UCSD Immigration and Social Movements in The 1960s 1970s Discussion Questions

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Name________________________ Journal #4 – Post-1965 Immigration & Social Movements in the 1960s-1970s Take copious notes on these film clips and readings. Then, give thoughtful responses to the following questions for each film/reading selection. For each question, bring in analysis from our weekly readings. “No Mas Bebes” (Film) 1. How did the doctors make sure they legally had ‘consent’ to sterilize the women? 2. What is the argument of the legal team representing the women, and how does it differ from what the former Head of Gynecology (Dr. Quilligan) says? 3. Explain the patient interactions with doctors, and some of what the doctor’s perceptions of these Mexican women was 4. How was “The Population Bomb” (book) influential for having children, and population control? 5. How are the stories of Mexicans the same as the stories of Black women, and poor white women, with regard to how they obtained ‘consent’ for sterilization? 1 6. What role does eugenics (think of what we have discussed earlier in this course) and the “Burden” play in the sterilizations 7. What were the reactions of doctors who were residents at the time? Do they take responsibility? 8. What is the responsibility of modern day physicians, understanding the lived experiences of women of color who have been harmed historically? “Latino Americans – Episode 4: The New Latinos” 9. Moreno in West Side Story and using her personal experience while acting on set 10. How were Puerto Rican ‘threats’ to society used to vilify the whole population in America? 11. Literacy tests keeping people from voting “The Women Behind White Power” 2 12. What roles did women play in maintaining segregation? 13. What is significant about the role of women in maintaining supremacy in the South? 14. How might the history be remembered now, if there is an equal focus on the role of both men and women in the resistance against racial equality? “Jackson Public Schools” 15. Comment on the students setting up students of color to feel unwelcome in class 16. What reasons might Black families be scared to send their children to integrated schools? 17. How much was spent on students, based on race, in Jackson in 1962? How does that affect the quality of education? 18. What hegemonic issues affect these schools modern day? 3 “What’s Your Emergency?” 19. How do the women making calls to the police justify their behavior, to themselves and to the public upon the backlash? What is significant about that? 20. In what ways does this removal of Black bodies from space relate to the removal of Indigenous bodes from space? 21. Comment on the direct racist language used by Duncan in her “hunting” video; why is that ‘hunt’ culturally relevant to the experience of the victim’s ancestors? “The Myth of the Model Minority” 22. Explain what the “model minority” stereotype is and why it’s harmful 23. How does the trope of the model minorities cause issue with other minorities? What is the implication if you are not the “model”? 4 24. Describe what are considered advantages for people who emigrate from Asia to the United States? 25. What type of issues do disadvantaged Southeast Asians face in America? “The Emergence of Yellow Power” 26. How does Uyematsu say Asians have tried to transform themselves in the process of Americanization? 27. Explain how she says Asians are stereotyped, and how they have responded to that categorization “The Cult of the Country Boy” 28. Describe what style Elvis embraced, and why it was important at the time 29. The role of American suburbia, and who belonged and who did not 5 30. Explain the imagery behind ‘trailer park’, ‘vermin’, and those labeled ‘trash’ 31. What threat did integration pose for people like Hazel Bryan? 32. How does the southern stereotype lend to imagery surrounding the ‘trash’? Jim Crow Guide, “Chapter 9” (Forced Labor) 33. Explain how much the forced laborer has to work, and analyze where the ideologies of their work load stem from 34. Elaborate on the concept of ‘debt slavery’ and explain the issues with it 6 35. What role does forced labor take on the entire victimized family? “I Am Not Your Negro” (Film) 36. What reason does Baldwin say is why Whites are preoccupied with the “Negro problem”? 37. What does Baldwin say is the root of hatred for Black Men, and for White Men 38. Explain the double standard for heroism in America 39. What do you learn about the American sense of reality by entertainment on television? 40. How has the American dream failed? How do you think it can be remedied? 7 CHAPTER 9 Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. WHO ARE SUBJECT TO FORCED LABOUR A DARK skin is just enough to deprive you of a job-and then get you punished for being jobless. Although there is nothing whatever in the u.s. Constitution guaranteeing the right to work, all of the 48 states have so-called vagrancy laws making it a criminal offence to be without work. This, in spite of the fact that there is what the business community politely refers to as a "normal float" of from three to five million unemployed -a job shortage which increases periodically to as much as fifteen million. In practice, however, this seeming anomaly does not work a double hardship on the great majority of fair-skinned Americans, inasmuch as the vagrancy laws are enforced mainly against dark-skinned Americans -Negroes, Mexican-Americans, American Indians, gipsies, and others. Part-time employment is not always regarded as a good excuse-in some places you can be convicted of vagrancy unless you work more than half of the time. Of course if you can establish the fact that you have funds you may loaf all you wish, as persons of means are specifically exempted by the vagrancy laws. In short, it is against the law to be unemployed and broke if you are able-bodied and without means of support. True, when the states of California and Florida during the depression of the 1930S closed their borders to indigents, the Supreme Court overruled them, saying: "The mere state of being without funds is a Constitutional irrelevancy." This judicial observation has not been brought to bear on vagrancy laws, however, which have indeed been held Constitutional. On their face, the laws of course say nothing about race. Moreover, one must be on the lookout for police action undertaken without regard to any law. In a great many places in the U.S.A.-especially expensive resort and residential areas-the police operate what is Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. 132 JIM CROW GUIDE TO THE U.S.A. popularly known as the "Hobo Express". Should you find yourself broke and unemployed in such a place, and look it, you may be picked up by the police and given a free ride to the city limits or county line, where you will be deposited and warned not to return. Negroes have composed a folksong about the omnipresent prospect of being charged with vagrancy, which goes like this: Standin' on the comer, Waitin' for my brown; First thing 1 knowed 1 was jailhouse bound. 1 asked Mr. Police "Won't you tum me loose?" 1 said, "1 got no money, But a good excuse." Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. And then 1 heard Judge Pickett say, "Forty-five dollarsOr take him away'" Wish that mean old Judge was dead, And green grass growin' All over his head' Pursuits not Recognized The crime of vagrancy is regarded as a continuing one, which means you can be sent to jail over and over again on the same charge, just as long as you remain broke and unemployed. At the same time, the vagrancy laws list a variety of occupations and avocations as being as bad or worse than unemployment. Of course, if you are a person of wealth you may engage in any or all of these pursuits, and be as idle as you wish, without fear of prosecution for vagrancy. In most states the penalty for persons convicted of vagrancy is a fine ranging from so to 100 dollars, and/or a 3o-day sentence, usually on a public work gang. In Arkansas the law specifies that vagrancy fines shall be worked out at the archaic rate of a dollar a day. Throughout the South, vagrancy laws have taken the place of the Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. WHO ARE SUBJECT TO FORCED LABOUR 133 Black Codes enlarged by the white planters shortly after the Civil War with a view to keeping Negroes in a state of semi-slavery. These Black Codes imposed an annual head-tax which the white planters frequently paid for delinquent Negroes, who were then required to work it out. Special laws rigidly bound Negro apprentices to their white "employers", and still other laws made the slightest deviation from a labour contract-on the part of a Negro labourer, share-cropper, or tenant farmer-prima facie evidence of fraud. Federal anti-peonage laws enacted in 1875 to free the Indians of New Mexico from peonage had the added effect of nullifying much of the Black Codes. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. Twenty Varieties of Vagrants It was then that many Southern states resorted to vagrancy laws, which they copied almost verbatim from New England states. Unless you happen to be a very poor white share-cropper or migratory farm-worker, you may well rejoice that most (not all) white Americans have been emancipated from involuntary servitude. It was not always thus. The historian J. B. McMaster has written of the white European emigres who became indentured servants to pay for their passage to America: "They became in the eyes of the law a slave and in both the civil and criminal code were classed with the Negro slave and the Indian . . . and might be flogged as often as the master or mistress thought necessary." Contemporary observers of that period opined that slavery was the natural condition of "proletarian whites from Germany and Ireland". Nor were native-born whites entirely exempt. A writer of 1793 recorded how some white parents in Pennsylvania were obliged to "sell and trade away their children like so many head of cattle". Nowadays, the vagrancy laws remain as a heritage from that bygone era. The Florida law is typically comprehensive, listing the following varieties of vagrants (quote) : 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Rogues and vagabonds. Idle or dissolute persons who go about begging. Common gamblers. Persons who use juggling, or unlawful games or plays. Common pipers and fiddlers. Common drunkards. Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. 134 JIM CROW GUIDE TO THE U. S. A. 7. Common night-walkers. 8. Thieves. 9. Pilferers. 10. Traders in stolen property. II. Lewd, wanton, and lascivious persons. 12. Keepers of gambling places. 13. Common railers and brawlers. 14. Persons who neglect their calling or employment, or are without reasonably continuous employment or regular income and who have not sufficient property to sustain them and misspend what they earn without providing for themselves or the support of their families. IS. Persons wandering or strolling about from place to place without any lawful purpose or object. 16. Habitual loafers. 17. Idle and disorderly persons. 18. Persons neglecting all lawful business and habitually spending their time by frequenting houses of ill fame, gaming houses, or tippling shops. 19. Persons able to work but habitually living upon the earnings of their wives or minor children. 20. All able-bodied, male persons over the age of 18 years who are without means of support and remain in idleness. Ifyou fall into one or more of the above categories-and particularly if in addition you are nonwhite-you might be charged with vagrancy almost anywhere in the U.S.A. as the laws of the various states are very similar. In a few states, however, there are variations worthy of note. In South Carolina, the following categories are added to the more common forms of vagrancy: I. All suspicious persons going about the country, swapping and bartering horses (without producing a certificate ofhis or their good character signed by a magistrate of the county from which said person last came). 2. All persons who, occupying or being in possession of some piece of land, shall not cultivate such a quantity thereof as shall be deemed by the magistrate to be necessary for the maintenance of himself and his family. 3. All persons representing publicly for gain or reward. without Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. WHO ARB SUBJBCT TO FORCBD LABOUR I3S being fully licensed, any play, comedy, tragedy, interlude or farce, or other entertainment of the stage, or any part thereof. 4. All sturdy beggars. In Virginia, the vagrancy law is also aimed at: I. All persons who shall unlawfully return into any county or corporation whence they have been legally removed. 2. All persons who shall come from any place without this Commonwealth to any place within it and shall be found loitering and residing therein, and shall follow no labor, trade, occupation, or business, and have no visible means of subsistence, and can give no reasonable account of themselves or their business in such place. Are you sure you can give a reasonable account of yourself? Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. Debt Slavery "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction", says the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Sounds good, but look out! "Peonage or debt slavery has by no means disappeared from our land", the Georgia Baptist Convention warned more than half a century later. "There are more white people involved in this diabolical practice than there were slaveholders. There are more Negroes held by these debt-slavers than were actually owned as slaves before the war between the states. The method is the only thing that has changed." The modem method consists on the one hand of the companyowned commissary-a common feature of the turpentine and lumber camps of the South and the cotton plantations of the South and Southwest. In these establishments, commonly referred to as "robbersaries", the "employees" are obliged to obtain their food and other basic necessities of life at exorbitant prices which keep them perpetually in debt and preclude their receiving cash wages for their work. At the same time, this private enterprise system has the support of lawenforcement agencies, who bring to bear the vagrancy and so-called fraud laws, so that the only escape for the debt slave is into a prison camp or convict work gang. True, the Thirteenth Amendment and the Federal anti-peonage law have been in existence more than three-quarters of a century. Also Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. 136 JIM CROW GUIDB TO THB U.S.A. true, the Supreme Court bas ruled that "The state must respect the Constitutional and statutory command that it may not make a failure to labor in discharge of a debt any part of a crime. It may not directly or indirectly command involuntary servitude, even if it was voluntarily contracted for." But, like many another basic law and court ruling, these have been rendered virtual dead letters through the reluctance of u.s. law enforcement agencies to institute criminal prosecutions under them. Only once or twice in each decade, when some spectacular case finds its way into the public eye, does the Justice Department stir itself in this field. Even then the effect is limited to the individual case concerned, leaving the system itself unaffected. In 19SI the United Nations established an Ad Hoc Committee on Porced Labour, consisting of three members. Such a Committee was proposed by America, the U.N. rejecting a Soviet counter-proposal for a broad committee representative of the organized labour movement of the world. The three-man Committee proceeded to hold hearings, taking volumes of testimony relative to conditions in communist countries. In reply to a Committee questionnaire, the U.s. State Department declared: "The United States Constitution and laws contain effective safeguards against the existence of such forced labor. The United States, therefore, has no penal or administrative laws, regulations, or administrative rules or practices pertinent to the Committee's in.. " qwnes. The Committee accepted this assertion at face value, together with similar representations received from certain other countries having colonial possessions in Africa, Asia, and South America. A hearing was held, however, in New York for the announced purpose of taking testimony relative to conditions in the Western Hemisphere. When it was further announced that the hearing was about to be adjourned for lack of any evidence, the author of this present work felt moved to send the Committee an offer of evidence. The offer was publicly made, and accepted. Although the author had lived all his life in a region where forced labour camps abound, he set out with a magnetoband recorder to penetrate the camps and bring out fresh evidence. Getting into the camps was not easy; it was necessary to tell the bosses that the purpose of the expedition was to record folksongs. But when the songs had been recorded and the bosses had gone away, the Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. WHO ARE SUBJECT TO FORCED LABOUR 137 real business began. Upon being told the purpose of the interviews, the debt slaves spoke freely into the microphone. "They can't do no more than kill us," a turpentine worker at Fruit Cove, Florida, said. "I have heard a few of the old men say the only way out is to die out, but 1 have also heard it said that the truth shall make you free!" The sordid tales unfolded hour after hour on to the tonebandlynching, flogging, rape, the castor-oil treatment. There was scarcdy a man or woman who had not personally fdt the bosses' lash. With such horrors associated with life in the slave labour camps, one may wonder how it is that people are forced into them. The principal factor is starvation. The fact that Negroes are "last hired and first fired" serves to drive many unemployed workers into sdling themsdves and their families into slavery. Inflation in the slave market has led to cash advances as high as 500 dollars being offered to some skilled workers. Ordinarily, however, 25 dollars or less will do the trick. The professional "labor recruiter" is in many respects a twentiethcentury counterpart of the slave-traders of old. Turpentine camp operators, for example, pay recruiters something like 5 dollars per head for every single man, and 10 dollars for each family brought in. Joe Hall, who operates a fleet of seven trucks in which he transports hundreds of Negro men, women, and children back and forth between Florida and Pennsylvania as the harvest demands, is a typical labour recruiter. In this traffic he has the active co-operation of the U.S. Employment Service. He tells this agency that he charges no transportation fees-and then proceeds to assess each worker 10 dollars. Obtaining recruits by painting rosy word pictures of the wages to be earned, he generally pays only half of the promised rate, works them under a gun, houses them in a barn, and feeds them on beans after assessing them 5 dollars per week for board. When his workers seek to escape, as they did at Ulysses, Pennsylvania, K.K.K. fiery crosses are burned. When this fails to work, Hall has the escapees arrested. "Don't you know they can't make you work against your will in satisfaction of a debt?" the author asked a group of forced labourers at Mandarin, Florida. "They do do it," was their bitter reply. The alternative to working out a debt with the company or planter is to work it out with the county prison-to "chain-gang it". From the workers' point of view, there is not much choice. Though the chain-gang sentence at "hard labor" may be at the rate of as little as Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. 138 JIM CROW GUIDE TO THE U.S.A. one day for each 50 cents he is said to owe, at least the worker knows there will eventually be an end of it, whereas the private "employer" may conspire to keep him perpetually in bondage. Comer-stone of the forced labour system is the company commissary. There are some 4,200 members ofthe National Industrial Stores Association, and their commissaries do a 1,000,000,000 dollar business every year. Symbolic of the compulsion to buy and the compulsion to pay is the toe of a lynched Negro, kept as a "souvenir" on a commissary counter near Hendersonville, North Carolina. Asked whether he would personally take part in the lynching of a Negro, the manager replied slowly, "No, no. I wouldn't-not unless he owed me money." The fare afforded by the commissary is extremely limited, consisting of a few canned goods, meal, flour, dried beans, and salted or smoked pork fat. Fresh vegetables, meat, fruit, eggs, milk and butter are virtually unheard o£ One Negro turpentine worker at Kansas City, Florida, when asked how often fresh meat was available in his camp, replied, "Neither weekly nor yearly." Another, relatively lucky, said that his camp at Moniak, Georgia, offered the workers a choice each weekend of "pig ears, pig tails, or pig feet". Needless to say, such a diet gives rise to all kinds of dietary diseases, such as rickets and pellagra. Medical attention is almost never available in the camps, the workers being forced to rely upon home remedies and self-medication. In many camps the bosses will not tolerate any degree of illness as an excuse for not working. At the lumber mill camp operated by McDuffie Stallworth at Pineapple, Alabama, any worker who complains of illness is forcibly given two bottles of castor oil-and made to work, anyway. Childbearing almost never takes place in a hospital and only rarely is there a doctor in attendance-the woman is lucky if she can obtain the services of a midwife. The death-rate among both mothers and infants at childbirth is many times higher among these workers than with the American population generally. Home life in the slave labour camps is a living hell. The companyowned shacks almost always have leaky roofs; if there are any windows at all, they are protected neither by screens nor glass. Sometimes the cracks in the walls are so large that, as one worker described it, "You can see almost as much of the outside from inside the house as you could if you went out the door." Migratory farm workers frequently are forced to live in even worse "housing", constructed of pieces of tin and cardboard cartons. Flies and vermin of all sorts spread diseases, which take a heavy toll. Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. WHO ARB SUBJBCT TO FORCED LABOUR 139 In the slave labour camps the mandatory work day lasts from "can to can't"-from "can see to can't see", or in other words, from before dawn until dark. It is one of the woman's duties to wake her husband, feed him, and have him ready to go to work at the appointed hour. If she fails in this, the penalties are often severe. For example, it is the custom of Murray Holloway, the woods-rider for the Cordele Turpentine Company at Cordele, Georgia, to ride through the Negro quarters about 4.30 every moming, shouting for the workers to clamber upon his truck to be driven into the woods. If a Manis not ready when called, Holloway may beat the man, and his wife too. For instance, he beat Cleo adom for not having given her husband breakfast soon enough, and when her husband Joe protested, Holloway knocked him unconscious with a club. The work, too, is often hazardous. In the turpentine industry, for example, the American operators finally adopted a technique developed by the Soviet Union for increasing the flow of sap by spraying the tree gashes with sulphuric acid. But in the U.S.A., no protection from the acid is provided for the workers who apply it. In St.John's County, Florida, the author came across a worker who is called "Red Eye" because the acid has nearly destroyed his eyesight. "We even have to buy our own soda to put on our acid bums," he declared. It is often the woman's lot to be left with her children as "hostages", since virtually the only real route to escape from the bondage of debtslavery is for the husband to run away under cover of darkness, leaving his family and possessions behind as "security" to be held until such time as he may be able to procure a bona-fiJe job which will enable him. to save enough money to payoff whatever amount the planter asserts the family owes him. Sometimes the bosses call upon the sheriff or police to bring back runaway slave labourers. At Cross City, Florida, the author heard a boss telephone the sheriff and order him to post guards on all the roads leading out of the area to block the escape of a Negro who had left camp allegedly owing I S dollars. At this same camp, a worker told how the boss had killed workers for owing as little as S dollars, "and you would have to die, because he would kill you and make the other hands bury you out in the woods." Most often, the bosses strap pistols on their belts and go after runaways themselves. The authorities not only do not interfere in this Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. 140 JIM CROW GUIDE TO THE U.S.A. procedure, but obligingly grant the bosses permits to carry pistols. When this sort of "free enterprise" fails to "get its man", the bosses call on the hooded Ku Klux Klan for assistance in recapturing the runaways and terrorizing the rest of the workers. There is nothing at all subtle about the handling of runaways. For instance, when James Wiggins and his wife ran away from the plantation of J. S. Decker at Clarksdale, Mississippi, where they had been forced to work in the fields under a gun, they were brought back in chains and offered for sale for 175 dollars. Similarly, a lumber-mill operator of Lauderdale County, Mississippi, kept one of his Negro workers shackled to his bunk with a log-chain around his neck each night, to prevent him from running out on an alleged 2o-dollar debt. Here are just a few of the typical cases brought to light by the author. Charles Andrews dubbed with a pine-knot while another boss pointed a pistol at him. His offence: trying to escape from a labour camp near Bunnell, Florida. Roy Jackson given a "pistol whipping" by the boss of a turpentine camp at Cordele, Georgia. His offence: picking up a shirt which he thought had been discarded. Robert Graves, sawmill worker of Pineapple, Alabama, tied over a barrel and the "blood knocked out" with a piece of sawmill belt. His offence: leaving work to report, as ordered, to a military draft board. James Day, worker who escaped from the turpentine camp of William Belote at Moniak, Georgia. Day was forced to leave behind his four small children as hostages for a 200-dollar debt he was falsely said to owe. He appealed to the u.S. District Attomeyand the F.B.I. in Macon, to no avail. When he £ina1ly went into court to claim possession of his kidnapped children, he was thrown into jail on a charge of having abandoned them! The sheriff, accompanied by boss Belote, offered to release Day and forget about the alleged debt if Day would agree to go back to work at the turpentine camp. James Alford, who left his wife and two children as hostages for an alleged 3a-dollar debt at the camp ofColonel Dorsey at Cordele, Georgia. Colonel Dorsey jailed Alford's wife for refusing to tell where her husband had gone. Alford, who had found a job in Florida with a view to paying the 30 dollars andredaiming his wife and children, heard of the arrest and so returned to Cordele. Upon arrival he was jailed on a charge of vagrancy, even though he had proof of employment. In court he was sentenced to pay a fine of ISO dollars or serve 12 months at hard labour on the chain-gang. Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. WHO ARE SUBJECT TO FORCED LABOUR 141 Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. "You will jwt have to shoot me or electrocute me or do what you will," Alford told the judge, "but I can't serve 12 months becawe I have a wife and two children to take care o£" Colonel Dorsey and another white boss were in court, bidding for the privilege of paying Alford's fine in order to secure a slave labourer. The other man carried a paper bag full of money, but the judge awarded Alford to Colonel Dorsey, with orders to work out the full amount of 180 dollars on Dorsey's plantation. George Messenger and his wife Katherine, elderly white sharecroppers of Pensacola, Florida, were sentenced to seven years at hard labour in the Florida State Penitentiary for non-payment of an alleged $232.76 grocery debt contracted by their son-in-law. Their three young daughters were taken from them, placed in orphanages, and offered for adoption. Not content with the total exploitation of their slave labourers economically, many planters seek also to exploit their women slaves sexually. One of the most notorious cases was that in which a 3o-man K.K.K. firing squad executed two Negro war veterans, George Dorsey and Roger Malcolm and their wives, because one of the women had refused to sleep with the white planter for whom they were forced to share-crop. Many women are also held as domestic servants. Dora Jones, a 57-year-old Negro woman, testified that she had been forced to serve as maid to a white couple for 29 years without pay. In another case, Zenovia Selles, a 23-year-old Puerto Rican girl, was found crying on the streets of New York. She told of being brought in from Puerto Rico to work for an American family as a maid, and after three months had not been given any payment for her labour. In still another case, Albert S. Johnson, owner of a 2,00o-acre cotton plantation at Helena, Arkansas, was charged by his common-law wife Dosha Moon with forcing her and her three daughters to work for him under penalty of beating and death. And when Essie Lee Wright, a Negro girl, sought to escape from Johnson's plantation in a truck, Johnson shot the tyres off the truck, explaining to the authorities that she was "obligated to work for him". Such was the picture of domestic forced labour as the author found and recorded it. He was forced to conclude that at least one and a half million native-born Americans, exclusive of their families, were currently being held in forced labour. It was also discovered that ever Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. 142 JIM CROW GUIDB TO THB U.S.A. since the outbreak of World War II, the u.s. Government, at the behest of American planters, has permitted the importation of millions of farm-workers from nearby colonial and semi-colonial areas. The bulk of these are the so-called Mexican "wetbacks", so named because they swim across the Rio Grande River to enter the U.S.A. illegally, while U.S. border police look the other way. The President's Commission on Migratory Labour, in its Report issued in 1951, conceded that the great majority of these Mexican nationals are peonized on American plantations, with the connivance of governmental agencies. "Wetbacks who are without funds to pay the smuggler for bringing them in or to pay the trucker-contractor who furnishes transportation from the boundary to the farm are frequently sold from one exploiter to the next", this Report confesses. "For example, the smuggler will offer to bring a specified number of wetbacks across the river for such an amount as ten or fifteen dollars per man. The smuggler with his party in tow will be met by the trucker, who will then buy the wetback party by paying off the smuggler. The trucker, in tum, will have a deal to deliver the workers to farm employers at an agreed-upon price per head. "Once on the U.S. side of the border and on the farm numerous devices are employed to keep the wetback on the job. His pay, or some portion thereof, is frequently held back. The wetback is a hungry human being. He is a fugitive, and it is as a fugitive that he lives. Under the constant threat of apprehension and deportation, he cannot protest, no matter how unjustly he is treated." The next largest group of imported forced labourers consists of Negroes from the British West Indies. During the period from 1943 to 1950, a total of 93,178 of these were brought in with the sanction of the U.S. Government. Besides these, there were about 10,000 Puerto Ricans who are working on U.S. farms under contracts sanctioned by the U.S. Government; and many more have been imported and peonized while the Government turned its back. Just as the planters must generally payout so much per head to acquire wetbacks, they must also post surety bonds with the U.S. Immigration Service in importing contract labour. The bond required is 100 dollars for each Jamaican, 50 dollars for each Bahaman, and 25 dollars for each Mexican. At least a third of the Mexicans who have been brought in under contract have escaped from the plantations to which they were assigned, and in such cases the Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. WHO ARE SUBJECT TO FORCED LABOUR I43 planters must forfeit the bonds, which therefore are tantamount to being the purchase price of the workers. To the planters, labour is labour-they are interested only in getting the work done as cheaply as possible. As the Manager of the California Beet-growers' Association told the President's Commission : "We have used great numbers of the so-called stoop labor class of labor throughout the years. We have gone through the whole gamut. We have used Chinamen, Japs, Hindus, Filipinos, Mexican nationals. Mexican wetbacks if you please, American Indians, Negroes. Bahamans, prisoners of war, and what-have-you. We have always been willing to take any kind of labor that we could get when we needed them." And a big cotton-planter of Arkansas told the Commission: "Cotton is a slave crop, and nobody is going to pick it that does not have to. Now the Texas-Mexicans have found out they can get other kinds of work, and so the Mexican wetback is about the only reservoir of labor that we know of." (In I957. California planters prevailed upon the u.s. Government to import Japanese farm-labourers under three-year contracts. One of these, Keizo Koshigeta, reported in a letter to the Tokyo Asahi Shim bun in I958: "I have been in California for one year now as a farmlabourer, and there has been trouble which we never anticipated at the time we left Japan. The trouble has been over income tax, transfers to other farms, and individual activities . . . we are among the lowestpaid workers in the United States ... our net pay comes to less than 40 cents an hour. Even when we want to transfer to another farm which pays a gross rate of $r.IO instead of 75 cents per hour, we cannot do so of our own free will. We would like the authorities concerned to give adequate consideration to these points in preparation for the short-term farm labourers who are scheduled to come to the U.S.A. this Spring." In his letter Koshigeta added that every time the Japanese Consul-General in San Francisco visited the labour camp he said, "The difference in political and economic power between Japan and the United States is the reason why everything cannot be done just as you want it to be, but we would like you to endure them if you come up against some hardships.") Another major group caught in the toils of forced labour are the migratory farm-workers who make their way across the face of the American continent each year in their efforts to eke out a living from seasonal employment. Physical as well as legalistic and psychological Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. 144 JIM CROW GUIDE TO THE U.S.A. coercion is employed to force many migratory workers to "stay put" or "move on" at the dictate of the planters, aided and abetted in many instances by governmental authorities. Just as the substitution of wage slavery for chattel slavery relieved the former slave-owning class of responsibility for the upkeep of their labourers, so has the substitution of migratory labour for resident farm labour served the same end. The living conditions of these workers are so bad as to defy description. The dismal scenes portrayed of the great Oklahoma "Dust Bowl" migrations to California during the 1930S in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have not disappeared in the least. On the contrary, a probe by the Colorado State Commission in 1950, and subsequent investigations by the Federal Government, have found that in many respects conditions have worsened. At the bottom of their plight is the land hunger which especially affiicts the segregated territory. Throughout the Black Belt of the South, where Negroes are in the majority, 73 per cent of all families own no land. In the Red River Bottoms the proportion rises to 80 per cent, and in the Delta Region 90 per cent of all families are landless. The United Nations, after extensive surveys, has listed the southern region of the U.S.A. as one of the "backward and underfed" areas of the world. Even during the relatively prosperous wartime boom year oEI943, thirty million of the South's people were underfed, according to a survey of the National Research Council. Anaemia due to iron deficiency in the diet, and generally aggravated by intestinal worm infestations, is extremely common. Hookworm infestation reaches 100 per cent of the population of some rural Florida counties. In Tennessee 50 per cent of the entire farm population suffers from vitamin A deficiency. Returning to his home, the author set about transcribing the recorded interviews and compiling his other data into a Memorandum, which was delivered to the U.N. Committee on September 15, 1952. At the same time, he asked that he be permitted to testify before the final hearings scheduled to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, and to bring some American forced labourers with him. The Committee agreed to hear him, but said it was "not keen about interviewing forced labourers in person, but preferred to hear experts". The author was given ten days to get to Geneva, at his own expense (all previous witnesses had had their expenses paid, including a liberal per diem allowance). Before testifying, the author was questioned Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. WHO ARB SUBJBCT TO FORCBD LABOUR 14S privately by the Committee's Secretary, Manfred Simon, who r&marked: "Of course, the U.S. Government does all it can to eliminate forced labour." The line of questioning pursued by the Committee Chairman, Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar of India, further revealed the group's orientation. "How can you say that Mexicans are held in forced labour in the U.S.A., when they sign their work contracts voluntarily?" he d&manded. "Since time immemorial," the author replied, "men have been forced by economic pressures to sell themselves and their families into slavery, and in my estimation this only makes the slavery the more despicable !" Not finding such replies to his liking, Sir Ramaswami soon instructed the author to make his prepared statement. "Forced laborers in the U.S.A. are not prisoners of war or persons convicted of some crime against the state, but rather are 'guilty' only of belonging to some vulnerable racial, economic, national, or occupational group," the author pointed out. "Moreover, their labor is not dedicated to the public welfare, but is exploited purely for private profit. "However, the Government's having given a free hand to the private exploiters of forced labor does not in any wise mitigate the fact that the system could not function without the overt collaboration and covert sanction of Government at all levels-local, state, and national. If the U.N. Committee is to do justice, it must recognize that in the U.S.A. those laws which constitute the legalistic framework for the forced labor system are cleverly cloaked in other guises. Besides the compulsory military service act, immigration laws, and fraud laws, there are the vagrancy laws, labor recruiting laws, and laws dealing with contracts. In the absence of such 'enabling legislation', the exploiters of forced labor would be obliged to rely entirely, rather than partly as at present, upon such extra-legal instruments of coercion as the club, lash, and pistol. "The Federal Government as represented by its legislative, judicial, and law enforcement branches-Congress, Supreme Court, and Department ofJustice-is charged under the Constitution and Federal law with the responsibility of stamping out forced labor. But the Government makes a practice of not practising the enforcement of these laws, and consequently what the State Department claims are Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. Copyright © 2011. University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. 146 JIM CROW GUIDE TO THE U.S.A. •effective safeguards' are rendered dead letters and mere scraps of paper. "Painful though my role may be, I consider it my patriotic duty to do what I can to bring the healing heat of world opinion to bear upon the cancerous growth of forced labor that afflicts my homeland. I do not see how the United States can enjoy either sdf-respect or the respect of the community of nations if such things are kept hidden. "For the benefit of any who take stock in such things, let me say that two of my forebears-William Williams and Arthur Middleton -signed the American Declaration of Independence. In the exercise of much the same right to disavow tyranny, I here and now declare my independence from those powers in American life who have usurped the democratic prerogatives of the people and who are responsible for such evils as forced labor in our land. In so doing I am confident that I speak for the great bulk of the American people who believe in liberty and justice for all. "In conclusion, I wish only to ask, on behalf of all the forced laborers in the U.S.A., that the Committee remove the gag which has kept them in silence, by transmitting their pleas to the General Assembly of the United Nations so that the world may hear andjudge." With that, the author was summarily dismissed by Sir Ramaswami. In its official Press release issued later that day, the Committee suppressed the author's statement. In mark.ed contrast, the Committee had issued voluminous accounts of charges levelled by previous witnesses, against certain other countries. It was not too surprising, therefore, that when the Committee issued its 62I-page Report, a mere handful of pages were devoted to charges against the U.S.A. The documentary evidence contained in the author's Memorandum and statement had all been consigned to the waste-paper basket! "All of Mr. Kennedy's allegations are general charges and do not appear to be supported by any proof", the State Department sanctimoniously concluded the Committee's Report. In 1956 the Soviet Union announced the liquidation of its labour camps, and by 1957, when the International Labour Organization, in association with the United Nations, drafted an agreement against forced labour, an indictment of debt slavery was prominently included, and the United States felt obliged to sign on the dotted line. Kennedy, Stetson. Jim Crow Guide to the U.S.A : The Laws, Customs and Etiquette Governing the Conduct of Nonwhites and Other Minorities As Second-Class Citizens, University of Alabama Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral. Created from ucsd on 2017-12-24 12:07:10. The Emergence of Yellow Power Amy Uyematsu Asian Americans can no longer afford to watch the black‐and‐white struggle from the sidelines. They have their own cause to fight, since they are also victims–with less visible scars–of the white institutionalized racism. A yellow movement has been set into motion by the black power movement. Addressing itself to the unique problems of Asian Americans, this "yellow power" movement is relevant to the black power movement in that both are part of the Third World struggle to liberate all colored people. The yellow power movement has been motivated largely by the problem of self‐identity in Asian Americans. The psychological focus of this movement is vital, for Asian Americans suffer the critical mental crises of having "integrated" into American society– No person can be healthy, complete, and mature if he must deny a part of himself; this is what "integration" has required so far.‐Stokely Carmichael & Charles V. Hamilton The Asian Americans' current position in America is not viewed as a social problem. Having achieved middle‐class incomes while presenting no real threat in numbers to the white majority, the main body of Asian Americans (namely, the Japanese and the Chinese) have received the token acceptance of white America. Precisely because Asian Americans have become economically secure, do they face serious identity problems. Fully committed to a system that subordinates them on the basis of non‐whiteness, Asian Americans still try to gain complete acceptance by denying their yellowness. They have become white in every respect but color. However, the subtle but prevailing racial prejudice that "yellows" experience restricts them to the margins of the white world. Asian Americans have assumed white identities, that is, the values and attitudes of the majority of Americans. Now they are beginning to realize that this nation is a "White democracy" and that yellow people have a mistaken identity. Within the past two years, the "yellow power" movement has developed as a direct outgrowth of the "black power" movement. The "black power" movement caused many Asian Americans to question themselves. "Yellow power" is just now at the stage of "an articulated mood rather than a program‐disillusionment and alienation from white America and independence, race pride, and self‐respect." Yellow consciousness is the immediate goal of concerned Asian Americans. In the process of Americanization, Asians have tried to transform themselves into white men‐both mentally and physically. Mentally, they have adjusted to the white man's culture by giving up their own languages, customs, histories, and cultural values. They have adopted the "American way of life" only to discover that this is not enough. Next, they have rejected their physical heritages, resulting in extreme self‐hatred. Yellow people share with the blacks the desire to look white. Just as blacks wish to be light‐complected with thin lips and unkinky hair, "yellows" want to be tall with long legs and large eyes. The self‐hatred is also evident in the yellow male's obsession with unobtainable white women, and in the yellow female's attempt to gain male approval by aping white beauty standards. Yellow females have their own "conking" techniques‐they use "peroxide, foam rubber, and scotch tape to give them light hair, large breasts, and double‐lidded eyes." The "Black is Beautiful" cry among black Americans has instilled a new awareness in Asian Americans to be proud of their physical and cultural heritages. Yellow power advocates self‐acceptance as the first step toward strengthening personalities of Asian Americans .... The problem of self‐identity in Asian Americans also requires the removal of stereotypes. The yellow people in America seem to be silent citizens. They are stereotyped as being passive, accommodating, and unemotional. Unfortunately, this description is fairly accurate, for Asian Americans have accepted these stereotypes and are becoming true to them. The silent, passive image of Asian Americans is understood not in terms of their cultural backgrounds, but by the fact that they are scared. The earliest Asians in America were Chinese immigrants who began settling in large numbers on the West Coast from 1850 through 1880. They were subjected to extreme white racism, ranging from economic subordination, to the denial of rights of naturalization, to physical violence. During the height of anti‐Chinese mob action of the 1880's, whites were "stoning the Chinese in the streets; cutting off their queues, wrecking their shops and laundries." The worst outbreak took place in Rock Springs, Wyoming, in 1885, when twenty‐eight Chinese residents were murdered. Perhaps, surviving Asians learned to live in silence, for even if "the victims of such attacks tried to go to court to win protection, they could not hope to get a hearing. The phrase 'not a Chinaman's chance' had a grim and bitter reality." Racist treatment of "yellows" still existed during World War II, with the unjustifiable internment of 110,000 Japanese into detention camps. When Japanese Americans were ordered to leave their homes and possessions behind within short notice, they cooperated with resignation and did not even voice opposition .... Today the Asian Americans are still scared. Their passive behavior serves to keep national attention on the black people. By being as inconspicuous as possible, they keep pressure off of themselves at the expense of the blacks. Asian Americans have formed an uneasy alliance with white Americans to keep the blacks down. They close their eyes to the latent white racism toward them which has never changed. Frightened "yellows" allow the white public to use the "silent Oriental" stereotype against the black protest: The presence of twenty million blacks in America poses an actual physical threat to the white system. Fearful whites tell militant blacks that the acceptable criterion for behavior is exemplified in the quiet, passive Asian American. The yellow power movement envisages a new role for Asian Americans: It is a rejection of the passive Oriental stereotype and symbolizes the birth of a new Asian‐one who will recognize and deal with injustices. The shout of Yellow power, symbolic of our new direction, is reverberating in the quiet corridors of the Asian community. What's Your Emergency?: White Women and the Policing of Public Space Author(s): Justin Louis Mann Source: Feminist Studies , Vol. 44, No. 3 (2018), pp. 766-775 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.44.3.0766 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Feminist Studies, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Feminist Studies This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Justin LOUIS Mann What’s Your Emergency?: White Women and the Policing of Public Space On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, Starbucks closed eight thousand stores so that its nearly one hundred seventy-five thousand employees could undergo racial bias training. The company scheduled the training after a Philadelphia store manager, a white woman with a history of calling the police on black customers, called 9-1-1 on Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson. The arrest sparked outrage when video of the incident was posted on social media (Melissa DePino, a customer in the coffee house at the time, filmed the arrest and posted the video to Twitter where it was shared four million times in forty-eight hours). Although different from the types of police encounters that have dominated news reports — encounters that often end in the murder of black people — this episode, and the many others like it that have come to light in the months since, is equally important to understanding contemporary race relations in the United States. Here and in other incidents in which white people, especially white women, make false reports to the police accusing black people of criminal activity where none is present, gender often plays a pivotal role in producing notions of fear and safety. In this essay, I am most interested in how discourses of security and rights enable and sublimate racism, encouraging white women to call the police on black people. The implications of such acts are magnified in a context where police encounters often end in the violent death of innocent “suspects.” 766 Feminist Studies 44, no. 3. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms News and Views 767 I also want to consider the unique response engendered by social media, in which accusers are lampooned and turned into memes. In the time since Nelson and Robinson were arrested, numerous other incidents in which police were called on innocent black people have been reported in the press. Although recounting all of these incidents would be impossible — especially because we might imagine that each story that garners media attention eclipses countless others that do not— a few examples reveal a compelling set of consistencies. At Yale University and more recently at Smith College, white female students called police on black students who were using common areas to study or sleep. A white woman called the police on Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, Donisha Prendergast, and Komi-Oluwa Olafimihan as they moved out of their Airbnb, and former Obama-administration staffer Darren Marten was questioned by police while he moved into his apartment in New York City. In Pennsylvania, a white man called the police on five black women while they golfed. His complaint: the women were playing too slowly.1 A woman in Oakland called the police on two black men who were barbequing in a public park in Lake Merritt. This incident was also filmed and posted to the internet where it went viral, with viewers dubbing the woman #BBQBecky. Her image was also digitally edited so that she appears standing behind Martin Luther King on the steps of 1. See Cleve R. Wootson, Jr., “A Black Yale Student Fell Asleep in Her Dorm’s Common Room. A White Student Called Police,” The Washington Post, May 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/05/10/ablack-yale-student-fell-asleep-in-her-dorms-common-room-a-white-studentcalled-police/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e7cac4497128; “‘All I Did Was Be Black’: Someone Called the Police on a Student Lying on a Dorm Couch,” The Washington Post, August 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news /grade-point/wp/2018/08/05/all-i-did-was-be-black-someone-called-the-policeon-a-student-lying-on-a-dorm-couch/?utm_term=.d0f1afbe4e75; Patricia Mesachio, “Bob Marley’s Granddaughter Donisha Prendergast Demands Police Protocol Changes After Airbnb Run-In,” Billboard, May 2018, https:// www.billboard.com/articles/news/8455886/bob-marley-granddaughter-donisha-prendergast-airbnb; Julica Jacobo and Erica Y King, “‘Profiling Is Real’: Former Obama Staffer Mistaken as Burglar While Moving into New York City Apartment,” ABC News, May 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics /profiling-real-obama-staffer-mistaken-burglar-moving-york/story?id=54877597; Christina Caron, “5 Black Women Were Told to Golf Faster. Then the Club Called the Police,” The New York Times, April 2018, https://www.nytimes.com /2018/04/25/us/black-women-golfers-york.html. This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:n 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 768 News and Views the Lincoln Memorial, peering through the window of the Oval Office at President Obama taking a phone call, and popping up in Wakanda.2 More recently, a woman in San Francisco nicknamed #PermitPatty was recorded making a 9-1-1 call to report an eight-year-old black girl for selling water. She complained that the girl did not have a permit. The list is alarmingly long. Indeed, from California to New York, from gyms to parks, from department stores to universities, it feels like it is open season on black people. I want to linger over #PermitPatty and #BBQBecky, two figures who have risen to iconic status. “Becky” and “Patty,” whose real names are Jennifer Schulte and Allison Ettel respectively, typified the kind of racism that saturated the false reports listed above. They were also unique in that they enabled a humoristic stance in the response from black critics. These women achieved the status of internet infamy, becoming cartoon caricatures of a mode of white femininity obsessed with eliminating black people from public space in the name of rule-following.3 In this, they typify the “exceptional citizen[-ship]” that Inderpal Grewal describes in Saving the Security State. In fact, they exemplify “exceptional citizens’” desires “to access and maintain the privileges of whiteness to become exceptional and sovereign.” 4 As Grewal notes, women play a unique role in the machinations of exceptional citizenship, fusing a race-blind regard for equal opportunity with the ambitions of a whitesupremacist security state. While this may be true for the many women who work in the defense and intelligence sectors, as Grewal describes, other noncredentialed women living in American cities during this age of “white return” also seek to express their desire for police power through the emergency calls they make to police. To my eye, Becky and Patty advance the agenda of US empire in the gentrifying neighborhoods 2. 3. 4. See Malinda Janay, “These Hysterical Memes of the Becky Who Hates Black Barbecues Deserve Some Kind of Twitter Award,” Blavity, May 2018, https:// blavity.com/these-hysterical-memes-of-the-becky-who-hates-black-barbecuesdeserve-some-kind-of-twitter-award. In Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad (New York: Doubleday, 2017), Fiona, the white Irish maid, evokes the same sensibility. Fiona reports the white family protecting the escaped slave Cora, ostensibly to raise her own social position. Inderpal Grewal, Saving the Security State: Exceptional Citizens in Twenty-First-Century America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017), 4. This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms News and Views 769 of America’s inner cities.5 That is, the general and pervasive specter of black criminality underwrites Becky’s and Patty’s fears and makes their calls to police appear reasonable and fair-minded. It leaves some, myself included, asking “what’s your emergency?” In the course of their responses to critics, both in the moment and after the fact, they reject the notion that blackness contributed to their decisions to call the police in any way. Indeed, both attempted to explain their antiblackness through the language of the public good, language that ultimately invokes the rule of law as its justification. In so doing, they frame racialized conceptions of safety and risk in supposedly colorblind terms. In Becky and Patty, we see the true contour of securitized femininity in the contemporary moment. See-somethingsay-something logic enshrouds white women like Becky and Patty in a purportedly colorblind veil of rule following, enabling them to carry out the work of white supremacy by insisting that black people are always already worthy of suspicion. Their problem, as they themselves claim, is with their victims’ disregard for the regulations governing the use of public space — barbequing in a zone where children might get hurt or selling water bottles on a hot day without a permit. They justify their emergency calls through what I would term prophetic mental gymnastics foreseeing their own victimization or, notably, the victimization of (white) children. (In Patty’s case, the victimization of Jordan Rodgers, the eight-year-old girl on whom she called the police, seems not to have concerned her). In short, Becky and Patty purport to act in the public’s best interest, ensuring the preservation of a pristine, and implicitly white, public order predicated on the oppression of black people. The orderly world Becky and Patty seek in their recourse to regulations is saturated with white claims to public space. The ties between race, property, and rights have long been a central object of inquiry for critical race theorists, especially for black feminist critics of the law. As Cheryl Harris explains in her foundational 1993 article “Whiteness as Property,” 5. Both Michelle Alexander and Elizabeth K. Hinton describe the growth of domestic security regimes that developed out of the War on Drugs. See Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: New Press, 2010); and Elizabeth K. Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 770 News and Views “In ways so embedded that it is rarely apparent, the set of assumptions, privileges, and benefits that accompany the status of being white have become a valuable asset that whites sought to protect.” 6 For Harris, it is almost impossible to disentangle notions of property and ownership from the legacy of racial domination that preconditioned their existence. Through various legal mechanisms, notably the sexual abuse of black women, “Whiteness became the characteristic, the attribute, the property of free human beings.” 7 Similar forces, she notes, allowed for the legal dispossession and removal of native peoples from land they had inhabited for generations. Together, these two capacities invested whiteness with the essential characteristics of property and disallowed black and native people from enjoying the privileges conferred by property rights. Read with this theory in mind and with an eye toward contributions to black feminist legal and social theory, from Patricia J. Williams’s crucial discussion of rights and need in The Alchemy of Race and Rights to Jennifer C. Nash’s recent work on black female sexuality and waste, the policing of public space by white people, especially by caricaturized white women, renders black people toxic, despoiling public property, and thus worthy of removal.8 The practice of policing public space has strong ties to the democratization of surveillance that has been a key feature of the War on Terror. Especially in contemporary cities, the fear of terrorism and crime deputizes everyday (white, female) citizens as surveillance officers. As scholars such as Grewal, Amy Kaplan, and Melani McAlister have shown, the language of “women’s rights” has produced the white female subject as a model citizen for right-less brown and black women in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. White women simultaneously bolster the imperial ambitions of Western powers, leading to dispossession and disenfranchisement of 6. 7. 8. Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (June 1993): 1713. Ibid., 1721. See Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Jennifer C. Nash, “Black Anality,” GLQ 20, no. 4 (2014): 439–60. Indeed the relationship of black people, especially black women, to legal categories of rights and rightlessness forms the foundations of black feminist legal theory. See also, Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989, no. 1, art. 8 (1989). This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 1fff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms News and Views 771 the brown and black women who supposedly engender humanitarian concern. At home “security moms” serve the essential role of bolstering the state’s surveillance functions in the name of a tranquil domestic, a word that should register both the public nation and the private home.9 The see-something-say-something logic of the War on Terror/War on Drugs invites civilians to perform the surveillance functions of the state and ensures an endless war abroad. This logic has important implications when we consider that the practices of civilian policing, or vigilantism as it might (rightly) be identified in other contexts, began in the service of protecting white American women from black and native men. As Grewal notes, “In the period of Jim Crow, white women’s safety was used to justify the lynching or imprisonment of black men.” 10 White women are thus understood as always already victimized and as perfectly pure and chaste. Vigilantism thus works in the service of preserving female purity and chastity while simultaneously exacting vengeance on the apparently corrupting forces of black presence. In the context of twenty-first-century US cities in the grip of white return and gentrification, this means removing black (and brown) people from the neighborhoods they were sequestered into in the era of white flight. White people who self-segregated out of urban centers, such as San Francisco, Oakland, or Philadelphia, seek the elimination of black people and culture from their parks, street corners, and doorsteps. They use the police as a private army, marshalled to cull those deemed undesirable from their neighborhoods. In short, they have declared open season on black people. The recourse to law and order is subtler here than in the recent political rallies in Indiana and West Virginia. This is, therefore, not a partisan problem, but a problem of uninterrogated racism. For example, in her insipid mea culpa, Allison Etell describes Jordan Rodgers as “screaming” and “yelling” and claims that Rodgers disrupted Etell while she was working from home. Etell, we might imagine, was disrupted in the course of managing her online marijuana oil business, by the shouts 9. See Grewal, Saving the Security State, 118–43 10. Ibid., 127. See also Amy Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of US Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and US Interests in the Middle East since 1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Simone Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015). This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 772 News and Views of young girl trying to earn some money, like many other kids who sell lemonade and other iced beverages on hot days. Etell likely would have preferred the pigtailed-respectability of cul-de-sacs and hand-made signs to the hawking of cold water on an urban street. Etell’s ludicrous request that her victim produce a permit overtly invokes the rule of law in order to justify her racism. In a world in which police interactions with black people — especially children — end in fatalities, emergency calls for innocuous violations may end in death. Perhaps activist Shaun King put it best when he tweeted the following in response to the video of Etell’s 9-1-1 call: “They want police to kill us. The girl was causing no harm. They know what happens when they call the police. This is evil.” 11 Humor in Response to “Spirit Murder” King’s alarm is not misplaced. The seemingly banal cases in which white people use the public-serving police as a private security force reveal the insidious contours of whiteness (and, in these cases, white-womanhood) in the contemporary moment. It is, unfortunately, remarkable that these encounters ended without the kind of violence that claimed the lives of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, and too many others gunned down in the course of living their lives. Yet, because these encounters reflect a different kind of violence, violence that is closer to what Patricia Williams calls “spirit murder,” there seems to be more room for creative protest.12 Such protests have included the public outing of these figures, many of whom have lost jobs and friends because of their behavior. While I am concerned about the implications of sharing personal information about white victimizers (which uncomfortably evokes the tactics of misogynist white supremacist internet trolls), I want to consider the unique capacity of humor to combat this form of spirit murder. 13 Social media, especially “black Twitter”— a loose association of black activists, culture-makers, intellectuals, and everyday figures — has enabled the comedic rejection of Becky, Patty, and others. The viral sharing of stories of public-space policing by white people, especially 11. Shaun King, Twitter post, June 23, 2018, 10:36 AM, https://goo.gl/qhmXn5. 12. Williams, Alchemy of Race and Rights, 73. 13. This practice, known as doxxing, has been widely used by antifeminist and racist internet denizens who use personal information to attack progressive public figures. This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms News and Views 773 white women, enables the elaboration of extended networks of care-givers who share support and empower victims to recontextualize these events. The characterization of white women alarmists through a hashtag is especially interesting; the memification of Becky and Patty lays bare the one-dimensionality of their fears, while it also provides an outlet for what might otherwise be incapacitating feelings of anger and sadness. As Glenda Carpio suggests, humor, such as those memes lampooning Becky and Patty, “pillories the ideologies and practices that supported slavery, and that, in different incarnations, continue to support racist practices.” 14 Becky’s inscription onto the image of the historic March on Washington, for example, juxtaposes the pervasive distaste for black people against the narrative of racial harmony following the Civil Rights Movement. Becky (and contemporary white supremacy by extension) appears as both a socio-cultural relic of a bygone racial order and an indicator of the recalcitrance of white supremacy despite the apparent victories of legal civil rights. Put differently, the object of humor — that is, the thing we object to as out-of-joint— is juxtaposed against its latent or implicit target. Becky’s opposition to racial progress becomes foregrounded, both metaphorically and positionally, when she is inscribed over the historic photo. Her disdain for black presence in public places cannot hide behind the veneer of public decency. She is a joke not only because her prejudice is incongruous with the narrative of racial progress (a narrative we should constantly question, to be sure), but also because of its diminutive stakes. Such a meme simultaneously signals the gravity of white women’s disdain and its fecklessness. Depictions of these figures as humorous memes highlight the absurdity of their behavior and, in so doing, bring the implicit assumptions of black criminality and white property and propriety to the fore. Despite the oppressive reality that any of these encounters might have ended more violently, sarcasm, hyperbole, caricature, and various other forms of ridicule bolster feelings of solidarity of black social media users and therefore complement other forms of public expression that enjoin people in their various acts of resistance. The hashtags #BBQBecky and #PermitPatty name the absurdity of suspicion that led to the encounter 14. Glenda Carpio, Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 7. This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 774 News and Views and suture that absurdity to a stereotypical white woman. They are rendered as cartoons, two-dimensional, and stock, simple in their animosity and opprobrium. I conclude with a final incident, one that might, at first blush, appear distinct from what I have outlined above. In early June 2018, a SnapChat video depicting Tabitha Duncan and two white, male companions went viral. Duncan, a white waitress and US Air Force enlisted reservist from Missouri, and the two men are shown drinking beer on a dark country road. Duncan smiles at the camera as a male voice offscreen asks, “Are we going nigger hunting today or what?” “We’re going nigger hunting,” another man, this time on screen, replies. “You get them niggers,” Duncan responds, smiling into the camera and sipping her beer.15 Duncan bolsters the predatory and potentially murderous intentions of her white male companions. She poses and grins, flirting with the camera and the men around her as they set out, ostensibly to find black men or women to insult, torment, assault, or kill. In this way, she exemplifies the feminized security figure that Grewal describes. It is easy to dismiss Duncan as extraneous rather than endogenous to the system of racism that produces Becky and Patty. Duncan’s use of the taboo n-word, and its repetition in the discourse, suggests an easy acknowledgement of racism that Becky and Patty disavow. I would imagine that the latter would object to the use of such language in polite conversation. Yet, it is important to consider these two discrete forms of racism as linked in a shared project of seeking out, finding, and ultimately removing black people from white space. To me, these figures are cut from the same cloth. Duncan names the desire Becky and Patty have: to hunt black people, bring them to heel, to see them in chains or perhaps, worse, dead. Duncan, Becky, Patty, the Starbucks manager, and the Yale graduate student are all engaged in the current phase of “nigger hunting.” With its roots in earlier modes of antiblack violence, contemporary pursuits are dominated by an explicit disavowal that race contributes at all to the desire to maintain an orderly world. Duncan’s candid racism serves as 15. Although the video has been taken down, it can be seen on the Facebook page for Real STL News. See also Breanna Edwards, “Missouri Waitress Fired Over ‘N-Word Hunting’ Video Swears She Isn’t Racist, Claims to Have Black Friends,” The Root, June 12, 2018, https://www.theroot.com /missouri-waitress-fired-after-n-word-hunting-video-swea-1826765082. This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms News and Views 775 an important indicator, showing us the hateful forces animating these desires. Truly evading the venatic ambitions of figures like Duncan, or Patty and Becky for that matter, may ultimately be impossible. Yet, the capacity of certain forms of social discourse to mock and cajole the forces of oppression shouldn’t be overlooked or understated. Turning figures such as Betty, Patty, and maybe even Duncan, from poachers to punchlines is an important life-giving practice, one we should enthusiastically embrace. This content downloaded from 137.110.33.229 on Mon, 15 Jul 2019 22:59:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Name Journal #3 – American Involvement in Latin America & Domestic Climate During WWII Take copious notes on these film clips and readings. Then, give thoughtful responses to the following questions for each film/reading selection. For each question, bring in analysis from our weekly readings. “The Storm that Swept Mexico” – first 15 min 1. What are the “two Mexico’s”? Because Mexico is such a big country that is very widespread, there is are many differences between the north and south alone, both politically, socially and sometimes culturally. Often, there would be clashes between those who believed that foreign trade and investment would benefit the country and those who thought that Mexico was better off as a fully independent nation. There is also a large number of indigenous people in Mexico and there is a history of huge systemic racism in the country as many wanted to suppress these populations. The oppressive nature of the Mexican government, as well s the extremely poor and cruel working conditions, eventually forced the country into a revolution. There is also the question of industrialization. Northern Mexico would see the railroads and the mining industry (things that were often invested in and bought by Americans) as progress and a way of moving forward, whereas the small regions in the southern parts of Mexico would feel as if they were being ignored and left behind. From this we can see the divisive nature of the two Mexicos. 2. Porfirio Diaz Porfirio Diaz was a former general who was elected President of Mexico, serving seven terms in the role which lasted about 30 years. His people were incredibly divisive in their opinion of him, with some seeing his as a saint and peace maker and others believing he was a traitor who sold their country out to foreigners. Whatever one’s opinion of him, however, there is little to no doubt that his presidency was highly tyrannical, as their goals were achieved through a combination of repression and consensus. His “progressive dictatorship” mainly “worked to promote railroad construction, to force reluctant peasants and indigenous groups to work on rural estates, to repress popular organizing, and in other ways to benefit the dominant elites” (History, Facts & Mexican Revolution, n.d). He continued to rule Mexico with an iron fist until 1911, usually not seeing any opposition every time he was “re-elected”. Though the country maintained an air of 1 constitutionalism, Diaz’s Mexico was most certainly a dictatorship. His cientificos dominated the administration and were the true intellectuals behind the success of his government, thought their own personal wealth and affinity for foreign investment made them, and by extension Diaz, extremely unpopular among the people. His presidency ultimately ended when he was 80, as revolutions were sparked amid growing discontent and Diaz was forced to flee into exile. 3. What do the cientificos think is Mexico’s biggest problem? The elitist cientificos believed, largely due to their racist ideals, that the biggest problem Mexico faced was largely due to their “Indian problem”. In other words, the many indigenous people living and working within Mexico. These people were largely marginalized as a result, and they were treated like second class citizens, often being repressed due to their heritage. 4. Who did Mexico look toward for artistic influence during the Porfiriato? Because Diaz wanted Mexico to be a modern nation (hence his slogan; “order, peace and progress” and therefore, they turned towards Europe for their artistic inspiration. This is what led the administration to push for city wide industrialization; promoting the building of railroads and factories to generate trade and electricity. They would also turn towards foreign investors within Europe such as Britain and France, who they knew had a great deal of interest in the oil mines that could be found in Mexico at the time. 5. What are haciendas, and what control did they have in the economy The haciendas were a group of large, self-sufficient estates that generated much of the wealth of Mexico, but that wealth mainly found itself in the hands of those who owned these estates. These owners would have total power over those worked the lands and the richest were often found in the Southern states of Mexico. The hacendados, as the owners tended to be called, were able to make vests amount of money by exploiting the workers on the lands. “The system was designed to keep people that were in debt working on a piece of land. People working on haciendas were made to stay there as long as possible using various means” (World Atlas, June 2020). The hacienda system was usually built up in the form of a social society, inspired by the paternalistic societies in Europe, with the landlords at the top and the workers sitting tragically at the bottom. 6. Describe the working conditions of the Mexican rural poor Many of the haciendas were sugar plantations that had extremely poor working conditions. The workers were often beaten and whipped into working, not being allowed to work. They were also paid extremely low rages, often making only 25 cents per day which was not nearly enough for them to support themselves and their families. Nevertheless, because the hacienda system actively worked to keep their laborers in debt, these workers could not afford to leave the land. In fact, many workers were 2 natives or indigenous people whose land had been stolen from them by the very people they were working for. 7. How did the working conditions of many Mexicans reflect what we have discussed about the Black codes, American slavery, and immigrants working in the U.S. The oppressive nature of the Mexican Government at the time draws many parallels between American slavery, Black codes and immigrant workers in the United States. Much like in Mexico, many US citizens did not trust the foreigners who were coming into their country, despite their tendency to preach “the American dream”. Many European workers moving to the United States, particularly Irish or Italians, found themselves working in extremely poor working conditions and would often find themselves exploited by their employees. Though they didn’t have the hacienda system, there is little doubt that many people in the rural cities such as New York and Chicago most certainly suffered poor working conditions, similar to those in which the Mexican workers were struggling with. America, like Mexico, was keen to industrialize rapidly in the form of factories, railroads and trade, which meant that a lot of people were struggling to keep up. In terms of Black Codes, which were “restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force” (HISTORY, January 2021), this sounds extremely similar to the haciendas which definitely set out to do similar things to their workers. Like the indigenous people that were exploited in order to keep them working on the land, the Black Codes enabled business owners and landlords to ensure that the newly freed African-American Slaves were unable to gain economic independence and therefore would have no choice but to work for them with very little wages and extremely poor working conditions. The parallels between the two are extremely similar in that regards. This form of debt peonage was extremely common in both the USA and Mexico throughout the early 20th Century, and those who exploited them stood to earn a great deal of money from doing so. The parallels that occur with slavery can be drawn from the way in which the workers and the slaves in America were treated by their “masters” and the conditions in which they lived. Though the workers in Mexico were paid, it was an extremely small amount and was barely any better than the lack of pay suffered by the African slaves. On both sides, workers were beaten and whipped if they were seen relaxing or not working. There were also patrols of “enforcers” who would regularly inspect the workers and administer punishment should any resistance be met. The debt peonage keeping the Mexican workers on the land basically ensured that these workers were slaves in all but name. 8. Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America President Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy” is essentially what helped Diaz’s administration in Nicaragua to overthrow Zelaya’s. This brand of foreign policy grew primarily “out of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s peaceful intervention in the Dominican Republic, where U.S. 3 loans had been exchanged for the right to choose the Dominican head of customs” (Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d). However, this led to much resentment from the people and the U.S military eventually had to intervene. During President Taft’s first year in office, the Mexican Revolution threatened US corporate interests, and therefore the Dollar Diplomacy was created a way in which these interests could be protected. In 1912, Mexico planned to allow the Japanese government to purchase lands in Baja California which prompted the Taft administration use Dollar Diplomacy to prevent anyone purchasing land in the Western Hemisphere, particularly out of fear that the Japanese would use the land given to them by Mexico to build a naval base. All in all, the Dollar Diplomacy did more harm to the US than good and only furthered much of Latin America’s distrust of the United States. 9. Importance of the strike in Cananea, Mexico The strike occurred as a result of the Cananea mine owner’s plan to "eliminate the jobs of 700 of its 2070 blue-collar employees” (Corpwatch, 1999). They demanded better working conditions as well as an increase in pay, which was rejected. This resulted in a march of some 3,000 people, which was met with hoses and gunfire, resulting in the death of three people and ultimately inciting a riot. Many American interventionists were involved, although they were ordered to leave by train as a result of the violence. Many people believed that the riots were incited by malcontents who were opposed to the Diaz government. In many ways, the strike resulted in a sort of domino effect as the Rio Bianco strike that occurred the following year took place as a result of the Cananea strike. Ultimately, the strike would be a major factor that would lead to the Mexican Revolution and the downfall of the Diaz administration in 1911. “Harvest of Empire” 10. What are some of the reasons that so many Latin Americans migrate(d) to the United States? While there is a certain assumption that Latin Americans, and other immigrants from across the world, come to America to fulfil the “American Dream”, in other words that they believe they can build a life for themselves and their family and rise through the social hierarchy and truly achieve success. However, there is also another side to that story that many people living in the US can easily forget about Latin America which is that life there can be extremely difficult for people. “Poverty, political instability and recurring financial crises often conspire to make Latin American life more challenging than in the U.S., a wealthy country with lots of job opportunities” (HuffPost UK, August 2015). There is also the unfortunate fact that the United States has historically made life in Latin America hard for people. They have invaded Cuba numerous times, as well as 4 the Dominican Republic which they occupied for 8 years and they overthrew the Guatemala elected government which ushered in decades of several civil war. This is to name but a few ways in which the United States has made life incredibly difficult for the Latin American populations which has in turn led to the extreme immigrations of Latin Americans in the USA. 11. Guatemala – why would the U.S. want to overthrow the Arbenz government? What threat did he pose? At the time in which the Arbenz government was overthrown, the United States government lived in constant fear of the uprising and spread of communism. They were more than prepared to make every effort to prevent this from happening and therefore, the peaceful transfer of power to the Arbenz government in Guatemala was of serious concern to the United States as they were making a great deal of effort towards land reform and redistribution towards the landless masses. This effort “resulted in the powerful American-owned United Fruit Company losing many acres of land, U.S. officials began to believe that communism was at work in Guatemala” (History, July 2020). Therefore, President Eisenhower understandably gave the CIA the task to help this government be overthrown, in order to stop the rise and spread of communism. 12. Where do the indigenous and Maya-descended people fit into the social structure of Guatemala? What parallels can you draw for how they were treated, to how groups in the U.S. have been treated? Mayan descendants make ups the majority of indigenous people in Guatemala at present, with 21 different Mayan communities making up 51% of the national population. They live in constant fear of death threats and abductions, despite frequent attempts to promote tolerance and peace. The free expression of the Man religion, language and culture was agreed to be promoted in the 1996 peace accords, however there is an undeniable lack of political will to enforce these laws. To this day, they still fall towards the lower echelons of Guatemalan society and they have an extreme lack of political support for their civil rights and status. Discrimination continues to run rampant and is largely ignored. There are many parallels between the Mayan people to how the Native Americans are treated, as their culture is often ignored and subdued rather than celebrated and promoted as they should be. 13. El Salvador – What are some things that happened to the citizens deemed “the enemy” in the country? The citizens within El Salvador who are considered enemies of the state were often put to death, tortured or else imprisoned as a result of their outspoken. Villages were surrounded, families were separated, women were raped and even children were hung from trees. Raids would occur frequently and acts of extreme terror were occurring on a frequent basis, resulting in the deaths of thousands. During the civil war in El Salvador, over 30,000 people were killed. 5 14. Who is Bishop Romero? What was his platform and what happened to him because of it? Bishop Romero, or Saint Oscar Romero, was an individual who was an outspoken critic of government armed forces, right-wing groups and left-wing guerrilla soldiers during the civil war in El Salvador. “Although Romero had been considered a conservative before his appointment as archbishop in 1977, he denounced the regime of dictator Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero (no relation). The archbishop also refused to support the right-wing military-civilian junta that replaced the deposed dictator" (Encyclopedia Britannica, March 2021). He would constantly defend the poor and the victims of the war which brought many death threats to his door. He was assassinated by an unnamed killer in 1980, though the UN concluded that his assassin was a member of a right-wing extremist group. He undoubtedly angered many people on both sides of the war and therefore his death was almost inevitable given how many enemies he made during his lifetime. 15. What is the School of the Americas, and what role does it play in U.S. foreign engagement? The School of the Americas was founded in 1946 as a Spanish-speaking U.S Army training facility that would train Latin American soldiers. The school has an abundance of controversies that concern their graduates abusing the human rights, as they have been constantly trained in horrific tactics. The role that the SOA has played in foreign engagement in the past was primarily to “spread democracy” (in other words, exterminate any threat of communism) which gave them the right to kill, torture and abuse political opponents that were in any fashion labeled as potentially communist. Their core role was to counter insurgents and ensure that the right governments stayed in power. 16. What is your opinion on the low numbers of migrants allowed to migrate to the U.S. from El Salvador, given what happened in their country? Explain your position. In my opinion, the United States government owe the people of El Salvador every piece of protection, sanctuary and asylum that the United States can afford. The USA played a vital role in the troubles that still face El Salvador today and the fact that they deny entry to migrants who are fleeing the troubles that the US themselves created for them is disgusting. More than anything else, the United States owes El Salvador an apology for all those who died as a result of US meddling in the affairs of their country. In their constant witch-hunting of Communism, and the arrogant attitudes held by American government in regards to controlling Latin American regions, they have unwittingly contributed to countless crimes against humanity. 17. Mexico – What are some issues faced by migrants crossing the US/Mexico border? In the wake of the Trump administration’s extreme policies towards immigration, migrants who are attempting to cross the US/Mexican border are faced with a number 6 of challenges. Many migrants die frequently attempting to cross the border, in what former President Trump repeatedly referred to as an “invasion”. Most migrants are seeking asylum as a result of poor living conditions in their own countries and if they are denied entry, they are often killed. The reason they are trying to get into the US is, more often than not, to survive and protect their families. They risk arrest, deportation, rough travel, poor health and separation by Border Control in order to flee the dangers they face at home. "In fiscal year 2018, 92,959 people were deemed to have made claims of credible fear" and asked for asylum at the border” (BBC News, July 2019). This undoubtedly signifies an extreme rise in violence in Mexico in recent years. 18. How did NAFTA affect Mexican citizens? NAFTA attempted to boost Mexican farm exports to the United States with success, tripling their exports since the pact was made. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of auto manufacturing jobs and an increase of productivity in Mexico, as well as lowered consumer prices. As a result of NAFTA, Mexico’s protectionist economy has become one of the most open in trade. Hard reforms have been made, trade has been liberalized and public debt has been significantly reduced (which in term has stabilized inflation). However, they poverty has remained and unemployment has also risen significantly, which has in turn led to more people attempting to cross the borders into the United States. Therefore, there are both pros and cons to NAFTA’s effects on Mexican citizens. 19. Given the nature of media coverage of illegal immigration, how does this documentary counter that narrative that is commonly seen through our media outlets? The United States of America has often, especially under right-wing governments and significantly during the Trump administration, preached that illegal immigration is a plague in the United States and that evil Latin Americans are crossing the borders bringing crime, drugs and diseases with them, as well as stealing the jobs of hard working Americans. This documentary points out a pivotal fact that is often left out of news coverage of the “migrant invasion”; that is that the United States is more than responsible for the extreme rise in Latin American immigration. They have had a lo...
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Outline
Title: Journal Questions
I.

How did the doctors make sure they legally had ‘consent’ to sterilize the women?
A. Signed consent
B. Took advantage of their weakness

II.

What is the argument of the legal team representing the women, and how does it
differ from what the former Head of Gynecology (Dr. Quilligan) says?
A. Legal team says women did not consent
B. Doctors said they consented
C. No harm was done

III.

Explain the patient interactions with doctors, and some of what the doctor’s
perceptions of these Mexican women was
A. Were racist
B. Short time
C. They were under training

IV.

How was “The Population Bomb” (book) influential for having children, and
population control?
A. Created a scare
B. Was written by a professor
C. Appealed to the ethos

V.

How are the stories of Mexicans the same as the stories of Black women, and
poor white women, with regard to how they obtained ‘consent’ for sterilization?
A. Marginalized
B. Limited access to quality care
C. Victims of medical errors

VI.

What role does eugenics (think of what we have discussed earlier in this course)
and the “Burden” play in the sterilizations
A. Racist
B. Harmed women of minority groups

VII.

What were the reactions of doctors who were residents at the time? Do they take
responsibility?
A. Acted shocked
B. Did not take responsibility
C. Failed to testify

VIII.

What is the responsibility of modern day physicians, understanding the lived
experiences of women of color who have been harmed historically?

1

A. Be more cautious
B. Speak out for women who are discriminated
“Latino Americans – Episode 4: The New Latinos”
IX.

Moreno in West Side Story and using her personal experience while acting on set
A. Depicted the image of Spanish women
B. Were victims of racial discrimination

X.

How were Puerto Rican ‘threats’ to society used to vilify the whole population in
America?
A. Media depicted them as chaotic
B. Affected their access to good schools and jobs

XI.

Literacy tests keeping people from voting
A. The exams were irrelevant
B. Did not test literacy
C. Were used to discriminate minority groups

“The Women Behind White Power”
XII.

What roles did women play in maintaining segregation?
A. Housewives made progress impossible
B. They made it possible for integration

XIII.

What is significant about the role of women in maintaining supremacy in the
South?
A. Owned slaves
B. Were taught how to punish them
C. Made false claims on sexual harassment

XIV. How might the history be remembered now, if there is an equal focus on the role
of both men and women in the resistance against racial equality?
A. Women also are responsible
B. Both genders did wrong
C. Owned slaves
D. Were taught how to punish them
E. Made false claims on sexual harassment
“Jackson Public Schools”
XV.

Comment on the students setting up students of color to feel unwelcome in class
A. Were bullied
B. Abused
C. Physical and mental torment

2

XVI. What reasons might Black families be scared to send their children to integrated
schools?
A. Feared they would be harassed
B. They were abused
C. School management did not offer solutions
XVII. How much was spent on students, based on race, in Jackson in 1962? How does
that affect the quality of education?
A. Spending based on race
B. Blacks less and whites more
C. Whites had access to better education
XVIII. What hegemonic issues affect these schools modern day?
A. Funding
B. Making access to quality care limited based on financial capacity
“What’s Your Emergency?”
XIX. How do the women making calls to the police justify their behavior, to themselves
and to the public upon the backlash? What is significant about that?
A. Women are considered weak
B. Make calls claiming to feel threatened
C. Stems from racial prejudice
XX.

In what ways does this removal of Black bodies from space relate to the removal
of Indigenous bodes from space?
A. Founded on white supremacy
B. They were forced out of their native land
C. The oppressors and colonizers oppressed the people

XXI. Comment on the direct racist language used by Duncan in her “hunting” video;
why is that ‘hunt’ culturally relevant to the experience of the victim’s ancestors?
A. Influential position
B. Linked to racism
C. Can be used as justification by racists
“The Myth of the Model Minority”
XXII. Explain what the “model minority” stereotype is and why it’s harmful
A. Sees people as entities
B. Loss of sense of individuality
C. People existing outside norm considered as outlaws
XXIII. How does the trope of the model minorities cause issue with other minorities?
What is the implication if you are not the “model”?
A. Causes conflict between minorities

3

B. Ignores the other factors affecting the success of minorities
XXIV. Describe what are considered advantages for people who emigrate from Asia to
the United States?
A. Were favored by the laws in place
B. Acquired secure jobs
C. They worked in prestigious places
D. Acquired generational wealth
XXV. What type of issues do disadvantaged Southeast Asians face in America?
A. Stereotypes
B. Considered quiet and not aggressive enough
C. Have been cultured to accept discrimination
“The Emergence of Yellow Power”
XXVI. How does Uyematsu say Asians have tried to transform themselves in the process
of Americanization?
A. Changed their culture
B. Changed dressing
C. Lost their ethnicity
XXVII.
Explain how she says Asians are stereotyped, and how they have
responded to that categorization
A. System does not accommodate them
B. Biased by the color of their skin
C. Do not fight back
“The Cult of the Country Boy”
XXVIII.

Describe what style Elvis embraced, and why it was important at the time
A. Embraced black style
B. Helped change the narrative

XXIX. The role of American suburbia, and who belonged and who did not
A. The suburbs belonged to rich and middle class Americans
B. The poor stayed in trailer parks
C. Was a basis of social stratification
XXX. Explain the imagery behind ‘trailer park’, ‘vermin’, and those labeled ‘trash’
A. Seen as trash
B. Was unhygienic
C. The people also dressed in shabby clothes
XXXI. What threat did integration pose for people like Hazel Bryan?
A. Founded their livelihood on segregation

4

B. The blacks were seen as competition
XXXII.

How does the southern stereotype lend to imagery surrounding the ‘trash’?
A. Their dress code
B. Their conduct in public
C. Behaved in an uncouth manner

Jim Crow Guide, “Chapter 9” (Forced Labor)

XXXIII.
Explain how much the forced laborer has to work, and analyze where the
ideologies of their work load stem from
A. Had to work for more than half the average
B. Had no time for leisure
C. Caused a continuous cycle of poverty
XXXIV.
A.
B.
C.
D.

XXXV.

Elaborate on the concept of ‘debt slavery’ and explain the issues with it
Debt slavery
Made less money than what they could pay
Families worked to pay off debts
The alternative was prison

What role does forced labor take on the entire victimized family?
A. Limited access to basic resources
B. Causes them to descend to poverty
C. The cycle is generational

“I Am Not Your Negro” (Film)
XXXVI.
What reason does Baldwin say is why Whites are preoccupied with the
“Negro problem”?
A. They created the negro problem
B. Stems from their insecurities
C. Are seen as the victims always
D. Blacks are the scape goats
XXXVII.
Men
A.
B.
C.
XXXVIII.
A.
B.

What does Baldwin say is the root of hatred for Black Men, and for White
The hatred among blacks stems from injustice
They hate the acts, not the white people
The hatred from the whites stems from insecurities
Explain the double standard for heroism in America
Racial discrimination
Double standards

5

C. The whites can get away with social crimes
XXXIX.
What do you learn about the American sense of reality by entertainment
on television?
A. Depicts and contributes towards racism
B. Reality shows continue to discriminate marginalized groups
XL.

How has the American dream failed? How do you think it can be remedied?
A. American dream has failed
B. System discriminates against people
C. The remedy may take years
D. Implementation of the laws against discrimination

6


Name________________________
Journal #4 – Post-1965 Immigration & Social Movements in the 1960s-1970s
Take copious notes on these film clips and readings. Then, give thoughtful responses to the
following questions for each film/reading selection. For each question, bring in analysis from our
weekly readings.
"No Mas Bebes" (Film)
1. How did the doctors make sure they legally had 'consent' to sterilize the women?
The doctors decided to make the women sign forms when they were still in pain from the
labor to make sure that the consent to sterilize the women was obtained legally. In a state of
pain and discomfort, the statement next to the signature the women put read, "No mas bebes
por vidas." Unknowingly, thinking that they were consenting to something entirely different,
such as the hospital not being liable for certain errors or mishaps, they consented to get
sterilized. It was wrong since legal contentment requires all parties involved to be fully aware
of what they agree to and not decide from the point of ignorance. In this case, the hospitals
willingly withheld information that would have otherwise caused them to resolve to not
signing the forms. The women got deceived that their signatures would guarantee access to
pain medicine after giving birth, and others got told that the entire process could get reversed
when they were ready to have more kids. The majority surrendered their signatures, believing
that it was all part of the legal and standard paperwork for the office, too distraught and
disoriented to seek further information. The women were also workers in factories, and many
were illiterate and had very little knowledge of English. After a C-section, their focus was to
end the pain, and they agreed to anything they would have been told. The doctors took
advantage of their vulnerability, taking their signed consent and sterilizing them in the
process.
2. What is the argument of the legal team representing the women, and how does it differ from
what the former Head of Gynecology (Dr. Quilligan) says?
The argument put forward by the legal party was that the women did not consent to
sterilization but got forced to do it. They were asked to sign documents without being
informed of what was...


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