Black People and American Dominant Culture Essay

* A sign is anything that could be use to stand for something else. The two parts are a recogniz able-bodied signifier (form that the sign takes) with a signified (the concept that it represents) 2. According to Howard Zinn, whose voices are the ones often neglected by/ odd egress of memoir? * The voices left off are done by those who are not popular, the common man. 3. Zinn discussed the language used in the contr performance bridge of Independence, and that used in the United States disposition to describe the rights to which everyone is entitled.How do they differ and what greater conflict does this discrepancy represent? * Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which says all of us have an equal right to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. * The the States that we know is a country that had slavery and still has racism, had a prexy who was seen as a hero who loved war and 4. list Ronald Takaki calls the Master Narrative of American history.What two assumptions does this version of American history rely upon, and what problems does this cleave for the study of Americas history and contemporary understandings of who/what is American? * Master narrative the antecedent and popular but inaccurate story declaring that our country was colonized by European immigrants, and Americans are white. * A filter through which we learn history * Leaves out all the other cultures that live in America 5. How does crowd Hoopes define viva history vs. oral tradition? Does American dominant culture have a strong oral tradition? Why/why not?* Oral history documents collected by tape recorder. Used by social scientists in participant observation studies * Oral tradition general name for verbal stories passed on from one generation to the next 6. What are the strengths/advantages of oral history as a methodology? What are the limitation/weaknesses of oral history? How can these limi tations/weaknesses be supported? * Strengths it can find the point of view of the people who originally had no voice before. It can be used to find to a greater extent details that may otherwise prove what is traditionally taught as wrong or different.Can be used to make reinforcement stronger * Weaknesses Memory is fallible, needs documentation to provide validity, people may lie, bias, tho living people, reluctance 7. What group of people was the subject of study in Boots of Leather, Slippers of gold? Why do the authors argue it was important to study these women? Were they part of a political movement? In what way(s) did they contribute to social change in the U. S.? * lawsuit of study Working class lesbians from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s in Buffalo, New York * The focus revealed the centrality of butch-fem roles.* Womens openness about their lesbianism was crucial not only to the communities they helped form in their own time but to all lesbian communities which they have provided a model for that have emerged since. * They even go so uttermost as to posit that these older lesbians and their lives constitute a prepolitical stage of the 1970s gay rights movement. 8. What kinds of challenges did the women in Storming Caesars Palace face growing up in the sec? What was the name of the organization that they created and ran together? What kinds of services were they able to make available to residents on the west side of Las Vegas?* The women faced racism, discrimination, lack of jobs, welfare, income, fathers leaving, marriages failing. Women saw marrying early as a way to get out of this but turned out to be wrong. The organization that they created was called Operation Life which created community programs that included a checkup center, library, senior citizen housing and daycare. 9. What stereotypes are often associated with those who collect welfare? When welfare was created, who did it primarily benefit? Who was excluded from receiving ben efits?* Stereotypes are often associated with poor people, have kids only for more welfare, lazy, cant find bleed, too lazy to find work. Cheating the system, getting paid too much. driving Cadillacs, too many kids * blacken women were denied nascence control, doctors encouraged black women to have sex at a young age * When it was created it primarily benefited the white community (white widows and orphans) *social security and unemployment excluded domestic work and agricultural) * Blacks were denied welfare (Domestic work and agricultural work) most black women ended up doing those jobs.10. According to the film Crips and Bloods Made in America, how have Black men typically been characterized in American dominant culture? How is this reflected by the proportion of Black men in America who end up jailed/imprisoned during their lifetimes? How did those we hear from in the film characterize the penitentiary system and law enforcement efforts to wage a war on drugs/crime? * Black men are typically characterized in American dominant culture as having a tendency to do crime and that the life they live is the life they chose and want.* 1 in 4 black men are incarcerated in their lifetimes in the area. However this isnt the life that they chose for themselves. The life that the white people, law enforcement has placed upon them forced them into the life that they were assay to avoid. * They said that the war on drugs/crime ended up being a war on black people 11. According to the film, what factors contributed to these rise of urban street gangs in Los Angeles? What kinds of opportunities were not available to young people in these neighborhoods?Why do young people join gangs, and what do they get out of being in a gang? * Territorial boundaries, discrimination, gangs, police force forced them into this life. No father figures, police force incarcerating black fathers * They were not able to join organized groups and as a result joined a gang to feel accepted. T hey did that to get some sense of family and they looked after one another, and protection, federal official one another 12. How were the actions of African American residents during the Watts Rebellion characterized by media and law enforcement? How did they describe themselves?* The media and law enforcement saw it as a riot that it was unorganized topsy-turvydom * They perceived it as a rebellion that they knew fully well what they were doing and that it was organized and that white people didnt think black people had the capable prospect of organizing together. 13. How is violence characterized/interpreted differently depending on who commits acts of violence? When is violence deemed acceptable/unacceptable? * LAPD/National Guard Supposed to keep the police. * Black community Characterized differently. * in the first place civil war Black men seen as foolish.* After civil war Seen as dangerous, naturally brutes, slavery helped civilized them, seeing as a threat to the entire social fabric (white women in particular) * Allowed justification for lynching black men by whites * 14. How does Anderson define nation? What are the 4 define characteristics of the nation? * Nation an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. 1. Limited 2. Community 3. Sovereign 4. Imagined 15. Explain the concept of American exceptionalism. In what ways in an emphasis on American exceptionalism reflected in American culture?What founding myths promoted this idea? What two central weaknesses have criticisms of American exceptionalism pore on? * American Exceptionalism The idea that America is unique, special, City upon a Hill. Essentialize American identity. Isolation from within. * Manifest serving Encouraged expansion * Frontier Thesis knockabout individualism, crucial experience, closing of the frontier, bring forth imperialism, spread freedom and democracy * City upon a Hill (society would be an exemplar of Gods will) * Weaknes ses Makes America close minded to other ways of culture or life.We believe that our way of doing things is the best and that we must spread our ideas onto other countries makes us seem imperialistic. 16. Describe how the stock minstrel show characters like the Sambo, Mammy, Coon, and Uncle were portrayed. What function did these portrayals play in Antebellum American culture? What did these images say about the institution of slavery? How did images of Black Americans (and Black men in particular) change following the Civil War? What did this reflect/justify? How was Emancipation portrayed in popular media?How were Black children, or Pickaninnies, often represented? What was the purpose/function of such stereotypes? * Sambo Happy slave, docile, slave in their natural placed, used to seem to resolve the moral and political in the conflict of having slavery in a free country * Mammy cleaning woman version of the Sambo, fat woman, docile does not have the qualities of the white woma n (beauty), worked for the white man, never evoked sexual feeling, seen as the controller in their own family. Men are weak, women are strong. *Coon ignorant black man, tries to act intelligent, dresses like a white man but acts like a fool, gambler after the civil war. * Uncle existed before Civil War. Old slave, fond of the passe-partouts family, loyal. After Civil War, misses slavery, goes back to visit master to reminisce * Pickaninnies black children as animal like, always by a river, messy hair, having alligators prosecute children 17. How does the United States Constitution characterize the relationship between government and religion? How is the significance of religion, particularly Protestant Christianity reflected in American public life?* world-class Amendment talks about separation between church and state * However we always have the image of God. In God we trust God subscribe America One nation under God Presidents always reference Him 18. In what ways did the em ergence of an American middle class in nineteenth century transform the American family? What is the Ideology of Separate Spheres? According to the Cult of Domesticity, what are the four virtuous attributes that the Victorian True Woman was expected to live? * Body of ideas reflecting the social needs and apparitions of an individual, group, class or culture.* Women were expected to stay home and watch over the children and teach them religion while the men went out to work * Ideology of Separate Spheres * Public Work, education, business, sparings, toughness, educated, confident, aggressive and competitive * Private Childrearing, cleaning, cooking, seeing, submissive, kind, caring, loving, nurturing. * Cult of Domesticity 1. Piety (religious devotion) 2. Purity (chaste/sexual purity/virginity) 3. Submissiveness (Obedient as little children) 4. Domesticity ( abode Sweet Home, refuge for husband) 19. How does George Ritzer describe the McDonaldisation of society?Identify and descri be the four key concepts of McDonaldisation. * Process of rationalization, taken to extreme levels * Culture possesses the characteristics of a stiff food nation 1. Efficiency The optimum method of completing a task. The rational determination of the best mode of production. Individuality is not allowed. 2. Calculability Assessment of outcomes found on quantifiable rather than subjective criteria. Quantity over quality. 3. Predictability the production process is organized to guarantee uniformity of product and standardized outcomes 4.Control The refilling of more predictable non-human labor for human labor, either through automation or deskilling of the work force. Key Terms 1. Semiotics The study of signs and symbols 2. Oral floor tape recorded historical information obtained in interviews concerning personal experiences and recollections. 3. Oral Tradition Verbal stories passed on from one generation to the next 4. Nation (as be by Benedict Anderson) an imagined po litical community that is imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign 5.Myth a traditional story, esp, one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, 6. Ideology- a systematic body of concepts of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture. 7. American Exceptionalism Essentialize American identity. Isolation from within. America is superior society 8. City Upon a Hill The society that would be an exemplar of Gods will 9. Manifest Destiny America was superior and they offered the best. Indians were primitive in comparison.As a result America expanded westward to bring education, technology, and religion and drive the Indians out of their estate and bring expansion. Gods plan to expand from coast to coast. Bring progress to a virgin land 10. Frontier Thesis Frederick Jackson turner The wellsprings of American exceptionalism and vitality have always been the American frontier, the region between urbanized, civi lized society and the untamed wilderness. The frontier created freedom, breaking the bonds of custom, offering new experiences, and barter out new institutions and activities. 11. Patriarchy social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the enumeration of descent and inheritance in the male line. Control by men of a disproportionately large share of power 12. Imperialism The policy practice of extending the power of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining indirect control by the political or economic life of other areas. 13. Globalization process of increasing connectivity, services are transported though borders.