Racism in America

Racism

“The prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races” [wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn]

Charles Darwin’s Thinking on Race

"I could show fight on natural selection [evolution] having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit.... The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world."

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time, the anthropomorphous apes [man-apes] . . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro [sic] or Australian and the gorilla.

Edwin G. Conklin, Professor of Biology at Princeton University from 1908 to 1933.Comparison of any modern race with the Neanderthal or Heidelberg types shows that all have changed, but probably the negroid races more closely resemble the original stock [apes?] than the white or yellow races. Every consideration should lead those who believe in the superiority of the white race to strive to preserve its purity and to establish and maintain the segregation of the races, for the longer this is maintained, the greater the preponderance of the white race will be.

Henry Fairfield Osborn - professor of biology and zoology at Columbia

University (1908-1933)The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolians, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characteristics . . . but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old-youth of the species Homo Sapiens.

Examples of Racism[Pre-Civil War]

1. Ownership of land as a voting restriction

2. Sale and ownership of slaves

3. Tacit acceptance of slavery

4. Treatment of Native Americans

5. Lynching

Examples of Racism[Post-Civil War]

Lynching

Used as a method of intimidation by the politically dominant to maintain the status quo.

Nearly 5,000 African Americans were lynched in the United States between 1860 and 1890

Between 1882 and 1968, the Tuskegee Institute recorded 1,293 lynchings of whites. Many were Southern Republicans who sympathized with blacks.

Jim Crow Laws (1876-1965)These laws were passed by state legislatures that had been “reclaimed” by Southern Democrats. They discriminated against African Americans (and others) with regard to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were also segregated and in many states marriage between whites and African American people was prohibited.

When legally challenged (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896) the result was that “separate but equal” was legal.

State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

City of Birmingham, Alabama: 1951

U. S. Military segregation

Starting with King Philip's War (1675-1676), blacks fought and died alongside whites in an integrated environment in the North American colonies. They continued to fight in every American war integrated with whites up until the War of 1812. They would not fight in integrated units again until the Korean War (1950).

Job and Housing Discrimination

Segregation, particularly in public housing, continued into the 1960’s

Professional sports segregationAgainst non-white players, non-white coaches and non-white owners]

• Baseball: Jackie Robinson/Brooklyn/1947• Basketball: Chuck Cooper/Celtics 1950• Hockey: Willie O’Ree (1958)• Football: The APFA (American Prof. Football

Assoc.) had black players (13 total from 1920-1933). It’s successor, the NFL had none until after WWII.

Sports Names and Symbols

Redskins, Chiefs, Warriors, etc. • Some teams have names that have (had) no

racial connotation, but by association the name became unpopular: Frisco, Texas “‘Coons” (Racoons)

• Some names were racist from the beginning and have been changed: Pekin, Illinois “Chinks”, now the “Dragons”

Chief Wahoo(Cleveland Indians)

Pekin Chinks

Internment of Japanese during WWII

Advertising

Frito Bandito

Hawaiian Punch

Music: Rap"Niggas in the church say: kill whitey all night long. . . the white man is the devil. . . the CRIPS and Bloods are soldiers I'm recruiting with no dispute; drive-by shooting on this white genetic mutant. . . let's go and kill some rednecks. . . Menace Clan ain't afraid. . . I got the .380; the homies think I'm crazy because I shot a white baby; I said; I said; I said: kill whitey all night long. . . a nigga dumping on your white a__; f___ this rap s___, nigga, I'm gonna blast. . . I beat a white boy to the mother_____ ground";

"Kill Whitey"; --Menace Clan, Da Hood, 1995, Rap-A-Lot Records, Noo Trybe Records, subsidiaries of what was called Thorn EMI and now is called The EMI Group, United Kingdom.

Cartoons, etc.

“Southern Fried Rabbit”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8D93Awa434

“Jungle Jitters”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4VySRGoJTY

“All This and Rabbit Stew”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUw9ZqD49A8

Still Happening

See Also:

Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSZIzGQMAn8

• http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/