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March 10, 2019 at 1:32 pm #4776AMANDA KENGParticipant
For this week’s photo share, I chose the song “Chains” by Usher featuring Nas and Bibi Bourelly. In this song, Usher addresses the topic of police brutality and its effects on present day society. He sings, “You act like the change, tryna throw me in change, Don’t act like you’re saving us, it’s still the same Man don’t act like I made it up. You blaming us, let’s keep it one hundred”. These three lines shows how racial injustice and inequality still exists today. The “You” that Usher is referring to are police officers who claim that they are trying to make a change or difference in the world but in reality, they are putting black innocent people in jail or just killing them. These officers are not saving black folks; they are messing with the lives and families of the black men they either incarcerated or murdered. Nas also raps “I am no prison commodity, not just a body you throw in a cell For any reason, just to bother me Just for your quota, so it’s rest in peace to Sean Bell Sleep in peace Eric Garner”. Police officers are arresting so many black men for negligible things that these men aren’t even seen as humans anymore but “commodities” to be moved into jails. The “chains” that Usher mentions throughout the entire song alludes to the chains of slavery and how there is still no apparent difference in the lives of black people in the past compared to today. Black men and women are living in fear because they have to constantly be aware of their surroundings and what they do in public because they are always being racially profiled by the police or other white people. There have been a bunch of examples where police officers have shot and killed innocent black men just because the officers thought they looked suspicious. This song raises the concern of police brutality against blacks and how we should put an end to this racial injustice of putting black men in jail for minute crimes and murdering them on the streets.
Source (Date): Usher “Chains” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Knd2el4Lfw (October 22, 2015)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/ushers-breaking-all-chains-n452896
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March 3, 2019 at 2:04 pm #4575AMANDA KENGParticipant
For this week’s photo share, I wanted to share a screenshot of a video showing one of the many instances where the police were called on black people for illogical reasons. Five black women were playing golf at the Grandview Golf Club in Dover, Pennsylvania when the cops were called on them by the management team because they were playing too slow. What was most shocking was that the police was called twice. These women were there minding their own business and playing golf but were repeatedly discriminated against and harassed. The owners of the golf club eventually asked them to leave because one of the ladies was “moving too slow on the course.” This makes absolutely no sense because when has playing too slow been a crime. These black women did nothing wrong or suspicious. This is a clear example of the idea of white space because golf is usually played by white people and not black women so the golf club decided that in order to prevent these women from continuing to invade their so-called space, they would call the police to have them removed. The management team did not think that these black women belonged at their golf course and so what did they do? The called the police and used an absurd excuse that they were holding up everybody else behind them from playing because they were not moving fast enough. If a white person or white group of people were playing too slow, nothing would be done about it. This only happened because these women were black.
Source (Date published): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/28/golf-club-twice-called-police-after-black-women-told-they-were-playing-too-slow/561206002/ (April 28, 2018)
Authors: Candy Woodall and Teresa Boeckel
The video in the article was submitted by Myneca Ojo who was one of the five black women asked to leave the course.
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February 24, 2019 at 3:15 pm #4344AMANDA KENGParticipant
This past week we talked about native exclusion and the creation of “America’s Best Idea” (national parks). For this week’s photo share I wanted to show a portrait of Chief Joseph who, in 1877, led the Nez Perce into a battle against the United States Army over tribal rights to Yellowstone National Park. Land that originally belonged to the native peoples living there were forcibly taken away from them in order to create national parks. According to the article I read, Congress passed and President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Act in 1872 to preserve the “natural curiosities” and “wonders” and turn Yellowstone into a national park for the public to enjoy. They did not consider that the land was already inhabited and said that all people who were settled in this place had to be re-located or removed. The natives who believed this land to be sacred now had to leave their ancestral home. In 1877, a battle broke out called the Nez Perce War because of conflict over the tribe’s relocation to Idaho from Oregon. In this conflict, many people were injured, including tourists; both sides had casualties. In the end, however, Chief Joseph surrendered. This shows that these indigenous peoples did not want to move onto reservations but were forced to because of the desire of white Americans to create national parks. The United States ignored and voided the natives’ claims to these lands for the sole purpose of preserving beautiful scenery. However, what’s ironic about this is that American Indians were partially part of the inspiration to create national parks. The painter George Catlin claimed that we should protect the native Indian culture and preserve “the pristine beauty and wilderness” but in the end, these natives were forced out.
Source (Date): https://timeline.com/national-parks-native-americans-56b0dad62c9d (Aug 26, 2016)
Photographer: Curtis, Edward S. (Library of Congress)
Source for 2nd image: Frank Leslie’s Newspaper, 1877
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b36980/
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February 16, 2019 at 7:32 pm #4070AMANDA KENGParticipant
This past week we talked about mass incarceration and the so-called “War on Drugs”. There is a large majority of Black and Hispanic males in prison for drug charges even though there is an equal proportion of White males using illicit drugs. According to the NAACP, Black men are incarcerated 6 times than that of Whites for drug charges which is a huge disparity. “War on Drugs” might be a term to call for the crackdown of illicit drug use, but in reality, it is also an example of what Michelle Alexander calls, the “new Jim Crow”. Black males are being labeled as criminals for minor things and are then sent to prisons for long periods of time. When they get out and want to integrate back into society, they can’t because they are now labeled as a felon. This has then led to a racial under-caste because when these men are released, they won’t be able to vote or get employed; they basically lost all of their rights and can’t do anything anymore.
There is a big problem of racial disparity in the prison system in the US. The men in the first image are holding up signs objecting what the “War on Drugs” is said to have meant and what it really means. The war on drugs is trying to control the black population, specifically males. If White men are seen using an illegal drug, they won’t be charged or paid any attention to. In contrast, Black men will confronted and threatened as shown in the second image (cartoon). Both men are smoking but only the Black male is reprimanded which shows the inequality in our justice system. Black men could only just have possession of a drug and not sell it and still be incarcerated whereas whites could engage in drug sales and be given only a warning.
Source (Photographer): https://www.newsweek.com/2013/06/19/obamas-former-spiritual-advisor-joshua-dubois-fight-black-men-237610.html (ALEX WONG/GETTY)
Date: 6/19/13
Source (Artist): https://drugsandracism.weebly.com/blog/september-02nd-2014 (Kirk Anderson)
Date: 01/2005
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February 10, 2019 at 2:45 pm #3898AMANDA KENGParticipant
The photos below shows how even in the 21st century, many years after the Brown v. Board ruling, segregation is still active in our education system. There isn’t a high percentage of black students in schools that are predominantly white and according to the article I read, “In 2011, only 23% of black students attended a majority white school – the same percentage as in 1968”. White families are moving their children to other schools that they say have “better reputations and better resources”. Over the years, black students are attending school that have a minority majority. These schools however, are not equal to the white middle class schools. They have less resources, teachers that do not have enough experience, and not a lot of advanced placement classes because they are considered to have a different socio-economic background. We discussed this in class but a reason as to why this is probably happening is because the government is starting to lay back on its implementation of integration in schools and so white families are then beginning to transfer their children from public schools to either private or charter schools. Subsequently, segregated black schools are created. The second picture shows a class made up of mostly black students and the principal who is also the Global Studies teacher.
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/05/15/school-segregation-civil-rights-project/9115823/ (Janet Loehrke and Jolie Lee, USA TODAY, 2014)
Source of 2nd Photo: Bebeto Matthews, AP (December 3, 2013)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/separate-and-unequal-segregation-making-comeback-in-u-s-schools/
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February 3, 2019 at 2:48 pm #3695AMANDA KENGParticipant
I chose this photo as a representation of segregation in schools. The Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 ruled that racially segregated schools was unconstitutional but that did not mean that schools were to become integrated immediately and all state governments would listen. This photo shows how the plan to integrate brought about opposition and protest. In 1964 in Queens, New York, white students went on a boycott and refused to attend school after they were forced to participate in an integration plan that would allow black students to go to school with them. School segregation had long been an issue because even with segregated schools, black students did not have the same resources to do well as their white counterparts; schools for black students were run down and had poor funding. Schools were separate but not equal. In public schools, black children faced a lot of inequalities and were heavily discriminated against. But even when school segregation was outlawed, white people protested this and moved their children out of the newly integrated school to other ones. They did not want to be integrated and it would take a long time before black children and white children would be able to sit in a classroom together.
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/race-schools-592637 – ROLLS PRESS/POPPERFOTO/GETTY
Date: 1964
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January 26, 2019 at 4:45 pm #3391AMANDA KENGParticipant
Below is an image of an ad that was placed in a 1962 newspaper article. This ad was shown as an example of blockbusting. It brought about fear to white homeowners that their all white neighborhood would not be purely white anymore. Whites were afraid that if one black family moved into their neighborhood, many more black families would be able to enter as well. Due to this, white families engaged in white flight where they sold their house at a low cost and moved out of the neighborhood. Real estate agents made a lot of profit off of this because they were able to sell these homes to black families later on for a much higher price. This is an example of segregation because once a black family moved in, white families would move out and then agents would steer other black families into that specific neighborhood. White families did not want to live near people of color so they left and formed new neighborhoods in suburban areas. This, in return, segregated blacks into their own separate communities since whites did not want to live in close proximity to people of color. Blockbusting was a different approach of housing segregation.
I also included another image that shows how after black families moved into neighborhoods that were predominantly white, propaganda began to appear that pushed for segregation because these black families were “stealing” their homes. If they had segregation, whites would not have to worry about leaving their already established communities.
Source: https://medium.com/@DmitriMehlhorn/a-requiem-for-blockbusting-68152244e77a
Credit: The Saturday Evening Post July 1962, Alfred Balk
Source: http://stlcurator.com/to-merge-or-not-to-merge-fighting-a-history-of-inequality/
Credit/Date of Image: In article by Jorie Jacobi and Anna Stalker 2014 / 1915
- This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by AMANDA KENG.
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January 20, 2019 at 1:02 am #3176AMANDA KENGParticipant
This past week, we discussed the ideas of race and space and how there have been spatial projects/plannings against people of color. The image below is what is known as the “Wailing Wall” or “Segregation Wall” in Detroit. This wall was built in the 1940s to separate the black side of town from the white side. This was a time where racism and segregation had a huge role in US culture. Essentially, the wall was built to prevent black families from moving into white neighborhoods. Back then, there was a developer who wanted to build houses for white families around or near this area but the Federal Housing Authority would not guarantee loans for theses homes because they would be located in places that were considered “undesirable” and inhabited by people of color. The FHA would not agree to these new construction of homes unless there was a wall to keep black families out. This was a clear example of racial segregation and how during this time, there was a newfound notion of having distinct and separate spaces. Neighborhoods that were inhabited by people of color were not allowed to move to other locations because they had a different skin color, a lower class status and less money than their white counterparts. This was a wall to seclude the already established black community from the undeveloped parts of Detroit. In this way, the undeveloped areas would be able to serve the needs of white people and their families. They would be able to form their own homogenized community and not have to worry about people of color moving in. The wall was put in place by the federal government as a solid barrier to separate the two races and confine people of color to a certain space. What this also shows is how racial policies are institutionalized by the government, they were the ones who requested this wall to be set up so a white suburban community could be built.
Source: Detroit Journalism Cooperative – Robin Schwartz – 12/09/16
Credit: Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University and John Vachon (August 1941)
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