How the Jews became White

The article “How the Jews became white” was mainly about who the Jew’s were assimilated into the white community. It started out that the Jews were actually considered lower class by whites; mainly because they were immigrants. Since there were so many immigrants coming to the US looking for work this made it hard for all whites to be assimilated into the main culture. About 70 percent of the population was made up of immigrants and their children says the article. Most people started to think of the Jews an inferior, since they were not of pure Anglo Saxon decent. Madison Grant seemed to be a big supporter of not mixing the races, as he said “A Jew is a Jew” more so saying that they should not be seen as anything else. As the Jews wanted to get into schools and other forms of education they all had to take speech tests, most didn’t pass since they mainly spoke Yiddish; to put it simply the test was designed so that they couldn’t pass it. As time passed, more and more Jews started to attend law schools and or become teachers; they were getting accepted into white culture; or they were leaving and assimilating themselves. After that the article goes into talking about World War II and the GI’s coming back to get jobs, but how the African American GI were getting nothing.

Up until that point I though that the article was making sense, but I do not see the reason for them talking about how the African Americans could not find work for about 2 pages. I understand that the Jews were easily accepted into the community by the whites after a while and that the African Americans went to war and came back and could not even find a job while others could, but I do not see the need to go so far into that. There was one thing that I would like to be pointed out to e though; what did the author mean when he said “I don’t remember hearing WASP as a kid.” On page 43, it might be irrelevant but I don’t remember him saying anything else about that anywhere else in the article. My thoughts on the article are that the Jews had it a little easier than the rest of the people we have read about, they really didn’t have to deal with the prejudice that the Irish went through, or they just don’t talk about it in the article I think that this could have been a better article if it focused more on the jews

Facebook Assignment

The facebook group Anime Enthusiasts seemed to be a very interesting choice. The main outlay of the site is like most face book groups with the blue and white outline. The place itself has a picture of an anime characters that I am not familiar with. Even though the group is open to everybody, it is not really diverse for the fact t hat there id mostly Caucasians and a few others. It seems that the group doesn’t really update that much since the latest update is January 7 of this year so I would think maybe the group has disbanded or it is just for show. Most of the topics seem to be more of an argument than anything, most of the time not even dealing with the things that are relative to the site. There are not any pictures on the page, and the summary is really short and to the point unlike other summaries that I have read. Most people in the group seem friendly enough; I don’t see any thing wrong with them. It does seem however that this is a type of assimilation that is being used. I understand that the group is for people who like anime, being appears that likes it as well, but they do not talk about anime that much. Its likely that the group was just short lived and they all just went to another group since there are only 3 topics and no pictures. But looking t the group before that there is no diversity in this site, its dominated by Caucasians, if I had to guess I would say that it is because most African Americans hide the fact that they like something such as anime from people in fear of being rejected from their own race, or that was how it was in my home town anyway. Its all about image, you could say that in knowing this they made the group knowing that not many people form other races would join. Know thing the reasons behind why someone would make an anime site are hard to figure out when it comes to race because you really can’t tell the difference between hidden racism, and people just not being interested in it. I have to say that this was a hard website to try to analyze, but I think that is why I chose it, you have to look past what is there and pay attention to the little things on this site to really find out something.

Race power of an illusion pt3

The 3^rd installment of Race the power of Illusion was about how people think that they can find out every thing that they need to know just by looking at them. When you are thought of was black Asian or even Latino you are never as good as being white. Btu the truth is that race has no power, it is only an illusion. When you come to the U.S you are looking to be able to fit in and have a place for your family to live. Immigrants have always had it hard here in the U.S, they work the hardest jobs which are usually the ones that have the most danger in them, mostly because they are seen as lazy, stupid, and promiscuous but they are also feared, for the reason that they are different. Back then they even had different classes of whites, such as Jews were not seen as white at first. Even more interesting you could go from being black in one town to being white in another just by crossing the border, it all depended on how much black ancestry you had. Btu the blacks were not the only ones who had it bad. A Japanese man named Takao Ozama wanted to become an American, stating that his skin was just as white as any white persons, but was ultimately denied because of “scientific” proof. An Indian man then went in with that scientific proof and was denied because they said that science did not matter. The same thing that they used to stop a Japanese man didn’t matter. With that begin said there is only one truth for being white. It is whatever they want it to be.

My thoughts on the video are that it is true, “whiteness” is only what Caucasians want you to think it is, they can change it in a heartbeat. This can relate to the Irish being thought of as savages at first and not white. This is also related to a question that had came up in class about why did they want to oppress people when they were trying to escape oppression(Caucasians) which we came to the ultimate answer of; they wanted the power and they were really scared of change, of something different. Why would they scare of the change? This is a very good question that I think I have the answer to, they were still in the assimilation of England, they were still used to seeing only people of pale skin so they got scared, especially when they saw that they were acting differently form them, so they then thought that they were better and that it was their duty to rule over these people. That is my answer to this question. That their minds were being controlled by fear.

Takaki Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is about the Mexicans and their immigration. It all started when Spaniards started to move to California from Spain. Upon getting here they started to marry mostly blacks and Indians. After some time they started to establish work as farmers cultivating the land making it another place in America where they would export goods to other parts of the world like China. They also seemed to also have very large families, with each child having a servant of there own. After a while the Americans started to immigrate west with out the approval of the Mexicans mostly in Texas. This then became a struggle for land and the Mexicans seemed to be losing. They ended losing Texas and New Mexico. After while the Americans started to destroy cattle leading to the loss of the Mexican farmers’ jobs. Al this leading up to the Mexican American War, the Americans were moving west to take the territory from the Mexicans forcefully. Most of the immigrates were slave owners coming from the south to find more land for cotton. This was stopped by the Mexican government in 1826 when they outlawed slavery and stopped all movement from the east. The Americas seemed to have won the war and enlarged the US/Mexico border thus putting some of the Mexicans in America.

I have to say, after reading this chapter (or most of this book) I see that what I thought about America before hand was almost exactly right, because this chapter is basically showing who we bullied Mexicans out of their land. It’s also showing that the Mexicans are a very hard working and kind race. But it really shows that when America wants something, they usually take it by force, but my question is, "Why didn’t they take the land before the Spaniards started to migrate to California? But there is one part that I didn’t understand, where they were talking about the servants going to each member to the family, were they talking about the Mexicans or were they talking about another race being the servants? My thoughts on the whole thing are that the Mexicans were always a really strong race. I really think that if we hadn’t taken over the Mexicans they would have been a force to be reckoned with. The only thing is that they really didn’t do anything to stop the migration of the Americans until the war it seemed, it might just be me over-reading something but it seems that they should have tried a little harder to keep them out of their territory.

Takaki Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of takaki was about the immigration of the Irish. The Irish main reason for coming to America was because of the strict new rule of Britain in there home land making it so that they exported the food that they used to eat, leading to one year that the cattle population was larger than the population of farmers, which led to most of them losing their jobs from the business basically doing it themselves. As time progressed the cattle was all being exported leading up to the Great Famine, which eventually lead to most of the Irish immigrating to America. When they got here they had to suffer hardships of bad jobs where they could die in possibly anything that they would try to do. Pretty soon, it became a fight with African Americans to get the better jobs, before hand they had almost saw the blacks as “brothers” but in seeing that most whites valued the life of a black over the life of an Irish, made them start to hate blacks and try to use the fact that they looked white to get in with white society. This came to them getting education and eventually getting people in the White House.

His idea in this chapter was very good. This actually shows that there were people that had it bad back then, and not just African Americans were oppressed in to the point that they were thought of as not men, as the book says, that the Irish were thought of as the “white niggers”. This almost led to a union between Irish and blacks, but just as they tried to unionize with the Chinese, it did not work out as planned. They begin to fight with the blacks for jobs and use the fact that they were closer to being white, thus easier assimilated into white America than the blacks. But, what would have happened if the blacks and the Irish had unionized instead of fighting each other? I think that the same fate would have still been unaviodable, my reason being that they were more focused on power, they wanted to be apart of something greater than what was in front of them. So somewhere down the line, the Irish would have still assimilated into the white America.

My views are that the Irish were not that far from the blacks, the only difference other then skin color is that they had a better plan on how to assimilate and take control, where as the black did and it was not as easy for them. But the Irish used that so they could get people in power and have more of a voice in what was done, and more so, that it would be in their favor as well. I have to say tat his was a very good plan by the Irish, since they could easily blend in with the society that tried to shun them.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 deals with how the systems of privilege work. The first system being Dominance this basically means that the position of power is occupied by the privileged group and no one else. Johnson first uses the example of men being in power the majority of the time; thus it is “natural” to see them there. This does not mean that all men are in power and that they are all “powerful”; most men think of themselves as weak, Johnson says because they are ether disabled or of another race. He goes on to say how people are identified with privilege. He uses the expression “this is a mans world” (Johnson, 95) and says that it could also be identified as other things like a “white:” world or a “non disabled” world. This basically is showing the best that society has to offer. This give a false idea of what you have to do to “fit in” as he says college students of color feel pressured to dress white to be accepted. In the end he starts to talk about the “-isms” most are words that we are all familiar with; racism, sexism etc. these are all just showing that there is no way that the privileged and the unprivileged can get along.

Johnson has made a lot of good points in this book, and most of them I can really agree with. With the issue of Dominance is one that I really liked because I could no find any thing that wasn’t far form the truth, most men in power are around those that are like them. We really don’t see that many women in power, and if there are, there is probably one or two. He also makes a good point about this being a mans world, but this is only because that’s how they want it to be shown. James Brown said it the best when he said that this is a mans world, but it would be nothing without a woman. If you think about it, he is right. Women actually have the most power being that they bring life into this world, and with out women there would be no more humans in the world. We owe a lot to the women in the world, but yet and still there are people that could care less and they are not shy at showing it. All and all this was a very informative chapter, There many people that feel that they are dominant and there are those who look at themselves as nothing, but it us all a mindset, the only difference in this and what I have been saying the whole time is that you cannot change this mindset; this is something that has come from years of the same way of thought thus it is hard to star and think differently.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of PPD deals with what PPD has to do with us. It starts out talking about how something is always someone’s fault as Johnson puts it “Its hard to believe that sexism only exist because men are sexist”(Johnson 77) this showing how people think when they think individuals , but, he goes on to say that individuality make you “blind” to the views of privilege, which is true. “Privilege has nothing to do with individuals, only with the categories that you wind up in. It goes on to talk about the individuals that are in the social systems, the chart they show basically is showing that the more we get into the system the more we lose out individuality, He later uses the game monopoly as a way to show the choices we make in the in the long run; how we choose the things that happen to us. The system helps us as we help the sys them as individuals. If we think that there are not social classes then we are just kidding ourselves.

I can understand what Johnson is getting at here but it leads me to think what would happen to the world if everyone was an individual? Since we contribute to the system almost unconsciously, it would seem that society would crash, like in a game of monopoly. If you don’t have the all of a certain group your whole strategy can break. I think that we do need the system; it has gotten us this far and individuality dose make you blind to the fact that there is privilege in this world, that means that you can get away from it no matter what you do. On the other hand, you need individuals in the world if everyone acted the same way all the time then there would be no need for privilege but at the same time to much individuality you cannot see the privilege line and things get confusing. The whole monopoly thing makes sense because if you have a system of the same properties then you make a profit, but if you just have indivdial pices, you stand to lose. You can say that this is more so a way of assimilating people into thinking the same way but you can be an individual and be in the system. This is the way that we have so many successful businesses in the world today.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of PPD has to deal with the actual problems with privilege, and how privilege isn’t really there, unless you think it is. The chapter starts off talking about the different ways that people think that there is privilege in what they do. It states different ways that the Dominant race does not see privilege as a problem; some of these are: they don’t have to, they don’t notice, or they don’t believe that it exists. These are all valid points because if you are on the top, you really don’t concern yourself with the problems of those who are beneath you. More of these that can be seen on pages 70-71, these points are mostly centered on them not really caring. This is the center of the whole chapter. People have to decide whether or not privilege is real or if it’s just something that people use to get what they want. Johnson goes on to talk about the business that struggle with this question on a daily basis; whether to spend money on training for minorities and women or to let them walk and they lose lots of money from that. It ends saying that we need to find away for us to remove the barriers that have been put into place and start to work together

In the beginning I was agreeing with Johnson, he is saying what I have said all along, there is no privilege unless you think that there is. White people don really worry about this because it doesn’t really involve them as much as the rest of the world, it starts to become a struggle for everyone in the end, as the business don’t want to let minorities leave but, they don’t want to have the chance of them losing their position in there job ether. After awhile, he starts to talk about “breaking barriers” which I think he was referring to the barrier between employer and employee. This could work if people were not so self centered that they only think about their own position in life other than other people, but this will never happen so its really just wishful thinking. I have heard stories from people that at their jobs where their employer tried to get them fired in fear that they would one day lose their job to them. I all just human nature and you cannot change human nature.

Chapter 4

The 4^th chapter was talking about making privilege happen; Johnson shows this bay talking about different needs of humans, acceptance being at the top of the list. Acceptance is big part of all humans’ lives and when this need is not meet, it can be for many reasons such as avoidance or rejection just to name a few. These can all be triggered just from turning your head a certain way or saying something that would otherwise have made the person feel that he had exceeded the expectations that you had set fro him before even looking at them. This can be put to race by looking at African Americans, as standards are set for us with out us even doing anything just because were black. As the book puts it “people of color who don’t get mentored and who’s potential and accomplishments are invisible.”(Johnson, 59)

The author makes a very relevant point in this chapter; most accomplishments by blacks are hardly seen or overshadowed by another accomplishment by someone else. Or it can be totally taken in the other direction, in the Boondocks, a black cartoon, they make a lot of racial jokes and or references to real people and they have been sent a lot of hate letters and some that have been easily found on the internet just by putting in the name, but if you look at lets say, Family Guy, they have made a lot of racial jokes over the years and though there may have well been letters sent in, you wont find as many articles on it. This is a perfect example privilege. You can get away with a lot when you are with the right class, and that is not limited to whites. If you look at affirmative action, not only black have benefited from this, women in general have been getting jobs as well.

My views on this are very clear; this is all a mindset that you put yourself in. I believe that I said this in a earlier blog, but you think that you are oppressed, than you are, like most things, racism takes to parties, the oppressed and the oppressor, with out one the whole idea is basically destroyed. That wont make it go away quickly but that is how most people get noticed in this world; they look past the rest of the world and do something that stands out so much that you have to pay attention to it, like most comedy that is done, you don’t really notice it until you hear one thing that interest you, even if you don’t like the person you become intrigued and compelled to listen more.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of the PPD book was talking about Capitalism class and the Matrix of Domination. Capitalism basically means turning money into more money and using that money to produce goods, and then they sell it higher then the actual cost to make more money. End the end the only people profiting from this would be the ones who are selling the items. In saying this, it goes on to talk about how the richest people in the world own most of its wealth, which leads into the class system which shows how all this is used to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor. For the poor, there isn’t enough money to go around thus making it a constant struggle for the lower class to keep sufficient funds. The Matrix of domination is shown how you can be privileges and unprivileged at the same time, they use the example of a middle class white man being able to see that him being white is a privilege, but him being a member of the working class can make him unprivileged.

I can’t really say if I agree or disagree on this issue, the main reason being that I can see that capitalism is a bad thing but at the same time, I have never experienced anything else in life so it’s hard to really take a stand on the issue. The way that he presents the issues is almost flawless, because he leaves out nothing out at all. He defines capitalism so perfectly; I even found out something that I didn’t really know myself. In the long run though I would have to say if I really had to choose a side to take, I would not side with Johnson, just because capitalism is the way of the world in a way, if you take that away, yes everyone would be the same but, then there would be no reason to try and do better.

My views on this topic is that capitalism can be a good thing; I think of it was a way to actually improve yourself. To put it into the context of racism, yes it can be used, but what in this book hasn’t been proven to have a hidden racist agenda? Like we said in class, there is always going to be some kind of racism, or segregation in the world because we always fin a way to repeat history

Chapter 2

The 2^nd chapter in Takaki was about how the Indians were treated upon the English’s arrival to the Americas and the information that was more or less “changed”. Upon the arrival of Christopher Columbus, if you already don’t know, there is a lot of truth that was taken out of the discovery of America. Columbus did come here, but he did come in peace, upon arrival he took advantage of the kindness of the native Americans who really didn’t want any trouble at all they looked to them as friends. Columbus first got al the gold he could out of them and then started to take them back as slaves for the queen; he even killed some of them. This later led to the English coming over and doing the same thing, they Indians again looked to them as friends and only thought of living in peace with them, but instead they were viewed as savages. The book puts this as the first time that race was really identified. As more and more people started to some to the Americas more and more people were put into the process of assimilation, next in line would be the Irish. They too were seen s savages but more so savages that could be civilized. The English then took it upon themselves to try and civilize the “brutes” as they called them, saying that it was “god’s work”. They also applied this to the Indians saying that it was “manifest destiny” that the English got the land.

My question would have to be, why in the world do the English think they we so much better? Wasn’t the main reason they were coming over here was because they were being oppressed in England? That is a really big double standard if you ask me. What makes it worse is that they put God in it, which just complicates the matter even more than it was in the first place. After all this they used that to say that they were not “civilized” which was basically the start of racism and race, using that excuse to assimilate them into their way of thinking. What’s so wrong with being different that they had to take people who were obviously happy with thier lives before hand and take that away?

I have to agree with the main idea here that we should not hold this information from the text books, to me knowing the truth is a lot better than hearing someone’s nice rendition of it; it makes for a lot of confusion when you learn the truth. In knowing the real story, you can judge whether what they did back then as good or bad, it gives you the choice, that way if you hear a different rendition like with Columbus you can judge as needed.

Chapter 1

Chapter1 of the PPd book mainly revolves around the statement of Rodney king “Cant we all just get along?”, this was made “famous” if you will when he was beaten by several police officers in Los Angeles and even though there was evidence against them, they still were acquitted of the crime, which lead to a riot by the people of LA. Thus this phrase was made, but did he really mean in saying this? This is an issue that is referenced a lot in this chapter, why cant people of different races get along? Well the way Johnson puts it, I would have to say no.

They way Johnson approaches this issue makes a lot of sense, if you think about this line from the book. “If blacks went to school and worked hard to make something of themselves, race would no longer be an issue” (Johnson, 2) This leading black to believe that they had a chance of fitting in at some point and time, bur this was far from the truth, it really didn’t matter how much they tried, there would still be some feeling of vulnerability as he calls it. But race is not the only problem here, there is also gender. Men have always had that higher privilege over women even thought people would rather not say this. That privilege is what makes them seem “inferior” but they are truly the same as us. It even goes on to say that we need not really love each other at all, but tolerate each other to prevent violence. Later he talks about a African American women that he was teaching a class with, talking about the fact that racism is not just a problem to people of color, that even white people experience some kind of racism, that there is always a point where talking about these things will bring about pain but that there are ways to work through that pain.

I have to say, for this being the first chapter he really does attack this issue quickly, he hit many points that most people would look over especially the Rodney king thing in general. Most people don’t really stop to think if we can all just get along, they more so just stay in the mindset that things are good the way they are. I would have to say that on that little part about him and the African American women and how if they were served that he would be served first, I have seen it before where people are given quicker service when I have been standing there for a half hour and they just walk in

Now, my question would have to be still, why can’t we all just get along? Now don get me wring, I understand that there are a lot of things that can keep us as a people from coming together, but can we not work thought this as a people? I have seen many things on oppression that all talk about the problem but never the solution. It is true that there have been a lot of colored people who have worked their way up to the top still to be looked at as inferior in the eyes of whites, which is a mindset that you put yourself in, being that if you think that you oppressed, than you are. The same thing being gender based. The only reason women are inferior is because the men make them think that they are. I really just think that its all in the way you think about things.

Intro

Hello all, my name is Devon Sturdivant, a freshmen here at beautiful bowling green university.(If you go here you will realize that I am not talking about in the winter.) At the moment I am a pre-major student and I hope to get alot out of this class.