of the country.

Abercrombie

Mcbrides basic argument for his article is that multiple corporations which Abercrombie and Fitch is is bad for countries because of its working conditions and the low wages. Abercrombie and Fitch does not represent other minority groups in its advertising. You never see an African American as a symbol for the company. You will have minorities doing the labor but not ever represented in the product. There has been lawsuits filed against Abercrombie and Fitch for its discriminatory practices. McBride sees this company as well to do and does not symbolize the whole population.

Wu article

In the article it talks about the type of discrimination minority groups faced and how whites never had to deal with the types of problems that minority groups had to deal with. I was afraid to come out of my element and be a member of society because society did not except me. Everyone feels comfortable with themselves when they are in their own groups.

Comic Book Strip

The comic strip I have chosen to write about is Captain Marvel and "Swat the Japs". The front cover shows a superhero being Captain Marvel crushing the Japanese soldiers as they are trying to run away from him. Captain Marvel represents everything that is good in our society. He is the defender of our freedoms and he is defeating everything that is evil in our world which would be Japan. The term Japs is used as a derogatory meaning toward Japanese people referring to them as flies or nats. They are pestering the American society as we know it during that time period of World War II. The comic strip shows how cowardice the enemy really is when they are running from the super hero not wanting to fight. The comic strips during that period made Americans feel good about themselves. Seeing one super hero destroy an entire Japanese army showed the true power of the ideals of freedom and showed that totalitarianism would not win out.
During World War II the Japanese people were seen rightly or wrongly as a savage race bent on destroying the American way of life. After the Event of Pearl Harbor the American people were outraged. They wanted retribution and payback for that awful attack. In doing so they treated Japanese citizens living in the United States horribly during that time period. The government put Japanese citizens into concentration camps because they thought they were spies and would give secrets to the Japanese government and bring about another attack on United States soil. This fear and paranoia brought about great injustices against Japanese citizens. Not all those people were spies. Many of them were good, ordinary citizens trying to live there everyday life. If anything they were probably angry about what the nation of Japan was trying to do to the United States. The American people discriminated against the Japanese race which is something that looking back on it the United States regrets but felt had to be necessary in order to protect national security.
Was the United States justified in using the term "Japs" during World War II? The United States was justified in using the term "Japs" because to the American people the Japanese race was a nat something of a nuisance that they had to destroy in order to live in a peaceful and free society. People around the time period still had extreme hatred for the Japanese for what they did at Pearl Harbor, killing many servicemen in a sneak attack. The Japanese people probably had derogatory names for the United States but you never here about that, its only the big bad United States.
These comic strips were there for the American people to feel good and have confidence in the nation as they were fighting the Japanese. Many of the comic strips were over the top in their depictions of the Japanese. The Japanese were a tough people to defeat. They would fight to the very bitter end never surrendering. It took two atomic bombs for the Japan to surrender and even then they did it reluctantly. They were a very disciplined group never deviating from the mission at hand. There were many abuses done to the Japanese civilians at home because of the aggression of the Japanese government. During a war you cannot take any chances in having spies or infiltrators come and plan an attack against you. Even though I think it was a wrong thing to do I can justify it based on national security interests. In a war many things happen that you don't anticipate and other things you wish you could take back. Of all the things that the United States did during World War II this comic strip about the word "Japs", is not that big of a deal comparng it with other events that went on during that time period.

How Jews Became White Folks

In this article by Karen Bodkin it talks about the assimilation of Europeans and the struggles they faced in trying to be apart of the society. The Jewish population did work extremely hard to get a better life for themselves after all they were not treated as well as Nordic or Anglo-Saxon race. There was much Anti-Semistism in the United States throughout its history but its not the only racism involved. African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans experienced forms of racism. But as soon as World War II ended the same people that were calling Jews an inferior race now were calling for the assimilation of Jews with particular policies to help them. This policy did help a huge segment of the population and it helped the author family but it also was a segregated policy because it did not cover or include African Americans. They were excluded from going to college, finding decent jobs, being able to own their own home. African Americans even though they participated in World War II and fought for their country were still treated like second class citizens. The author mentions how it was hard for his family but they were able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and be productive members of society.
There were many publications in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that stated Jews and other Europeans that came to the United States were inferior because of the way they carried themselves. They treated other people outside their race with great disregard and people of different races had to watch their backs because the Euro-race might kill them.
The GI bill witch brought about great economic opportunity for a great segment of the population also was a form of discrimination because it did not include for the most part African Americans. You also had many homeowners who were discriminated against because the executives in charge did not like a certain segment of the population.
Was the GI Bill a good idea or a bad idea? I believe the bill was a good idea because of the great opportunity it brought to people after the war. People that normally would not have gone to college did and people that would not have gotten a particular job got the skills they needed in order to attain that job. People were owning homes at a record rate which led to greater prosperity for the United States but it also was a discriminatory bill that when administrated brought less prosperity for African American people.
This was a very interesting article to read. It brought you great incite into the struggles people who came to this country faced. One group of people found it hard at first to assimilate to the society but after the war found it easier because of their whiteness and another group of society was still being discriminated against even though they went through the same hardships as the Jewish population. When you have people that have a certain stereotype of a certain race that are in charge it makes it extremely difficult for a population to have universal prosperity.

Jim Crow Laws

The following reading entitled "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow", An Autobiographical sketch by Richard Wright talks about his experiences during the Jim Crow laws. He experienced great racism and in many instances had to take much of the abuse from his co-workers and other authority figures because he did not want to get fired from his jobs. He had to give in to the white man because the laws did not favor blacks. Richard could not educate himself because if he tried to he would be challenging the white man which was forbidden under the Jim Crow laws. He witnessed many injustices against people of his own race and had to keep quiet because that would jeopardize his status in the workforce.
The author first talks about how his mother was so disgusted with his behavior over him getting in fights with white boys, she severely beat him. She wanted him to realize that you don't do anything to jeopardize her status of making a living. He learned another lesson when it came to his first job. In that job he became very ambitious and wanted to do his job to the best of his abilities. The taking on of more responsibilities was what he wanted to accomplish. When he did this Morrie, and Pease guys he worked with became extremely angry and threatened to beat him up. Also they were upset with the fact that Richard did not call Pease, Mr. Pease and they were going to beat him if he did not admit he was wrong. He would because of this situation leave his job. At his next job he witnessed a women getting beaten up by her bosses because she didn't pay her bills. The two men gave Richard a cigarette to shut him up and turn a blind eye to the situation. When Richard bike was which hit him with a beer bottle. He was also integrated by police when he would come home from work late at night.
Was Richard right in turning a blind eye to the injustices that were around him? Richard at the time could not have done anything else but take the abuse. He had to survive in the world and needed those jobs to support himself. Richard did feel bad about the racism that went on but he was taught at very early age to turn a blind eye to the racism he experienced because you need to think of survival and think of ways to support yourself financially.
Richard showed incredible strength during this period of time in history. The amount of racism he experienced and saw around him was extraordinary. Their were times where I bet he wanted to fight back but could not because he was in fear of his life and knew the money he was making would only be granted to him through the white man. He learned through his many experiences not to challenge the white man because he was the authority figure. Richard Wright ought to be commended for sharing his stories because it gave me some great insights to what he went through.

Giddy Multitude

In Takaki Chapter three the main heading of it is The "Giddy Multitude". The Giddy Multitude were a discontented class of indentured servants, slaves, and landless freemen who led revolts against the ruling class. The revolts they led were very volatile. Also it delves into the competing social class structure during that time period.
The government in Virginia tried to create wedges between white and black indentured servants in order to suppress any rebellion they wanted to iniate. The government enacted laws that put restrictions on the freedoms of blacks. They did this to squash any rebellion or threat of one they saw. White indentured servants weren't treated any better but there sentences were much more light compared to black slaves who would get far more longer sentences than white slaves.
One of the most famous conflicts between indentured servants and the Virginia government was the Bacon's Rebellion. Nathaniel Bacon who was a landholder and a member of the Virginia council saw danger from the Indians and raised an army with the giddy multitude. That angered Governor William Berkeley who was more worried about the giddy multitude than the Indians. Berkeley charged Bacon with treason. Bacon then led his rebellion against Berkeley. It was extremely bloody and after some early successes the rebels were defeated. After this the Virginia government made some transitions. They increased the number of black indentured servants and decreased the white servants, that way there would be less tension and less up risings. Even though white elites saw white lower class as a bothersome problem. It was a very delicate balance the government in Virginia had to decide. On the one hand they needed the work of lower class whites, but on the other hand they did not want to give them too much power or more rights because then the government could see their authority slipping away. Even powerful leaders of that time period were conflicted about the issue of slavery. The governor of Virginia during the Revolution, Thomas Jefferson felt torn about the actions he was doing. He wanted to create more opportunity for white men to be farmers because this would lead to less conflict among the social classes. Jefferson benefited from slavery very much , but he wanted sometime in his lifetime to abolish slavery after he paid off his debts. This was often contradictory of what he would do though. He would treat his slaves extremely cruel, and would often be unmerciful if they disobeyed him. The conflict many individuals faced in this era was extraordinary.
Would people like Thomas Jefferson have abolished slavery or would they just keep using it as a tool to make more money? I believe Jefferson would have kept on allowing slavery and not abolished it like he said he would. That is very good political speak but its the test of a true man in order to see it through. You can go to one audience that is sympathetic to abolishment and say you are really against and say once my debts are paid off I will abolish it. Then in private you will say the exact opposite. Jefferson would not have found the courage to do so because he saw slavery as a very profitable business and one that kept him in power.
I was very disappointed when it came to the Virginia government who pitted lower class whites against black indentured servant in order to save the government. It just shows you how bad at governing the people of Virginia really were. If you are more worried about your own people like William Berkeley was rather than the Indians you have a serious problem about the way you are governing Virginia. Nobody in government wanted to see slavery abolished because like Jefferson they saw it as a tool to make money and have power and they were not going to give that up easily. The workers of that period were true heroes. They showed true sacrifice by risking their lives in order to provide a better way of life for future generations.

Privilege and Denial

In the Chapter six article What It All Has to Do with Us it talks about individuals through a social system and how they interact with other people. The individualistic thinking has a distorted view of how the world works. Sometimes we blame a particular race solely on the actions of one person of that race. Individualistic behavior can make us totally ignore the existence of privilege.
Social systems are the systems that people participate in collectively. We have to see how individuals work in those social systems in order for that system to work sucessfully. We are shaped in two ways as individuals. First, we learn socialization through when we participate in life. An example would be schools, families, and religion. Secondly, we are shaped through the path of least resistance. For the most part we don't do anything really spontaneous that is against the norm. Individuals alone might have different responses or actions as time goes by. They might feel happy about something in the past but as they get older they don't feel that same enjoyment.
In the Chapter eight article Getting Off the Hook: Denial and Resistance talks about how people just dismiss oppression or even if they think it exists they basically say "just get on with it". Those individuals themselves believe that they are the ones getting the shaft and seeing power slip out of their hands.
Many times blaming the victim instead of blaming your race is a common way those people can shift the blame. Communication is key in gender differences. If a woman says something it might be taken the wrong way, or if they don't say anything at all there non-verbal communication might invite a male co-worker onto them a sexual way. Ideology is key in describing gender privilege. Ever since the beginning certain tasks have been performed by males and others by females. When something contradicts those tasks, or a female does work that a male has been doing since the beginning of time that can create tensions among the social structure. In a conversation if you are joking about something it might be funny for a male but it is not funny for the female. Even if the male did not mean it, it still has an effect on the social relationship between the genders. In all you should live on the hook because you are learning more about people and not judging them or hurting them. Your just going with the flow.
Why would someone want to be in denial about the events happening around them? Alot of people in the world are afraid of change and want things to stay the same no matter what the cost. Some believe that by demeaning other people it is raising themselves up showing them who the superior race is. As a society we have become more tolerant but we are not tolerant enough.
These two articles talked about privilege and denial in great detail. People try to sheild themselves of many of the injustices they see in there lives by demeaning people of other races or gender. The article talked about the different social systems. Many people do not understand the social systems and how they work. Individualism can sometimes be good but most of the time it is not. Many times individuals think of themselves as a superior race and do not sympathize with people of other races. As a society we have come along ways in our behavior towards other cultures but we still have a long ways to go.

Capitalism, Class and Matrix of Domination

In the reading Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination it talks about how we haven't really dealt with white racism. The link between capitalism and racism is very strong and does occur in our daily lives. In a capitalistic society the goal is to make as much money as possible, invest that money to produce goods and services. Capitalism has its advantages such as providing food, housing and healthcare. But it also has its disadvantages such as producing tobacco, drugs and slavery. In capitalism making a good profit is the be all and end all. Capitlists employ the workers to help them produce the goods so they are sold onto the market. The employers try to keep wages at a steady price to satisfy the workers and so they are not giving the workers too much money. Capitalism does produce record profits for some but it also produces great inequality for many individuals. People seem to describe themselves now as working class more so than middle class as they did in the past. Capitalism and race have always been mixed together. Starting with black enslavement in the colonization of America to even after the period of the Civil War. It brought about great oppression of certain races. Capitalists have also used racism against white workers to keep wages low and productivity high. After the Civil War, lower class whites had it difficult with the emancipation of the slaves. The capitalists would also threaten to let workers go if they demanded higher wages. It was especially hard in the future for whites. Eventhough they might have had the superiority of their skin color, there might be something else wrong with them such as a disability, or sexual orientation. Or if a person is white working class male who is having a hard time making ends meat he doesn't see the advantage of his race. Capitalists also try to pit certain groups against each other so it will distract them from the true injustices of their wages. People believe there is a clear cut answer for privilege, race, class, and capitalism. But the line between these isn't so clear cut it is much more fuzzy and complicated.
Does capitalism create so many problems in dealing with race we need to think about a new system that will be more equal and fair? Capitalism does create many problems but on the hole it is a good system that should not be changed only improved. We refer to America as the land of opportunity a place where you can come from the bottom and work your way to the top. What other country can really say that? Very few. People come from all over the world to America for opportunity skills. Granted their are many cases where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. If there is a certain skill that you want to attain so you can have a higher paying job you can attain it by going to school and learning. In many other countries that simple is not the case. If you are a person of color, or a different gender it is harder for you to acheive certain goals because of preexisting prejudices and upbringing. But in our society we have become more tolerant of different races but not tolerant enough.
I felt this article was extremely informative in describing the complexities in dealing with race and capitalistic goals. It talks about the disadvantages male whites faced. In past readings it talks about the advantages they had over slaves. Capitalism is a good economic system but it has its disadvantages like any economic system. In order to fix these problems we need to be more tolerant as a society. If we treated each other as equals then the job market would be much better.

Privilege

In the Privilege, Oppression and Difference reading it talks about privilege within different racial groups and how it effects peoples lives. When you are part of the white race you have a tendency to either ignore the prospect of race or use it to your advantage. Race isn't something we have control of, or for that matter we talk about unless we are put in an environment where we deal with certain races. Often we categorize people with a certain disability and that descibes the whole person. Instead that should be referred to one aspect of a persons feature because they are human beings just like you and me. The author talks about how whites do not need to get to know blacks because they are the dominant race and blacks need to get to know whites for they are the minority. The white race has a distinct advantage because of the better education, the type of surroundings they come from. This is quite evident in the case of the job market. When a person has a disability it significantly hurts them in the case of trying to compete with a white person especially a male.
Often we seem to label people by their lowest status group. For example we might say "She's part Jewish", but we hardly ever say "He's part white". When someone describes you as privileged that is how we are put into social categories. It is not done by ourselves but by the outside. When you are going for a job you don't need to change your identity. You need to out perform the other individual in order to gain acceptance. One who wants to take themselves outside the system of privileged cannot because we are always in the system. I can change the institutions around me but I cannot leave the system. We tend to compare ourselves with people from our own gender not with people from other lower classes. Both privileged and oppression are part of the social relationship, but oppression sees opportunities get slammed shut. Sometimes we have a tendency to mischaracterize oppression with males in talking about their daily hardships about providing for a family. Instead we should be talking about people who are at the bottom half of the social chain.
Is Privilege and Oppression something that we can change? Yes we can change it but not by moving outside of our general roles. We can change it incrementally but not through sweeping change. Institutionally it can be changed. In our society unfortunately people are going to still use these tactics. If we can continue to educate people then change will occur quicker.
I felt the author did a really good job of explaining Privilege and Oppression. People might like to ignore privilege and think that they are not privileged, but indeed they are without even knowing it. Male whites have a distinct advantage when it comes to privilege. While people of color, women, gays and disabled have a harder time trying to be on equal footing with white males. I wish we never had these categories for describing people, but the sooner we can correct these problems with privilege and oppression the better off we will be as a society.

Drawing the Color Line

Zinn's article points out the great dilemma both whites and blacks faced back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century in America. Whites had a tough time when they settled in trying to convince Indians to do slave work because the whites depended on the Indians to tend the land and produce the food. They could not kill off thousands of Indians, if they did so the whites would have a hard time surviving themselves because they could not produce the food. The whites were not happy about this but they had a solution in order to solve the problem. The solution was African slaves and import them to America. The African slaves were very cheap and easy to direct. You could work them for as many hours as possible. If some died due to exhaustion or they disobeyed their master, some more African slaves were imported. In Virginia, from the year 1700 to 1763 slaves went from 6,000 which was one twelfth the population to 170,000 about half the population. All of this history explains alot when you talk about white and black relations in that time period.
American slavery was much more brutal than African slavery. They would degrade slaves to less than human status with the use of racial hatred. When African slaves were moved to America they found themselves helpless. On the way over they were kept in cages and before that they had to walk thousands of miles being shackled around the neck in order to make it to the coast to get on the boat. This method of using African slaves in America created great profit for the whites. They were able to get the Indians to help them tend and harvest the land. In addition, they used the massive amount of slaves to get all the labor work done. In doing so they were fed very well and survived many a years. This did come to pay a heavy price for the African slaves. Africa it is estimated lost fifty million beings due to the death of slavery by the year 1800.
Did the white settlers do the the right thing by enslaving black Africans in doing the dirty work for them instead of the Indians? The Africans were extremely beneficial to the economy for the white settlers. Was it right? Absolutely not. The slave trade might have been profitable them but it wasn't right. The white settlers used there lives and threw them away as if they were nothing just because of the color of their skin. I can't imagine the kind of pain and agony the African slaves went through. Knowing their lives were basically worthless and being used to make great profits for the settlers. The rules were quite different back them you had a master and a servant. You had to obey your master or you would be punished severely if not be hanged. The way the settlers treated the slaves was despicable. They knew they could perform these abuses because they knew the slaves would carry out any order they would say. All of this shows us why even in today's society the trust factor between whites and blacks is still not quite there yet. We have made great progress in relations between whites and blacks but we still have a ways to go.
This article helped me realize the kind of impact African slaves had on the economic impact of society during that time. Also it gave great details into the treatment of the slaves. The behavior of white settlers was horrible but they justified it though the profit they made. It is shameful they had to use those methods instead of resorting to different more humane ways of working with the Indians and the African slaves.