While we celebrate the Supreme Court’s momentous decisions on DOMA and Prop 8, we must not overlook their decision on the Voting Rights Act.
What other facts and findings suggest we still need policy and laws like the Voting Rights Act?
history
White Backlash to Electing Black Politicians – Then & Now
This blog entry from CNN discusses how the first Black man to be elected to the U.S. Senate was met with a white backlash that “helped destroy Reconstruction” after the Civil War. It draws parallels between the white backlash then and the white backlash to electing Obama in 2008. What are your thoughts? Is is a reasonable comparison to make? The post quotes a history professor from Fordham who says we aren’t post-racial but we also aren’t going back to …
Recommended Reading
More really interesting commentary on the book and movie, The Help. From the Association of Black Women Historians. Recommended readings are included: An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help.
The Help
Recommended companion piece to The Help: Eudora Welty’s, ‘Where is the Voice Coming From?” short story.
King’s call to action
Martin Luther King’s 1967 address to the American Psychological Association called for action not only an academic level from the APA. He called for action. This stood out to me because we, of course, were discussing this speech in an academic setting: the classroom. King advises: “social science should be able to suggest mechanisms to create a wholesome black unity and a sense of peoplehood while the process of integration proceeds.” He calls on the social sciences to find a way to unify and strengthen the African American community whilst empowering to move upward in mainstream American society.
Japanese American Civil Rights Hero Dies
Gordon Hirabayashi refused to go to a WWII internment camp in 1942. He died on Monday at the age of 93. Read more about his story here.
Eurocentric Racism in the Classroom
As they so often do, our discussion in class this week reminded me of one of the most influential teacher’s that I’ve had the privilege of learning from at Muhlenberg, Dr. Charles Anderson. Our discussion of how racism directly effects the testing ability of black youth made me feel as if I was right back in introduction to African American Studies and I had to re-visit one particular article that I felt was so relevant to what we are discussing. The article is by Molefi Asante, who is one of the most respected African American studies scholars in the world. He is currently a professor at Temple, where he started the first PhD program for African American studies. He has written countless works, but the articles I read, or should say re-read are titled “Locating a Text: Implications of Afrocentric Theory”, “Afrocentricity”, and “Where is the White Professor Located?”. In all of these articles, among other things, he points out the many flaws in the American education system. More specifically Asante convincingly argues that our education system is based on racist Eurocentric viewpoints that keep white people at the center of every academic subject and only teach these subjects from a Eurocentric perspective. Asante further asserts that because of this narrow and exclusionary education system, young African American students feel alienated, dislocated, unimportant, and above all, marginalized in the scope of academic study. Getting more specific, Asante discusses how non-white groups are portrayed in academic study, specifically the study of history, as the groups that are acted upon rather than groups with agency. He argues that the agency denied to minority groups in the study of history and academia in general further alienates African Americans and other minority groups because it promotes a feeling of helplessness in their lives.