Race and Ethnicity Commons^™

Thematic Bibliography To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

An Indictment Of The System, Jonathan Petrie

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

This past week, the nation was hit by a shock wave. Donald Trump, the former host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” was elected president of the United States. People are wondering, “how could this be?” This is a man who openly used race-baiting rhetoric, endorsed xenophobic policies, insulted disabled reporters and performed so many more ridiculous acts I probably could not fit them into this piece. So how could this guy have possibly won?

Whitewashing In Hollywood Silently Affects Our Children, Sam Tracy

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

The reaction to the 2016 Oscars, which birthed the trending topic #OscarsSoWhite on Twitter, highlights a serious problem in our country — a lack of representation for non-white communities. Watching a movie in the 1950s is still somehow reminiscent of today. We have put an end to blackface, the practice of coloring a white person’s face with paint to fill the role of a historically non-white character without hiring an accurate representative. Yet major blockbuster films did not commonly hire non-white characters for major roles until just recently. Our movies now typically feature a white cast, with the exception of …

The Devil Of Hell's Kitchen : Social Constructions In The Best Of Us, Sam Tracy

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Cultural norms shape perceptions. This is an unavoidable truth, but one that is rarely acknowledged. It isn’t important whether that lack of acknowledgement is based on a general unawareness or willful ignorance or something else — but simply that it happens. The majority of the mainstream public is in the dark about many prejudices that seep into societal norms. One of the struggles many of us face is putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Majorities have trouble sympathizing with minorities or refuse to try. White people cannot be the target of racism, heterosexuals do not have to live with homophobia …

Another Day In Confederate Gettysburg, Scott Hancock

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

Today the Sons of Confederate Veterans ‘celebrated’ the confederate flag at the Peace Light Memorial on the battlefields of Gettysburg. The same battlefields where some of their ancestors suffered a pivotal defeat, and then kidnapped free Black Americans as they fled south. When I found out the SCV had obtained a permit from the National Park Service, I did likewise so I could stand up there with my homemade sign that connects the confederate flag to some of its most seminal moments in history: fighting for slavery in 1863, fighting for segregation in 1962, and murdering nine black South Carolinians …

Visualizing Abolition: Two Graphic Novels And A Critical Approach To Mass Incarceration For The Composition Classroom, Michael Sutcliffe

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article outlines two graphic novels and an accompanying activity designed to unpack complicated intersections between racism, poverty, and (d)evolving criminal-legal policy. Over 2 million adults are held in U.S. prison facilities, and several million more are under custodial supervision, and it has become clearly unsustainable. In the last decade, there has been a shift in media conversations about criminality, yet only a few suggest decreasing our reliance upon incarceration. In meaningfully different ways, the two novels trace the development of incarceration from its roots in slavery to its contemporary anti-democratic iteration and offer an underpublicized alternative.

Critical and community …

Live, Learn – And Let Live, Anthony Major

UCF Forum

I grew up in a segregated community in Florida and attended supposedly “separate but equal” schools in a small town that had separate water fountains, bathrooms and even beaches, among other restrictions. We were expected to cross the street when a white woman was approaching and never look a white man in the eyes - that is if you didn’t want to appear defiant.

Assessing Reconstruction: Did The South Undergo Revolutionary Change?, Lauren H. Sobotka

Student Publications

With the end of the Civil War, came a number of unanswered questions Reconstruction would attempt to answer for the South. While the South underwent economic, political and social changes for a short period, old traditions continued to persist resulting in racist sentiment.

“Caught Between Southern Pride And Southern Blame”: Brad Paisley’S “Accidental Racist”, Brianna E. Kirk

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

An ongoing and rather controversial debate in the Civil War world is that over the rightful placement of the Confederate battle flag in American memory. Being such a provocative symbol both in terms of history and race relations, its ‘true’ meaning and ‘true’ symbolism are constantly in flux. With recent disputes on the removal of the Confederate flag from Robert E. Lee’s tomb at Washington and Lee University making their way into the mainstream news, the complicated meaning of the rebel symbol and where it belongs in American memory have earned their places at the forefront of the national consciousness. …

African American Women Leaders In The Civil Rights Movement: A Narrative Inquiry, Janet Dewart Bell

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to give recognition to and lift up the voices of African American women leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. African American women were active leaders at all levels of the Civil Rights Movement, though the larger society, the civil rights establishment, and sometimes even the women themselves failed to acknowledge their significant leadership contributions. The recent and growing body of popular and nonacademic work on African American women leaders, which includes some leaders’ writings about their own experiences, often employs the terms “advocate” or “activist” rather than “leader.” In the academic literature, particularly on …

“El No Murio, El Se Multiplico!” Hugo Chávez : The Leadership And The Legacy On Race, Cynthia Ann Mckinney

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

“Chávez, Chávez, Chávez: Chávez no murio, se multiplico!” was the chant outside the National Assembly building after several days of mourning the death of the first President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This study investigates the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his legacy on race as seen through the eyes and experiences of selected interviewees and his legacy on race. The interviewees were selected based on familiarity with the person and policies of the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his legacy on race. Unfortunately, not much has been written about this aspect of Hugo Chávez despite the myriad attempts …

Musical Influence On Apartheid And The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine D. Power

Student Publications

Black South Africans and African Americans not only share similar identities, but also share similar historical struggles. Apartheid and the Civil Rights Movement were two movements on two separate continents in which black South Africans and African Americans resisted against deep injustice and defied oppression. This paper sets out to demonstrate the key role that music played, through factors of globalization, in influencing mass resistance and raising global awareness. As an elemental form of creative expression, music enables many of the vital tools needed to overcome hatred and violence. Jazz and Freedom songs were two of the most influential genres, …

I'Ve Seen The Promised Land: A Letter To Amelia Boynton Robinson, Mauricio E. Novoa

SURGE

You asked if I had any thoughts or comments at the end of our visit, and I stood and said nothing. I opened my mouth, but instead of giving you words my throat was sealed by a dam of speechlessness while my eyes wept out all the emotions and heartache that I wanted to share with you. The others in my group were able to express their admiration, so I wanted to do the same. [excerpt]

Two Tales Of A City: Nineteenth-Century Black Philadelphia, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] In the tension between Forging Freedom and Roots of Violence certain themes present themselves for further research and thought. Neither volume successfully analyzes the historical roots of the African-American class structure. This is especially evident in each book's treatment of the black middling orders. While neither defines the category with clarity, their basic assumption that small shopkeepers and regularly employed workers were critical to the community's ability to withstand some of the worst shocks of racism is important. The clash between these books also raises questions concerning the role of pre-industrial cultural values in the transition to industrial capitalism. …

Workers, Racism And History: A Response, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] This intimate dependence of white egalitarianism upon black exclusion forms the central theme of Herbert Hill's essay. Arguing that this condition is neither episodic nor solely of historical interest, Hill asserts that these racist attitudes (and the action that flowed from them) were systemic across two centuries of working class development and actually provide the central continuous rational for understanding institutional trade union activity from the early nineteenth century into the present. America's labor unions. Hill writes, are "the institutional expression of white working class racism, and of policies and practices that resulted in unequal access, dependent on race, …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

Church Burnings, Eric S. Yellin

History Faculty Publications

On 15 September 1963 a bomb exploded in the basement of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. The ensuing fire and death of four little girls placed the violence of white supremacy on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. It also entered the 16^th Street Church into a long history of attacks against houses of worship in the American South. Though churches burn for any number of reasons, including accident and insurance fraud, church arson in southern culture has frequently been associated with a symbolic assault on a community’s core institution.

Ua1b1/5 Martin Luther King Forum, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records regarding the Martin Luther King Forum.

"American Dream" Or Global Nightmare?, Melanie E. L. Bush

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

In the United States we are witnessing a period of heightened contestation about the parameters of nationalism, patriotism, and loyalty. The oft-heard phrase "Support the Troops" now signifies the desire both to send more soldiers to war and to bring home those already in combat. This "nation of immigrants" has spawned a new generation of "minute-men" to defend national borders while mainstream discourse touts the benefits of "diversity." Dreams of upward mobility present for some during the mid-20th century seem now hazy at best as the proportional income of those at top grows while the rest of the population increasingly …

Umaine Professors Study The Link Between Racial Prejudice And The Punishment Of Criminals, Gladys Ganiel

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

During the past 30 years, the criminal justice system in the United States has meted out increasingly harsher punishments for offenders, so that today the U.S. imprisonment rate is the highest in the Western industrial world. Research by two University of Maine sociology professors suggests that racial prejudice against African-Americans is one of the underlying factors in the creation of public policies favoring crime control.

Revisiting The Struggle For Integration, Michelle Fine, Bernadette Anand

Publications and Research

The project we describe in this article emerged from thinking about Fridays. While the Monday through Thursday schedule at Renaissance Middle School in Montclair, New Jersey covers the traditional distribution of curriculum, Fridays are dedicated to nine-week cycles of two hour sessions. Each session involves in-depth work focusing on five themes: Aviation, Genetics, Building Bridges, Community Service and this, the Oral History Project. Because the school is thematically organized around core notions of justice, history, social movements and "renaissances" (that is, Italian, Harlem and Montclair), we structured this project around the deeply contested history of desegregation of the Montclair public …

Recognize Martin Luther King Day, Kathleen March

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Each academic year as January nears the University of Maine begins to think again about Martin Luther King, about the day officially designated to honor his life and teachings. Like several other national holidays, this one currently does not bring with it a day off from classes at this university. Several reasons have been cited for this: one is the academic year is already too short.

Mr. Gnu Comic Strip, Travis Dandro

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

A four-panel comic strip drawn by Travis Dandro depicting a bigoted perspective of both people of color and individuals with disabilities.

Long description.

Panel one contains one figure, a highly stylized, anthropomorphized Gnu (or African antelope with along head and beard), presumably the title character of the strip, Mr. Gnu. The character is holding a cereal box in front of him. Lettering over the character's head reads: "Hey kids! I'd like to introduce a new cereal!"

Panel two contains a close up of the cereal box with the lettering, "Sammy Davis CRUNCH" over a stylized drawing of a character that …

All Bets Are Off, Michael L. Lane

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

The recent ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has, as do all courts of law worthy of the name, laid down the law in what inevitablely will be a very emotional and drawn out struggle. While Indian tribes across the nation scrample to erect casinos under the auspices of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Maine's own Passamaquoddy Time saw their proposal to build a casino in Calais, shot down on grounds that it is illegal.

Maine Indian Rights The Worst In The Country, Eric R. Manni

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Does Michael L. Lane thoroughly research a subject before he use[s] his pen? Responding to "All bets are off" (Maine Campus Feb. 16), Lane has addressed four separate issues in one commentary. This is typical over-generalized […] when it comes to addressing Native American issues.

Activist Speaks To Umaine About Hate Crimes, Keith Edwards

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Claudia Brenner, a gay and lesbian activist, spoke at the University of Maine Tuesday in a lecture titled, "Claiming Our Voices: A Personal Experience."

Angela Davis Addresses Racism--Activist Tells Students To Demand More Multicultural Programming, Julie Campagna

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Angela Davis, an internationally recognized author, scholar, and human rights activist, arrived late Wednesday night to the University of Maine's Memorial Gym, but the half hour delay was well worth the wait. Racism, repression and hate-violence were among the major subjcts Davis discussed, including the alledged racial attack in February against UMaine students Quester Hannah and Aaron Phillips.

Students Say Racism A Problem At Umaine, Doug Vanderweide

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Article from the University of Maine student newspaper The Maine Campus regarding racism experienced by Black students at the University of Maine.

More White Than Black, Doug Kesseli

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Editorial from the University of Maine student newspaper The Maine Campus regarding the lack of Black students, faculty, and administrators at the University.

Screwballs Comic: "Toke N' Choke", Tom Higgins

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

A four-panel black and white comic strip drawn and authored by Tom Higgins expressing ethnic, black male stereotypes.

Long description.

Panel one: In the foreground is one of the usual white, men characters. The man has a long, rectangular nose and long, flat-top hair style. A speech bubble over his head says, "Hey man, did you get th' stuff?" He is looking in the direction of a black man wearing a striped Zoot suit and black fedora who has opened a door and is walking into the room, toward the white character. The black character is drawn as if he …