Monday, February 6, 2012

Cassandra's Current Event

The article I read was about…
-Black and white marriage in the South becoming a changing image
-Jeffrey Norwood, a black college basketball coach was offered a great job north of the gulf coast but at that time he was in a relationship with a woman who was and white and Asian.
-Although his father was worried about him being apart of an interracial relationship in South Mississippi because of the dangers he might be faced with.
-As Jeffrey Norwood visited Hattiesburg, Mississippi he noted that he saw a growing diversity of the different races that lived there
-In fact, about 46 years ago, Mississippi legalized mixed marriages. In Mississippi it was illegal to have an interracial marriage because it was a law until 1967.
-Maryland was actually the first colony to prohibit interracial marriage and this was enacted in the 1660’s. -Then by 1750, all of the southern colonies as well as Pennsylvania and Massachusetts made interracial marriage illegal.
-During the 1950’s about half of the states still had laws that prohibited interracial marriage.
-Then by the early 1960’s at least 41 states enacted anti-miscegenation statuses one at a time.
-After the Loving vs. Virginia case in the Supreme Court in 1967 declared that the laws that banned interracial marriage violated the equal protection clause because not only did it violate principle of racial equality but because it abridged the fundamental right to marry. People of different races have been allowed to marry ever since.
- A 2010 Census Bureau reveals that the nations mixed race population is growing at a much faster pace then demographers had estimate, especially in the South as well as parts of the Midwest.
- In North Carolina, the mixed-race population nearly doubled.
-Well as in Georgia, it increased by over 80 percent, and by nearly as much in Kentucky and Tennessee. ---Also, in Indiana, Iowa and South Dakota, the multiracial population increased by about 70 percent.
- A sociologist and demographer, William H. Frey stated that “The fact that even states like Mississippi were able to see a large explosion of residents identifying as both black and white tells us something that people would not have predicted 10 or 20 years ago.”
- The increase of the amount of mixed race people were smaller in states like Mississippi because to begin with because it had a much fewer amount of mixed raced people where as in states such as California, Hawaii and Oklahoma the increase of mixed race people occurred at a faster pace. In fact in Hawaii, about 23% of the population is of a multiracial group which was the highest out of any state in the country!
-Since 2000 Hawaii’s growth of multiracial groups was 23.6 percent
-Both historically and today, in Mississippi the two groups that are least likely to marry are blacks and whites and sociologists believe that it’s because of the economic as well as social distance between them.
-In actuality, that’s the most common interracial marriage but multiracial people still consist of a small percentage of Mississippi’s total population because of a population of about 34,000, interracial people only account for about 1.1 & and many people complain of receiving racial inequities.
Marvin King whose black and married to a white woman as well as a political science professor at the University of Mississippi,states that “Racial attitudes are changing..day in, day out, there is certainly not the hostility there was years ago, and I think you see that in that there are more interracial relationships, and people don’t fear those relationships. They don’t have to hide those relationships anymore.”
-Many experts believe that due to military service as well as the amount of time spent at a college campus creates relationships of mixed races.
-Hattiesburg is a city of Mississippi that consists of about 50,000 residents. It also contains the Camp Shelby military base on the southern side as well as the University of Southern Mississippi which might explain why Hattiesburg and its surrounding counties are enduring a rapid growth of mixed-race people.
-Jeffrey and Patty Norwoord got married and although they weren’t searching to live in a diverse neighborhood in Hattiesburg, they discovered that they were living in one anyways because their families turned out to be black families, white families as well as families that were mixed of the two.
-Mrs. Norwood also spoke out about the difficulty their children would have on checking only one box on forms at ask to mark their race. She states, “I usually went with Asian because I could only check one box…Our daughter’s life will not be like that. She knows what she is and she’s exposed to a little bit of everything. The times have certainly changed.”
- Although where they lived was also diverse, they have experiences instances where racial tensions occurred. For instance, a waitress at a restaurant might suddenly decide that they aren’t serving the Norwoods. Also when they are walking with their arms intertwined, people may ask in disbelief “Are you together?”
-Even though interracial marriage seems to be occurring and the amount of mixed race people are becoming a growing population, a poll of the Mississippi republicans going into the 2012 election reveal that 46 percent of GOP (Grand old Party) voters in the state think interracial marriage should be illegal.

Although Mississippi has legalized mixed race marriages, do you think that Mississippi should make interracial marriage illegal once again or do you disagree with the Republican voters? Why or why not? Even though Mississippi has become increasingly diverse with mixed race relationships over the years, why do you think racial tension is still occurring?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/us/20race.html?ref=raceremixed

Sunday, February 5, 2012

In South Carolina, racism is still a big issue, in politics, and in everyday life. South Carolina's State House still flies a Confederate flag outside, though it used to fly right on top of the State House dome. This issue has affected many different elections and continues to be a contentious one. But some black voters in South Carolina say that the state and the Republican party are being racist, and they're not being subtle. South Carolina recently tried to enact a law requiring voters to show a valid DMV issued photo identification at the polls but according to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez "there are 81,938 minority citizens who are already registered to vote and who lack DMV-issued identification," which means that this law would make it difficult or impossible for them to vote. In December, the Department of Justice prevented the law from going into effect on those very grounds. 27.9% of South Carolina residents were black according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

These laws are reminiscent of black codes from the reconstruction era


Saturday, February 4, 2012

Maddie Current Event 2/3/12

Article Link:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/21/white.persecution/index.html

Article: Are whites racially oppressed?
By John Blake
March, 2011

Main Thing of Article:
- Racial discrimination and how many white people feel as though they are moving from the majority group into a racially oppressed minority group.

-Historically….
- White’s always been majority in America
-White’s have had power, typically been higher class all throughout
-White’s held slaves: During the slave trade and slave era black people were enslaved by white holders
-During reconstruction era, black people were denied their rights, were prevented from voting at polls even though they legally had their right to vote
-1900’s until Civil Rights movement black people have been discriminated against – racist terms, denied basic rights, denied places to go (bathrooms, restaurants), racial intermarriage not allowed, etc
-White Supremecist groups such as Ku Klux Klan have done hate crimes against black people

- A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll found 44% of Americans surveyed identify discrimination against whites as being just as big as bigotry aimed at blacks and other minorities
-White people are feeling like they are becoming minorities for many reasons
-Some examples
-Not being offered minority scholarships for financial aid because they are not a part of a minority group
-Due to the recently tough economy, some white people are having severe financial struggles and are no longer up high in the social structure of America
. “Now more white Americans are sharing unemployment lines with "those people" -- black and brown, Tim Wise, author of a book called “White Like Me” says.
"For the first time since the Great Depression, white Americans have been confronted with a level of economic insecurity that we're not used to," he says. "It's not so new for black and brown folks, but for white folks, this is something we haven't seen since the Depression."

A lot of comments have been made about white people becoming a minority since President Obama was elected into office.
-In 2011 Fox talk-show host Glenn Beck led a march on Washington (attended primarily by white people) to "restore honor," and once called President Obama a racist with a "deep-seated hatred for white people and white culture."
-Peter Brimelow, author of "Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster," asserts that much of white America's anxiety derives from living under a black president and changing demographics.
Diversity, he says, "is not strength."

-Some white people feel that they are losing their grip on America, they are no longer in control of America
-Many of Americas celebritys, sport stars, etc are people of color, and the changing face of America is making some white people feel as though they are becoming an oppressed minority

-This fear of economically and socially not having a grip on all of the power in America is -making some white people feel as though they are being oppressed and treated like minorities.
- news outlets ran a number of stories claiming that an incident from the 2008 elections happened, in which activists from the New Black Panther Party appeared to be intimidating voters at a polling place. Those claims were never proven.


Other American’s however feel as though these thoughts that white people are becoming an oppressed minority are false. The severity to which white people committed racist acts against other races is much more than is being done to them. Their own fear on their potentially diminishing power in America and self-righteousness is causing them to say they are feeling as though they are oppressed and are a minority group needing help.

Others say that they are not becoming oppressed and that race in America is improving. Mona Charen, a columnist for the National Review says that “If more white Americans feel like an embattled minority, why did they elect President Barack Obama?”

While there is increase in diversity and racial equality in our country, which is a good thing to promote and something America has been working on for a long time, there are those who are seeing it is turning the tables, but it’s debatable to how far it’s possible to go to really say whites are becoming oppressed minorities.

2010 Census Records
White persons, percent, 2010 (a)
72.4%
Black persons, percent, 2010 (a)
12.6%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2010 (a)
0.9%
Asian persons, percent, 2010 (a)
4.8%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2010 (a)
0.2%
Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2010
2.9%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2010 (b)
16.3%

Question: Do you think that there is racial oppression against white people? Why or why not? Do you think that people would feel this way if not for certain factors such as the recent struggles with the economy?