Category: Homework

To what degree do participants in the Whiteness Project and participants in the Blackness Project agree about the ways race figures in their lives? In what ways do they experience race in their lives?

Of course, with the shared topic of race in both projects cover a lot of the same ground. An example of this is the two interviewees Barbara (Blackness) and Carson (Whiteness). Both talk about self-worth and how race undermines it. Barbara talks about how “Race has really been a construct that has been manufactured and we don’t talk about that. This is part of the issue of not talking about race, is not understanding of where the concept of race comes from and how it’s been manipulated and how we’ve been manipulated to buy into it and to accept it as a valuable way in which to identify ourselves.” And Carson echoes this sentiment in “It’s hard to know that I will be given more because of who I am. And it makes me want to call into question my merit.” Now Barbara is referring to African Americans while Carson is talking about his own merit. This show scar of how the system of slavery affect people goes deep and affect how people see and value them selfs. When intuition bias is a factor in how people hire it can call into question whether the employee of that intuition meet the stands they need or they were the right color.

 

What views do participants in the Whiteness Project and participants in the Blackness Project have about how institutions of power act about race in our society?

The Blackness Project talks a lot more about institutions from the past and their effects on the present. An example “For 200 years being told you’re not even a person maybe 2/3’s of a person and then you’re told well that the tables are set against you. it’s never been a leveled playing field and that’s stupid too. Anyone who thinks the only way to get out is to put someone below me, that dismisses all of us but they. don’t know that yet.” Lakeisha. Again, like in the last question, we see a far broader application of race. While the Whiteness project tends to focus on the individual and their experiences with race. The struggle and how it changes depending on who you are and where you’re from. Can change drastic if  “Taken advantage of the fact that I was white and and you know I always kind of knew that if I got in trouble that I could just get a lawsuit up show up and you know is a slap on the wrist I would be in jail if I wasn’t white you know I’ve been arrested probably over 20 times and you know the only thing I have on my record to show for it is is a public intoxication and they have there been some Hefty drug possession charges and I’ve never served time I sold drugs you know I did what I wanted to do know that there was going to be absolutely no consequences.” Connor.  Now this is likely this is due to the different formats as the whiteness project is individual interviews will the blackness project is a long-form documentary with interviews interspersed.

 

As we think about ways, we could work towards ending racism, what should your readers think about the similarities and differences you’ve noticed. How do the insights you’ve generated help us understand why racism (and the inequities it justifies) persists and what hints about how to end racism do they offer us?

The prime thing that’s keeping please going right now is probably economic inequality and geographic separation. Both of these ideas’ kind of factor into each other you know poor people of color will we stuck in urban areas. While poor white people tend to be spread out across rural areas. People are just stuck in their own little bubbles they need to be moved around and given economic opportunities. It’s like how you need to keep water moving with enclosed marine systems to aerate the water and allow things to live and thrive. I believe that more should be done with these concepts as they seem to have yielded interesting perspectives into how people think and respond to race that could be crucial towards either reconciling it with people or out and out eliminate it.

The deep story in blackness project tells a group of people who have been divided and exploited. The systems in which these statuses were inflicted upon maybe long gone but there are effects still linger. In the form of economic and social inequality. These issues are talked about in detail in a response to the Whiteness project called the Blackness project. Unlike the whiteness project, the blackness project takes the form of a full-length documentary. Now it makes it clear within the first few minutes of the film that this is not an antagonistic response but as part of a continued dialogue between people. “What we’re having now with the whiteness project and this; this is a good form regardless of what brought us where we need to be here we need to start having these conversations to kind of make ourselves more comfortable, understanding, umm the different dynamics of people not just black, white, or you know whatever it might be, we’re people first.” Zereta.  It does well to serve as an interesting mirror into the other side of this. As it allows for a true exchange of information on ideas and how people see the world. this allows for genuine Interchange of his perspective and widens people’s field of view to issues that they may not have paid attention to before. Provides hope that maybe unlike others that have come before us we can use technology to have a definitive conversation and change. Other people in the blackness project describe frustration that Who is still having the same conversation “Having watched the whiteness project, I felt frustration. I felt frustrated because it’s a clear indication that we are still having the exact same conversation we were having when I was a child. And because I’m 64 years old, that can be quite disconcerting.” Lorna. Issues of race are not just going to disappear in an instant A couple of conversations it’s the understanding that is fostered in those conversations that allow you to slowly but surely degrade the viewpoints which keep it alive. This reminds me of something that was brought up in the documentary was only in a still photo It was the new story from CNN where Trump had called for the reduction or outright cancellation of migrants from quote-unquote shithole countries and the implication of this is that the error within these countries and why they’re bad is the “paint” in the painting and not the framing of the painting or the strokes made with the paint that is making it bad. That it’s not the strokes that are being made Put the paint itself that is destructive to painting and it’s this idea that holds us back from making it knew beautiful American painting with all the colors that represent us an all the strokes that make us equal and balanced. but it’s the problem of someone like him to decide what color should be in that painting that certain colors make the painting worse and this does not only stem from a lack of perspective, but it lacks creative thought into how this issue could be remedied in the matter of as to allow them to enter the painting. I said it just simply easier for him to say the paint is the problem and that’s why I’m leaving it out. Let us not forget that is it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools who blames what he’s given. He blames the painting saying that it’s the colors that he has to work with that are the problem and not his lack of perspective on how these colors could work in concert.

First thing I want to talk about is I Spent 5 Years with Some of Trump’s Biggest Fans. This article really got me out of my bubble, let me explain. For the longest time I’ve believed in an idea that people we live in bubbles. Within these bubbles’ reality exists that makes sense of the people who live in it. most bubbles you choose to live in but there are some which contain other bubbles like Venn diagrams. To this end all humans live in the bubble of humanity, or the basest line personification of human thought an experience. Therefore, it’s impossible to not live in a bubble and I’m no person who doesn’t. So, when it comes to myself, I find that I go into a very left of center political bubble or the bubble that consists people who think there left of center but are just a bunch of socialists who can’t commit to anything. So, hearing about these people’s political beliefs and their justification to why they believe in what they believe in Made me must take a real look at what I believed in politically and how they interpreted their surroundings and how at times I could relate to their feelings of shame in taking help. Knowing you need help and two-way subconscious degree are weak can can eat you up inside. A paradoxically makes you not like getting help even though you need it. Also just like in that article the different sources of where you get help from matter in the shame you feel by taking it. “A devoted Christian, Sharon’s mother believed in a generous church. But government benefits were a very different story. Taking them meant you’d fallen and weren’t proudly trying to rise back up.” Arlie Russell Hochshild. I vividly remember getting help from the teacher was fine but getting help from the assistant teacher who worked in the resource room it was bad. Because it would highlight how so you’re in the room that gets a very broad spectrum of children who have learning disabilities together. Do you know if I was born somewhere else would I still get the help that I needed to succeed? If I were born somewhere else would I have succeeded as much as I have so far? a similar sentiment is echoed by one of the people in the whiteness project I believe his name is Cameron. He says “R.D: “Again, I must call into question just how much of that is really coming from hard work and the grit. How much of it is because of the color of my skin, how much of that is handed to me?”. Then when you get down to it you really can only think about this you never will truly you there is no sign that you accomplished anything on your own. I think to a point that idea can get a bit ridiculous at times, but he does have major questions within it. For example, mostly your childhood is your parents doing and there’s no real shame in getting help from them as you grow but at a certain point it is expected of you to separate. And schools it environment where there supposed to get the first taste of your own hard work producing fruit but even then it’s not your own hard work it’s the work of your teachers who are teaching. So how much is really your effort of course you at the point effort into school in order to be successful but Are the ratios figured then we’d like them to be?

How do economics shape the feelings and thinking of the people Hochschild profiles, especially their feelings and thinking about race, immigration, welfare, and other political issues?

I understand the shame of getting help. I understand how it feels when you must go the rely on others so you could do what needs to be done. Some days I like to pretend that I’ve overcome my days of needing help and having people work with me. Shame to the point where you remove vectors which can help you and other. Maybe I haven’t experienced it in a way that makes you angry I can recall several times not getting help when I should have biting me in the ass. That makes you the kind that makes you want everything that reminds you that you are weak to not exist. when I started reading this, I didn’t get how communities that use the services could have such a visceral hatred. I knew people who are not so enthusiastic about welfare and a large government apparatus but, to the extent of getting rid of stuff that helping. This isn’t just like oh I got to write in English paper tomorrow. This is if I don’t have food stamps, I’m going to starve. I severely lack the perspective to even understand this. Just reading this quote like fries my brain. “Sharon was a giving person, but she wanted to roll back government help. It was hard supporting her kids and being a good mom too. Managing the trailer park had called on her grit, determination, even hardness—which she regretted. She mused, “Having to cope, run the trailer court, even threaten to shoot a dog”—her tenant’s pet had endangered children—” it’s hardened me, made me act like a man. I hate that. It’s not really me.” There was a price for doing the right and necessary thing, invisible, she felt, to many liberals.” ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD. She’s not being incoherent it’s just that I guess that I’ve been living in such a different bubbled in her that it’s hard for me to understand.

 

How does the gap between male lives at the top and male lives at the bottom relate to the idea (from “The Invention of Race”) that US slavery depended on a multi-class coalition of whiteness?

The gap between multi white guys on the top poor white guys on the bottom you know maybe at some point was smaller than it was today but I will never understand why their allies cause it seems like the rich guys get more out of the relationship then the white guys and it feels a lot more like a remnant of another time when he was much easier to align their interests but that’s just me talking. Maybe they benefited more than I see.  “And what did that do? It switched their allegiance from the people in their same circumstance to the people at the top. It eventually created a multi-class coalition of people who would later come to be called white. It created a multi-class coalition. So, this was a divide and conquer strategy. It was completely brilliant.” Suzanne

 

Do you recognize any elements of the “Deep Story of Personal Protectionism” in the Whiteness Project videos we’ve been analyzing? If so, describe and explain at least two of them, being sure to indicate who is saying what and how prevalent each element is in our spreadsheet. Are there any other “Deep Stories” at play in the Whiteness Project videos? If so, what would you call them?

From where I am right now, I can’t really see any connections. I’m trying to see the connection now I can see the overall connections, but I can’t see on something that’s good to write about. I can see the general overlap with you know the people in these communities being predominantly white and the whiteness project being about people who are predominantly white, but I can’t really see the good connective tissue that really works in there.

The invention of races is part of a radio broadcast series their talks about how race came to be within the United States. This specific broadcast focuses on the direct origins within US society. like a lot of things, the United States the first kind of separation between white Europeans and Africans Was started by European specifically Portuguese propagandist for the Portuguese crown.  the documentation of the local groups where Portugal was acquiring their slaves from where deliberately made to sound barbaric to justify the enslavement of the people. The second thing I learned was one of the first instances of perpetual servitude in the United States was a man by the name of John Punch. John punch was a former indentured servant who ran away from his master with two other men the other men were a Dutchman a Scotsman and got off with extended servitude sentences. While John punch was sentenced with perpetual servitude to his former master. I also learned how slavery was used to placate the lower classes in terms of the wealthier parts of society. It proved a cheap source of labor implicated those in the lower rung of society above the slaves. It’s really shaped how I view prevents like the civil war and slavery. like how I used to think that people supported the civil war in the S because of objectionable morals but now I’ve come to see it as a trick. Convincing people who are state rights wall it was just to keep their bottom lines intact.

What vision of the future has academics and scholars pinned on Hawaii’s high-rate of intermarriage? On what facts and hopes have they based this vision? In Olson’s view, how likely is their vision of a racially-mixed future to be accurate?

In the essay The End of Race: Hawaii and The Mixing of People by Steve Olson it talks about the growing high level of intermarriage and racial mixing within Hawaii and the USA at large. The hope is that this leads to the steaded erosion of race as a divider within society,  but the paper is cautious to say that this will definitively end to racism.  On this note, Steve says “Despite the high rate of intermarriage here, ethnic and racial tensions haven’t really disappeared. They have changed into something else. Something less threatening, perhaps, but still divisive. Hawaii may well be a harbinger of a racially mixed future. But it won’t be the future many people expect.” Pra11

 

What are the implications for “ethnic thinking” of recent genetic research showing that “every group is a mixture of many previous groups, a fleeting collection of genetic variants drawn from a shared genetic legacy” (253)?

Ethnic Thinking is a type of thinking that forms, when groups of share geographical area develop a, hated between each other. These people are not very genetical different. “The antagonists in these conflicts have different ethnicities, but they have been so closely linked biologically throughout history that they have not developed marked physical differences.”  Pra12.

What should we make of Rose’s description on pp. 13-18 of his family house and the mixed-race, mixed-ethnicity South Los Angeles neighborhood he grew up in? Try to capture both Rose’s emotional feelings about the places he grew up and the objective dangers he very casually suggests he faced there. Compare Rose’s experiences of his home and neighborhood to Coates’s.

the neighborhood was a result of Economic straits which Take people from all different walks of life and put them all one place. Nobody chooses to be in this neighborhood everybody’s there by necessity or worse and some people are mad. Mad that economic and social circumstances have relegated them to this place. Mad that in a lot drawing they weren’t even they were shoved into a pit of poverty. That makes people violent and hungry for what little power they can accumulate.

 

At the end of this long segment on his parents immigration and work experiences and his boyhood growing up in a mixed-race, mixed-ethnicity neighborhood in South Los Angeles, Rose writes that he “developed a picture of human existence that rendered it short and brutish or sad and aimless or long and quiet…. When, years later, I was introduced to humanistic psychologists…, with their visions of self actualization…., it all sounded like a glorious fairy tale, a magical account of a world full of possibility, full of hope and empowerment. Sinbad and Cinderella couldn’t have been more fanciful” (p. 18).

I guess it’s talking about how he lived in the situation that people idealize has a cauldron of adversity that forges strength but rarely remember about the people who are still stuck in the cauldron. People keep glorifying it but it is still a truly bad place to grow up.

Coates writes that “laws of school” were “aimed at something distant and vague” (p. 25). Pull together material from throughout the section of the reading to explain what precisely (and there’s more than one thing) the laws of schools were aimed at.

The Place that you supposed to be a process of enlightened yourself. It’s supposed to take you from who you are to who you want to be, but in the neighborhood, it is a far dream. It is a system that does not help them but chained them by the right leg.

 

Coates emphasizes the role of reading and writing played in his life in at least two different places in this segment. Pull together that material and explain Coates’s commitment to reading and writing. What adult figures were important to him as he learned to read and write for his own purposes?

On pages 26 and 29 two strong connection to writing and reading can be found. On page 26 Shows a connection to reading as he recalled something, he read in college a few lines from something in reading before he dropped out.  “Ecstasy, coke you say you love its poison. Schools are where I learn they should be burned its poison”. This quote feeds back into how he saw school as the shackle on the right foot and how it fits in with the other idea that the streets are the left shackle.  On page 29 he talks about how his grandmother told him how to write in the way school didn’t teach him how to emphasize the importance of his family in this time of his life that how it wasn’t the institutions that were supposed to help him.  it was the people around him.

 

What evidence does Coates give for his assertion that the American Dream is built on the destruction of black bodies? You’ll need to pull together quotes from multiple locations in the reading to answer this question fully.

 

I can see where he’s coming from on that front, but I think that saying that all of America’s wealth is due to the foundation built upon slavery Is a tad unrealistic. now I’m not going to deny that a lot of the wealth during especially the 19^th Century. The South producing the cotton and the North manufacturing that cotton and into cloth for sale to European nations, but despite my condescension’s it undeniable that the oppression of people of color in this nation. And that on equitable practices have been thrust upon them which have led to an almost perpetual system of poverty and inequality. But these practices were extensively done because racial hatred of course some of them did benefit economically from it, because it isn’t human if it isn’t going to befitting off the misery of others.