Theories and constructs of race rereading america summary

599 14. Oscar Grant, Kendrec McDade, Yvette Smith, Eric Garner, Samuel DuBose, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Tanisha Anderson, Tamir Rice, Jerame Reid, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray — all were unarmed blacks who were killed by police officers under questionable circumstances. How would Coates explain these cases? Research one or more of them: What led to the confrontation — were different stories told? What role, if any, did video play in the public perception of the incident? What role did the courts and the U.S. Department of Justice play? What role did social media, organized protest, and public outrage play? Was any measure of justice attained? How do you explain the outcome of the case (if an outcome has been reached)? Theories and Constructs of Race L inda H o lt zman and L e o n S h arp e At a time when 48 percent of white millennials believe that antiwhite discrimination has become as big a problem as discrimination against minority groups,1 Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe provide a necessary corrective. In the following excerpt from their book Media Messages: What Film, Television, and Popular Music Teach Us About Race, Class, Gender, and Sexual Orientation (2nd edition, 2014), Holtzman and Sharpe offer a critical look at race, racism, and the belief that we now live in a “postracial” society. Linda Holtzman is an emeritus professor of journalism and communica­ tions at Webster University, where she taught media theory and research for twenty-five years. She has won many awards for her work as an antira­ cism facilitator for national social justice organizations and school districts in Illinois and Missouri. In addition, she has received grants for her work on human rights activism in the United States, Israel, and Palestine. Leon Sharpe teaches at Webster University, where he is an adjunct professor of communications. He is also founder of The Praxis Group, which has con­ ducted workshops and training sessions for institutions and organiza­ tions nationwide, including the Coalition of Essential Schools, Focus St. Louis, and the Anti-Defamation League. 1 DBR/MTV Bias Survey Summary, April 2014. 07_COL_9921_Ch06_567_678.indd 599 Achorn International 02/16/2016 10:32PM 6 H o l t z m a n a n d s h a r p e • T h e o r i e s a n d C o n s t r u ct s o f R a c e did the Court’s majority rule that this section of the law was unconstitutional? Why did the dissenters disagree? How have some states changed the voting laws since this decision, and how have these changes affected minority, poor, elderly, and student voters? 600 C R E AT E D E Q U A L 6 1 Key Terms assimilation: Assimilation is the process through which newcomers (children entering a new school, families moving to a new neighbor­ hood, and immigrants arriving in the United States) adjust to a situa­ tion by deciding how much of their old culture and habits they want to give up and how much of their new culture they want to absorb. In the context of immigration to the United States, this process includes surface and deep culture: anything from clothing, food, and language to child-rearing, dating and marriage practices, and treatment of elders in the community. Throughout U.S. history, there have been diverse waves of voluntary immigrants and refugees. Other groups have invol­ untarily become part of the United States through the violent conquest of their land (Mexicans, American Indians) or violent enslavement (Afri­­ can Americans). In order to be considered true Americans, these new­­ comers were expected to assimilate. The unspoken rules of assimilation were that the closer the immigrants were to existing U.S. citizens of European heritage in terms of skin color and ability to blend in, the more likely they were able to make active choices about the degree to which they wanted to reject their former culture in favor of their new culture. The more they assimilated, and the more their skin color allowed them to assimilate, the more they were entitled to the same privileges as the Europeans who came before them. Most immigrant groups of color, including Africans, Asians, and American Indians, were not entitled to citizenship until decades — sometimes a century — after newer European immigrants because the color of their skin was not considered sufficiently white. Because of this and due to the nature of racial separation in the United States, assimilation was available unequally to whites and people of color, depending on the time of their arrival to the United States. critical race theory (CRT): An academic discipline that analyzes race in the United States through the lens of power and law. CRT is based on several core tenets, including the permanence of racism, critique of liberalism, whiteness as property, interest convergence, intersection of racism with other forms of oppression, centrality of personal experi­ ence, and use of the counternarrative as an explanatory and analytical tool. internalized racism: The process by which people of color take in nega­­tive messages of overt and covert racism, superiority, and inferior­ ity, and apply those messages to themselves and others in ways that are self-destructive rather than self-affirming.