The BrownTable 2812: History by targeted racial group. Pt. 2

Antisemitism

Main article: Antisemitism in the United States

Antisemitism has also played a role in America. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of Ashkenazi Jews were escaping the pogroms of Russia and Eastern Europe. They boarded boats from ports on the Baltic Sea and in Northern Germany, and largely arrived at Ellis Island, New York.^[43]

It is thought by Leo Rosten, in his book, 'The Joys of Yiddish', that as soon as they left the boat, they were subject to racism from the port immigration authorities. The derogatory term 'kike' was adopted when referring to Jews (because they often could not write so they may have signed their immigration papers with circles - or kikel in Yiddish).^[44]

From the 1910s, the Southern Jewish communities were attacked by the Ku Klux Klan, who objected to Jewish immigration, and often used 'The Jewish Banker' in their propaganda. In 1915, Texas-born, New York Jew Leo Frank was lynched by the newly re-formed Klan, after being convicted of rape and sentenced to death (his punishment was commuted to life imprisonment).^[45]

The events in Nazi Germany also attracted attention from America. Jewish lobbying for intervention in Europe drew opposition from theisolationists, amongst whom was Father Charles Coughlin, a well known radio priest, who was known to be critical of Jews, believing that they were leading America into the war.^[46] He preached in weekly, overtly anti-Semitic sermons and, from 1936, began publication of a newspaper, Social Justice, in which he printed anti-Semitic accusations such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.^[46]

A number of Jewish organizations, Christian organizations, Muslim organizations, and academics consider the Nation of Islam to be anti-Semitic. Specifically, they claim that the Nation of Islam has engaged in revisionist and antisemitic interpretations of the Holocaust and exaggerates the role of Jews in the African slave trade.^[47] The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) alleges that NOI Health Minister, Abdul Alim Muhammad, has accused Jewish doctors of injecting blacks with the AIDS virus,^[48] an allegation that Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad has denied.

Anti-White racism

Affirmative action is sometimes called "reverse racism" by its opponents; some sociologists argue that the term "racism" can only be applied to structured systems of racial supremacy, and that opponents would more correctly call affirmative action "reverse discrimination."^[49]

In the United States, there have been crimes committed against White Americans on the basis of their ethnicity. One series of unprovoked crimes that specifically targeted White Americans is the Zebra murders that occurred in San Francisco between 1973 and 1974. The Zebra murders were carried out by a group known as Death Angels (a radical splinter group of the Nation of Islam) that intended to kill whites to spread terror and earn favor and status within their sect. The final death count varies depending on which killings are included, but it is believed to account for more than 71 murders in addition to numerous rapes and attempted murders.^{[citation needed]}

Another series of crimes that specifically targeted whites is the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks which planned to kill six whites a day for 30 days,^[50] and resulted in 10 deaths and 3 critical injuries. One of the snipers Lee Boyd Malvo testified that John Allen Muhammad was driven by hatred of America because of its "slavery, hypocrisy and foreign policy" and his belief that "the white man is the devil."

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, national anti-white hate groups that are currently active include Nation of Islam and New Black Panther Party.

According to FBI statistics from 1995-2002, Whites are the second most targeted group for racially motivated hate crime in New York City.^[51]

Racism against Middle Easterners and Muslims

Main articles: Anti-Arabism and Islamophobia

An Assyrian church vandalized in Detroit (2007). Assyrians, although not Arabs and mostly Christians, often face backlash in the US for their Middle Eastern background.^[52]

Racism against Arab Americans^[53] may rise concomittantly with tensions between the American government and the Arab world. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, discrimination and racialized violence has markedly increased against Arab Americans and many other religious and cultural groups.^[54]

Iraqis in particular were demonized which led to hatred towards Arabs and Iranians living in the United States and elsewhere in thewestern world.^[55]^[56] There have been attacks against Arabs not only on the basis of their religion (Islam), but also on the basis of their ethnicity; numerous Christian Arabs have been attacked based on their appearances.^[57] In addition, non-Arabs who are mistaken for Arabs because of perceived "similarities in appearance" have been collateral victims of anti-Arabism.

Persian people (who constitute a completely different set of ethnic groups than Arabs), as well as South Asians of different ethnic/religious backgrounds (Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs) have been stereotyped as "Arabs". The case of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh who was murdered at a Phoenix gas station by a white supremacist for "looking like an Arab terrorist" (because of the turban that is a requirement of Sikhism), as well as that of Hindus being attacked for "being Muslims" have achieved prominence and criticism following the September 11 attacks.^[58]^[59]

Racism against Iranians

Main article: Anti-Iranian sentiment

A man holding a sign that reads "deport allIranians" and "get the hell out of my country" during a protest of the Iran hostage crisis inWashington, D.C. in 1979.

The November 1979 Iranian hostage crisis of the U.S. embassy in Tehran precipitated a wave of anti-Iranian sentiment in the United States, directed both against the new Islamic regimeand Iranian nationals and immigrants. Even though such sentiments gradually declined after the release of the hostages at the start of 1981, they sometimes flare up. In response, some Iranian immigrants to the U.S. have distanced themselves from their nationality and instead identify primarily on the basis of their ethnic or religious affiliations.^[60]

Ann Coulter called Iranians "ragheads."^[61] Brent Scowcroft called the Iranian people "rug merchants."^[62]

Since the 1980s and especially since the 1990s Hollywood's depiction of Iranians has gradually shown signs of vilifying Iranians.^[63] Hollywood network productions such as 24 ^[64],John Doe, On Wings of Eagles (1986)^[65], Escape From Iran: The Canadian Caper (1981)^[66], and JAG almost regularly host Persian speaking villains in their storylines. On May 9, 1997,CBS aired an episode of JAG in which several Hamas terrorists take a Washington hospital under siege. According to the film, they spoke in fluent "Persian", not "Arabic".^{[citation needed]}

Some of Hollywood's "stereotypical"^[67] and anti-Iranian movies include: The Peacemaker (in which a character, apparently without any context, says "fuck Iran"), The Hitman (in which several mobs join together to demolish an Iranian mob operating in Canada), MadHouse(partially centering upon a wealthy Iranian who is in the process of divorcing his American wife. In one scene, the wife, speaking to her Iranian husband utters "you goddamn towel heads, sand rats"), The Naked Gun, Under Siege, The Delta Force, Into the Night, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Threads, The Final Options, and Silver Bears.

Racism as a factor in U.S. foreign policy

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The earliest decades of expansionist United States foreign policy making was often accompanied by racialist ideological justifications. While pursuing a series of expansionist wars (see "Racism against Native Americans" above), American leaders embraced and ideology of white racial supremacy. George Washington predicted at the end of the U.S. Revolutionary War, “The gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage, as the wolf, to retire; both being beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape."^[68] The successful slave revolution inHaiti alarmed the United States leadership, and the country refused diplomatic recognition for decades. The United States conquest of Floridaand the Seminole Wars were fought in part to confront the danger of "mingled hordes of lawless Indians and negroes," in the words of President John Quincy Adams.^[69]

Early 20th-century President Theodore Roosevelt declared, "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages" and openly spoke of cementing the rule of "dominant world races."^[69] In line with the concepts of the "Manifest Destiny" of white Anglo-Americans to conquer lands inhabited by "inferior" races of Native Americans and Mexicans, and the "White Man's Burden" of Europeans' obligation to introduce civilization to the "primitive" people of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, American foreign policy in the early 20th century had racial overtones of a "superior" race destined to rule the world.

Critics such as Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky have suggested that racism has played a significant role in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and its treatment of the Arabs. Various critics have suggested that racism along with strategic and financial interests motivated the Bush Administration to attack Iraq even though the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction nor had any ties to Al Qaida.^[70]^[71]^[72] On the other hand, some scholars believe that the United States has softened racial restrictions based on foreign policy concerns. For example, Congress eliminated racial bars on Asian immigration during World War II and the Vietnam War to recognize American allies.^[73] When the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, the government argued that the Supreme Court should rule against racial segregation to counter Communist propaganda and improve America's image overseas.^[74]

Conflicts between racial and ethnic minorities

Argument against minority-minority racism

Minority racism is sometimes considered controversial because of theories of power in society. Some theories of racism insist that racism can only exist in the context of social power to impose it upon others.^[75]

African and Mexican American gang violence

There has been ongoing violence between between African American and Mexican American gangs, particularly in Los Angeles,California.^[76]^[77]^[78]^[79] There have been reports of racially motivated attacks against African Americans who have moved into neighborhoods occupied mostly by Mexican Americans, and vice versa.^[80]^[81] According to gang experts and law enforcement agents, a longstanding race war between the Mexican Mafia and the Black Guerilla family, a rival African American prison gang, has generated such intense racial hatred among Mexican Mafia leaders, or shot callers, that they have issued a "green light" on all blacks. This amounts to a standing authorization for Latino gang members to prove their mettle by terrorizing or even murdering any blacks sighted in a neighborhood claimed by a gang loyal to the Mexican Mafia.[3] There have been several significant riots in California prisons where Mexican American inmates and African Americans have targeted each other particularly, based on racial reasons.^[82]^[83]

Hispanics and Whites

Recently there has also been an increase in racial violence between whites and Hispanic immigrants.^[84]

New Immigrant African Americans and African Americans

The rapid growth in African immigrants has came into conflict with American blacks.^[85]^[86]

Stereotypes and prejudice

Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on thetalk page. (October 2007)

This racist postcard from the 1900s shows the casual denigration of black women. It states "I know you're not particular to a fault / Though I'm not sure you'll never be sued for assault / You're so fond of women that even a wench / Attracts your gross fancy despite her strong stench"

Stereotypical images in the entertainment media

Popular culture (songs, theater) for European-American audiences in the nineteenth century created and perpetuated negative stereotypes of African-Americans. One key symbol of racism against African Americans was the use of blackface. Directly related to this was the institution of minstrelsy.

Contemporary images and protests

Increasing numbers of African-American activists have asserted that rap music videos utilize African-American performers commonly enacting tropes of scantily clothed women and men as thugs or pimps. Church organized groups have protested outside the residence of Phillipe Dauman (Upper East Side (New York, NY)) (president and chief executive officer of Viacom) and the residence of Debra L. Lee (Northwest Washington DC) (chairman and chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, a unit of Viacom). Rev. Donald Coates, leader of a protest organization formed around the issue of the videos, "Enough is Enough!" said, “In the wake of the Imus affair, I began to think that the African-American community must be consistent in its outrage.” The Clifton, Maryland ministered has also said, “Why are these corporations making these images normative and mainstream?” . . . . “I can talk about this in the church until I am blue in the face, but we need to take it outside.” The NAACP and the National Congress of Black Women also have called for the reform of images on videos and on television. Julian Bond said that in a segregated society, people get their impressions of other groups from what they see in videos and what they hear in music.^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90]

In a similar vein, activists protested against the BET show, Hot Ghetto Mess, which satirizes the culture of working-class African-Americans. The protests resulted in the change of the television show name to We Got to Do Better.^[87]

Congressional hearing

In September, 2007 Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Illinois) initiated a Congressional hearing on African-American images in the media, “From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images.” ^[87]

Segregation and integration

Main article: Racial segregation in the United States

History

The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws enacted in the Southern and border states of the United States and enforced between 1876 and 1965. They mandated "separate but equal" status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were almost always inferior to those provided to white Americans. The most important laws required that public schools, public places and public transportation, like trains and buses, have separate facilities for whites and blacks. (These Jim Crow Laws were separate from the 1800-66Black Codes, which had restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans.) State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act; none were in effect at the end of the 1960s.

Segregation continued even after the demise of the Jim Crow laws. Data on house prices and attitudes toward integration from suggest that in the mid-twentieth century, segregation was a product of collective actions taken by whites to exclude blacks from their neighborhoods.^[91]Segregation also took the form of redlining, the practice of denying or increasing the cost of services, such as banking, insurance, access to jobs,^[92] access to health care,^[93] or even supermarkets^[94] to residents in certain, often racially determined,^[95] areas. Although in the United States informal discrimination and segregation have always existed, the practice called "redlining" began with the National Housing Act of 1934, which established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The practice was fought first through passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (which prevents redlining when the criteria for redlining are based on race, religion, gender, familial status, disability, or ethnic origin), and later through the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which requires banks to apply the same lending criteria in all communities.^[96]Although redlining is illegal some argue that it continues to exist in other forms.

Contemporary issues

Black-White segregation is declining fairly consistently for most metropolitan areas and cities. Despite these pervasive patterns, many changes for individual areas are small.^[97] Thirty years after the civil rights era, the United States remains a residentially segregated society in which Blacks and Whites inhabit different neighborhoods of vastly different quality.^[98]^[99]

Some researchers suggest that racial segregation may lead to disparities in health and mortality. Thomas LaVeist (1989; 1993) tested the hypothesis that segregation would aid in explaining race differences in infant mortality rates across cities. Analyzing 176 large and midsized cities, LaVeist found support for the hypothesis. Since LaVeist's studies, segregation has received increased attention as a determinant of race disparities in mortality.^[100] Studies have shown that mortality rates for male and female African Americans are lower in areas with lower levels of residential segregation. Mortality for male and female Whites was not associated in either direction with residential segregation.^[101]

Researchers Sharon A. Jackson, Roger T. Anderson, Norman J. Johnson and Paul D. Sorlie found that, after adjustment for family income,mortality risk increased with increasing minority residential segregation among Blacks aged 25 to 44 years and non-Blacks aged 45 to 64 years. In most age/race/gender groups, the highest and lowest mortality risks occurred in the highest and lowest categories of residential segregation, respectively. These results suggest that minority residential segregation may influence mortality risk and underscore the traditional emphasis on the social underpinnings of disease and death.^[102] Rates of heart disease among African Americans are associated with the segregation patterns in the neighborhoods where they live (Fang et al. 1998). Stephanie A. Bond Huie writes that neighborhoods affect health and mortality outcomes primarily in an indirect fashion through environmental factors such as smoking, diet, exercise, stress, and access to health insurance and medical providers.^[103] Moreover, segregation strongly influences premature mortality in the US.^[104]

Laws regarding race

Main article: Race legislation in the United States

Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on thetalk page. (October 2007)

Court cases regarding race

Institutional racism

Institutional racism is the theory that aspects of the structure, pervasive attitudes, and established institutions of society disadvantage some racial groups, although not by an overtly discriminatory mechanism.^[105] There are several factors that play into institutional racism, including but not limited to: accumulated wealth/benefits from racial groups that have benefited from past discrimination, educational and occupational disadvantages faced by non-native English speakers in the United States, ingrained stereotypical images that still remain in the society (e.g. black men are likely to be criminals).^[106]

Immigration

Access to United States citizenship was restricted by race, beginning with the Naturalization Act of 1790 which refused naturalization to "non-whites." Many in the modern United States forget the institutionalized prejudice against white followers of Roman Catholicism who immigrated from countries such as Ireland, Germany, Italy and France.^[107] Other efforts include the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1924 National Origins Act.^[108]^[109] The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. While officially prohibited, U.S. officials continue to differentially apply laws on illegal immigration depending on national origin (essentially declining to enforce immigration laws against citizens of rich countries who overstay their visas) and personal economy (differentially awarding visas to foreign nationals based on bank accounts, properties and so on).

Wealth creation

Massive racial differentials in account of wealth remain in the United States: between whites and African Americans, the gap is a factor of ten.^[110] An analyst of the phenomenon, Thomas Shapiro, professor of law and social policy at Brandeis University argues, “The wealth gap is not just a story of merit and achievement, it’s also a story of the historical legacy of race in the United States.”^[111] Differentials applied to theSocial Security Act (which excluded agricultural workers, a sector that then included most black workers), rewards to military officers, and the educational benefits offered returning soldiers after World War II. Pre-existing disparities in wealth are exacerbated by tax policies that reward investment over waged income, subsidize mortgages, and subsidize private sector developers.^[112]

Impact on health

Health care inequality

Affirmative action

Main article: Affirmative action in the United States

Affirmative action is a policy or program intended to promote access to education or employment for minority groups and women. Motivation for affirmative action policies is to redress the effects of past discrimination and to encourage public institutions such as universities, hospitals, and police forces to be more representative of the population.

Affirmative action programs may include targeted recruitment efforts, preferential treatment given to applicants from historically disadvantaged groups, and in some cases the use of quotas. Most American universities and some employers practice affirmative action.^{[citation needed]}

Some opponents of affirmative action view the greater access by women and minority groups to be at the expense of groups considered dominant (typically white men). In their view, these policies demonstrate an overt preference for applicants from particular backgrounds over better-qualified (or equally-qualified) candidates from other backgrounds. Some opponents of affirmative action believe the only consideration in choosing between applicants should be merit. Some also criticize affirmative action because they believe it perpetuates racial division instead of minimizing the importance of race in American society.^[126]

Supporters of affirmative action believe that the perceived injustice to the dominant group is not supported by facts. They point to statistics that suggest that affirmative action has not resulted in fewer opportunities for white people. For example, white enrollment in universities has increased along with minority enrollment. In 1973, 30% of white high school graduates attended universities; in 1993, after widespread implementation of affirmative action policies, that number had risen to 42%.^[127] Some supporters of affirmative action point out that, even in the absence of affirmative action, college admissions rarely are purely merit-based: athletes, musicians, and legacy students (children ofalumni) have always been given preferential treatment. For example, Harvard University admits 35-40% of legacy applicants, and a rejected white applicant is more likely to have been displaced by a legacy student than by one who benefited from affirmative action.^{[citation needed]}

Anti-Civil Rights leaders

The following list are of US personages well known for their opposition to either equal and or Civil Rights for minorities:

Benjamin Harrison, President who did not veto the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
Woodrow Wilson, President who reintroduced segregation into the Federal Government
Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator who was proponent of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority and of the Immigration Restriction League
Jesse Helms, Senator^{[citation needed]}
Ben Tillman, Governor and Senator^{[citation needed]}
Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision.
Pierce Butler, Supreme Court Justice^{[citation needed]}
James Clark McReynolds, Supreme Court Justice^{[citation needed]}
George Sutherland, Supreme Court Justice^{[citation needed]}
Strom Thurmond, Senator who conducted the longest filibuster (24 hours and 18 minutes) in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
John Calhoun, antebellum South Carolinan senator, known for his vociferous agitation for "states rights", and a virulent defender of slavery.
Andrew Jackson, President who signed and supported the Indian Removal Act. The law removed nearly all Native Americans from the eastern United States and the tribes migrated into lands west of the Mississippi river.

Current hate groups

Main article: Hate groups

Supremacist, separatist, racist, and hate groups still operate in the United States. The Ku Klux Klan, the National Alliance, National Socialist Movement (United States), Aryan Nations, Westboro Baptist Church, Nation of Islam, League of the South, New Black Panther Party, Nation of Aztlán, Nation of Yahweh, Jewish Task Force, the Jewish Defense League, and the White Order of Thule are among the institutions most commonly identified in this way.

Anti-racism

Main article: Anti-racism

Counter-racist organizations

Further information: NAACP, Congress of Racial Equality, and Anti-Racist Action

External links

From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images -Reprint of Lisa Fager testimony on stereotyping in media

The BrownTable 2812

Saturday, September 26, 2009

History by targeted racial group. Pt. 2