W.E.B DuBois was a prominent African-American activist during the twentieth century. During this time period, he fought for the end to racial segregation and desired to put a stop the undermining of black progress. Due to the continuous barriers that separated the black and white communities, DuBois was a huge advocate for the education of black people. Demonstrating persistence, DuBois continuously wrote his ideas in The Crisis and he also was a founder of the National Association Advancement of Colored People where he spoke against the political norms and questioned the intentions of white people. As a child, Du Bois was presented with harsh struggles such as poverty and having a single parent household with a mother…
What makes an American, ‘American’? The answer to this question will vary greatly depending on the respondent’s beliefs and cultural background. As the United States continues to grow and evolve in areas such as race, ethnicity and culture, the image of America changes as well. In an article entitled ‘Nation or Notion’ by Patrick J. Buchanan, he argues that Americans need a common identity based upon ancestry and culture to survive as a country. On the other hand, an article entitled ‘What Does It Mean to Be an “American”?’ by Michael Walzer argues that America does not need a common identity.…
Immigration has always been a part of American culture, in fact, it is the basis of how our country was formed. Immigration, both legal and illegal, has become a key focal point in today’s society- especially with presidential elections looming in the near future. In a collection of essays titled “Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New Immigrant and What It Means to Be American,” Jamar Jacoby has a piece titled “The New Immigrants and the Issue of Assimilation” published in 2004. In her piece she creates an argument that although beneficial to our country, immigration has a pessimistic aura. She argues that immigrants from developing countries are entering the United States where many will be forced to spend their lives at the bottom of the economy, and where their assimilation feels forced.…
The constant practice and presence of American and Hmong culture in their daily lives unfortunately lead them to become oblivious of other cultures and to regard others as strange or ignorant if they followed different values. Although there is no clear or right answer as to who leads the correct life, the ethnocentric judgments people hold towards other traditions help determine cultural identity and core values while influencing the life of many. For instance, based of Fadiman’s research, Western medicine identifies itself as a knowledgeable institution with many scientific advances while Hmong people characterize themselves as consistently devoted people to their ancestors and animistic faith. Of course, without ethnocentric views, there would be fewer boundaries between differing cultures, but there would also be no distinction between two different traditions due to the fact that they would intermingle and develop into a melting pot of…
Kathleen J. Fitzgerald 's study about the meaning of ethnicity to Americans who get back the native lives and characteristics is tentatively informed and elaborately narrated by those people, whose ethnic journeys she has explored. Her wide-ranging interviews disclose the dominant enthusiasms that keep her informers on course in the face of the demanding biographical archaeological sites many must take on along the way and the cynicism they come across on the path to becoming Indian. This book also makes available another important lens from end to end examination and understanding of the ever-changing American ethnic background. The author studies the rare prospects of the ethnicity of Native Americans.…
From the start of America’s foundation through pilgrimage to the foundational principles of this country founded through in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; race relations have consistently been a controversial topic. Despite significant historical advances, race relations have still yet to holistically improve. In the article, “The State of Race in America” (30 June 2016), the author, Charles M Blow writes to share the opposing views of race relations in America, that inhibit the progress of positive race relations developing in America. He proves that race relations will not change in America without intentional effort towards changing the way society understands and views race relations in America. Through the use…
The books, “The Racial Contract”, “Democracy in Black”, and “The Meaning of Freedom” are all examples showcasing racial inequality and its effects on society. I will discuss the books as we have read them, starting with “The Racial Contract” discussing Mill’s subperson/ person dichotomy, then “Democracy in Black” which emphasizes Glaude’s theories on the value gap, racial habits, white fear, and revolution of value, and finally ending with “The Meaning of Freedom” which demonstrates Davis’ overall concepts of democracy, social change, and civil rights. In “The Racial Contract”, it is evident that we cannot use “person” and “human” interchangeably. As it goes, personhood is shown to be a moral status that is not limited to all humans.…
Reconstruction is a time marked by many positive reforms in the favor of the African American community as well as one met by strong resistance from the people of the South. This document from The Encyclopedia of Race and Racism by various authors details the progress made by freedmen and how they went about achieving this. This excerpt discusses many events in which African Americans protested for their rights, such as sit-ins and strikes, demonstrating to the reader that they had to use various means to achieve higher levels of social, political, and economic equality due to resistance primarily from the South. In this reading, a civil rights march is also discussed. This march took place in New Orleans and was met with strong and violent…
Multiculturalism, the view that cultures, races, and ethnicities, particularly those of minority groups, deserve special acknowledgement of their differences within a dominant political culture. That acknowledgement can take the forms of recognition of contributions to the cultural life of the political community as a whole, a demand for special protection under the law for certain cultural groups, or autonomous rights of governance for certain cultures. Multiculturalism is both a response to the fact of cultural pluralism in modern democracies and a way of compensating cultural groups for past exclusion, discrimination, and oppression. Most modern democracies comprise members with diverse cultural viewpoints, practices, and contributions.…
In the United States, there is a constant battle on the social structure and cultural embodiment in the classrooms and on the exams. We have read in the course two specific theories, that I believe support each-others claim. In Towards a Critical Race Theory of Education by Ladson-Billings and Tate, it demonstrates the lack of racial conversation of marginalized communities that have been neglected. In addition to this theory, in A Threat in the Air, Steel reveals the domain identification focus on the negative effect of stereotypes on academic performance and identity through experiments. Ladson-Billings and Tate’s theory display detriments weakness of his article and more subjective examples compared to Steele’s theory who hold an overall…
Social construction is not as definitive as actual objects and is defined by culture which changes as time goes on, more specifically defined by society’s dominant group. With this definition the basis of race continually changes. When the Africans were first brought to the United States as indentured servants they were considered objects, this definition then changed as they were later considered “free man” as slavery was abolished although his still gave a stigma to the race. As time moved on the African American race was based upon skin color and heritage and less upon the social status. “First, race is a social construct contingent on collective acceptance, agreement, and imposition.…
The family unit serves many purposes in our society, including providing emotional support and socialization. Culture influences the way in which families function, as well as social norms. This includes society’s racial structure, which results in certain races having an advantage over other races. My partner is an African-American woman and I am from the Caribbean and of a mixed ethnic background, thus we both belong to a different racial minority group. African-American women face many challenges in life in relation to how the overlapping systems of class, racial, and gender-based disadvantages affect them (Cherlin 2009).…
American History: Through the Eyes of the People and the Land The 21st century has arrived, and yet our fellow citizens continue to debate among the premises that we should take on a multicultural society. Though, there are those who believe multiculturalism seems to have muddled the U.S. into a moment of mistrust and agitation, it is important to remember that our country was built upon the stories of those whom we now call minorities. Accordingly, scholars, activists and historians have eagerly persuaded educators to include a more complete and precise history of American culture.…
The subject of the post-Pearl Harbor reaction of the United States has become a topic of study by various historians. One such is John W. Dower who explores the intriguing comparison between American and Japanese depictions of each other in his short essay titled Race, Language, and War in Two Cultures: World War II in Asia. It is Dower’s essay that takes this interesting case study to draw the conclusion that the Japanese and the Americans were not that different in their propagandistic depictions. In his essay, Dower appears to make multiple claims on the dynamic played out by the prime super powers of the Second World War, specifically the United States and Japan.…
Radhakrishnan explains how immigrants are to preserve their ethnic identity, however adapt to their new social context. He also explains how hyphenated integration minoritize there identity being an American citizen. Overall, generations and diasporas are going to differ because of this desire to assert and its own ethnic roots. Radhakrishnan cautions his reader not to allow nostalgia or pride to become essentialism. For example, the perception that there exists a single, “pure” form of any particular culture.…