Sociology Exam 2 Key Concepts
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Context
Homer Plessy enters a train coach designated for "white persons". He refuses to get off and is arrested. He argues to the US Supreme Court that the government has "no right to label one person as White and another person as "Colored""
The Enlightenment (1600s - early 1800s) included a shift...
a shift from religion and tradition to "reason"; metaphysical to physical; form the idea that God can be the only source of wisdom/knowledge to the idea that humans can also produce knowledge through rational thought
Wealth Tax
a tax that depends on an individual's wealth
Feudalism to Capitalism: Religious doctrine...
against idleness (protestant work ethic)
The Enlightenment (1600s - early 1800s) did not include...
all humans
trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...
are examples of how a core nation is able to leverage its power to gain the most advantageous position in the matter of global trade.
workers in a Cuban cigar factory (peripheral nation) which are owned or leased by global core nation companies...
are not enjoying the same privileges and rights as U.S. workers.
Colorblind racism Frame: Cultural Racism
attributing racial differences to cultural practices like work ethic, family structure, priorities, beliefs, etc
Postcolonial Thought and the Rational vs Irrational
The very notion that there is "reason" depends upon a notion of the "irrational"; and, historically, colonized or would-be colonized peoples served as the ideological alter, the figure of the irrational, thereby justifying colonial domination.
Historical Materialism (Marx)
The way that societies provide for their material needs (often the economic system) conditions the rest of the society/social relations/institutions/ideas
Early Bound Labor: Context (1400-1600)
There has been a history (in many countries) of enslaved labor. 2/5 of England's rural population and 2/3 of the urban population were bound to an employer in some way. Feudal serfs, for example.
Adam Smith and The Enlightenment
Thought that even the poorest people in Europe deserve a greater share of necessities than for any savage.
Go Pro and Big Philanthropy
When GoPro stock was at its peak, he donated 500 million to charities and avoided a lot of tax bills. However, when GoPro started to tank, the value of their donation also did, but they still got to right off 500 million from their taxes.
Big Philanthropy
When super wealthy people donate a lot of money, but do so to avoid getting taxed
Necessary Labor Time
When worker's labour power is used to produce enough value to cover their wages.
Surplus Labor Time
When workers' labour power is used to produce for the profit of the capitalist.
In Color blind racism, what skin tone is seen as the default?
White
The War on Drugs: Difference in Race
White Americans use and sell drugs at the same rate or more than Black Americans. Yet Black Americans are OVERREPRESENTED in the mass incarceration system.
One drop rule through today
Why don't we find it contradictory to describe Barak Obama as a "black man with a white mother" but we cannot imagine describing him as a "white man with a black father" -- Meghan Markle
The construction of race is embedded....
in the construction of racism. In the case of blackness in America, race and racism are created in tandem as a "technology of social control" by individuals, groups, and institutions in social, economic, and political arenas.
Global Inequality and Waste: Wealthier countries...
ship most of their waste to poorer countries
Extreme poverty
when persons cannot acquire basic life needs, including food, clothing and shelter
Chattel Slavery
wherein people are considered legal property and can be bought, owned, and sold
Core nations, as well as the World Bank, choose...
which countries to make loans to, and for what they will loan funds, they are creating highly segmented labor markets that are built to benefit the dominant market countries.
Early Bound Labor in the American colonies: Early colonists...
began growing tobacco as a cash crop to sell in Europe for which a large labor force was needed
Feudalism to capitalism: Taxes force...
people to acquire official currency/money
Poverty rate
percentage of the population lives below the poverty line
Race: Superficial...
physical differences that a particular society considers significant
Relative poverty
poor relative to others in society
Generational Slavery as Gendered: In 1650, powerful landowners and tobacco investors began...
pressuring the courts to give the masters of servants who were serving long terms and had been impregnated the right to automatically assume "ownership" of that child for a long time of service
Magna Carta (1215)
protected individual rights of all Englishmen against the 'arbitrary authority' of despotic rulers
Geographic ancestry is not the same as...
race: African ancestry, for instance, does not tidily map onto being "black" (or vice versa)
Race is...
real, socially constructed, has a scientific definition but is NOT biological
Early bound labor in the American Colonies: Since they could not enslave the indigenous people, the colonists turned to...
selling Indigenous people to other countries to separate them from their land and support system. They then turn to importing labor for tobacco from England.
Indentured Servitude: When the indenture ends....
servants receive a set of supplies and a sum of money (and sometimes land) adequate for starting a life
Feudalism to Capitalism: People were forced...
to the cities to get a job and live for a wage
Social class
a group of people who are fairly similar in terms of wealth, income, education, poverty
Colorblind Racism Frame: Abstract Liberalism
- Rationalizing racial unfairness in the name of equal opportunity, meritocracy, & individualism - Abstract support for racial equality that falls apart in leu of real examples
blackness as deviance
"Double Conciousness" - W.E.B. Dubois
Social Construction of Blackness & Mass Incarceration (The New Jim Crow)
"Every racial caste system in the United States has produced racial stigma. Mass incarceration is no exception. Racial stigma is produced by defining negatively what it means to be black. The stigma of race was once the shame of the slave; then it was the shame of the second-class citizen; today the stigma of race is the shame of the criminal."
The New Jim Crow
"Everything has changed. And yet nothing has." 1. Mass deportation 2. Home surveillance & GPS monitoring, "digital prison" 3. Incarcerated women
Race and college in the U.S. (Craig Wilder)
"The academy never stood apart from American slavery—in fact, it stood beside church and state as the third pillar of a civilization built on bondage."
Brown v Board of Education (1954)
"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
War on Crime: Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965
"direct role for the federal involvement in local police operations, court systems, and state prisons for the first time in American history"
Color-blind racism: Racism through methodological individualism frame. The idea...
"not seeing color" is one way people often illustrate that the are not a racist; seemingly non-racial understanding is unable to see or address institutional/structural racism
Atlantic Slave Trade (late 1400s-late 1800s)
- 1700 to 1800 = 2/3 of the total enslaved people were trafficked - Over 12 million people through the middle passage - 5% of Africans brought to US - 41% brought to brazil (abolished slavery in 1888) - 48% were brought to the caribbean
Mass Incarceration
- 350/100,000 residents in the US are incarcerated - The U.S. has 5% of the world's population but nearly 25% of its incarcerated population - In 1972, there were only 200,000 people incarcerated in the United States. Today that number has grown to 2.2 million.
Use Value
- A specific thing or service which can satisfy human needs "whether from the stomach or the imagination makes no difference." - When your listening to music, the use value is the joy you get from listening to it.
How was blackness constructed in America: relations between europeans and africans, the correct story
- Africa and Europe not cohesive at the time --> Different kingdoms in Africa (and Europe) were seen as unique - Inequality existed, but people from ''Africa" where not seen as inferior for that reason or for their skin tone. Instead, inequality was based more on economic status and religion. Nobility in Europe would likely see themselves to have more in common with a king in ''Africa" than a peasant in their own country (for example)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): The "One Drop Rule"
- After Plessy lost, the law now held that 1/32nd 'Black of blood' categorized a person as 'Black' - This ruling was effective in exerting racialized control over as many people as possible - Recall: No biological marker of race, but it was still the dominant way of understanding race at this time (greatly effect hows we understand race today) - Many states pass similar laws - Defines blackness in expansive way
What is color-blind racism?
- An avoidance of racial language or overt racism - Dismissing racism as something that still exists
Racial Identity
- An important aspect of race, people with shared experiences may also develop a shared culture and identify with that - Racial identity as a product of socialization - Race isn't only about identity, its also power relationships - People will ascribe a race to you, whether you identify with that race or not
Implicit bias
- Associating stereotypes or attitudes towards categories of people without conscious awareness - Not inherent within us, but socialized/learned as per norms in one's society
Karl Marx
- Born in Prussia, Germany - Family was originally non-religious Jewish, but had converted formally to Christianity before his birth. - Became interested in social problems through journalism work - Worked closely with Friedrich Engels (right) who ghost wrote some of their writings and often financially supported them both through work at his father's factory
Relation Between Core Nations and Peripheral Nations
- Core Nations: Dominate and exploit peripheral countries for raw materials and labor - Peripheral Nations: Labor is exploited from factories and means of production owned by core nations.
Critical sociological perspectives on deviance
- Critical sociological perspectives focus less on why individuals commit crimes and more on the social structures that define criminalization -Deviants never exist except in relation to those who attempt to control them"
The Proletariat
- Do not own the means of production - Obliged to sell their labour power which is controlled by others
Redlining (1934-1968)
- FHA rating system on the best areas to grant home loans/mortgages - Increasingly white communities were labeled as the best investments in green - Increasingly black communities were deemed as as "bad investments" and "risky'' or "hazardous" and labeled in red.
Core Nations
- Highly industrialized, technological, urbanized
How was blackness constructed in America: common (and incorrect) narrative on early relations between europeans and africans
- Many stories about black people begin with enslavement by Europeans and whites. This narrative obscures the agency of Africans. - Europeans, upon encountering Africans who looked and acted very differently from them, developed prejudices which enabled and justified the conquest of Africans - White people saw black people as inferior and less than human, and because of this, they enslaved them
Hegemony (Antonio Gramsci)
- Marx's analysis that the ideas of the ruling class are in the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force (owns the means of production) is at the same time its ruling intellectual/cultural/ideological force - Describes how the ruling capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, use cultural institutions to maintain power in capitalist societies
War on Drugs: Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and then 1988
- Minimum sentencing laws - 100:1 disparity for crimes related to crack versus powdered cocaine. Crack is cheaper to produce so was used more heavily in areas of low socioeconomic status, about 80% of which were black - made the forfeiture of property much easier by law, no longer require probable cause to search someone
Race & ethnicity in U.S. schools in 2021
- More than one third of students (about 18.5 million) attended a predominantly same-race/ethnicity school. - 14 percent of students attended schools where 90 percent or more of the students were of a single race/ethnicity.
Jim Crow and Constructing Race
- More widespread of restrictive laws explicitly based on race, similar in many ways to the Black Codes - largely made to allow for the exploitation of black peoples labor (sharecropping) (could no longer be enslaved) - Furthered the social construction of blackness in America -- i.e., construction based on who is or who isn't allowed to enter certain spaces
The Bourgeoisie
- Own the means of Production - Control the surplus labour of other people and live from this exploitation
Change in the Nature of Money
- Pattern of simple commodity circulation: CMC --> money simply a mechanism to exchange one object for another. - But, as commodity production expands, a new dynamic sets in: MCM1 --> owner of money starts with money, which then enters a cycle by producing commodities in order gain more money.
Stop and Frisk
- Police no longer require "probable cause" to conduct a search for a possible weapon - Might find illegal drugs on person during the search and present this in court - Whites are highly underrepresented among those stopped
War on Drugs: Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and then 1988 and Policing
- Police presence is much higher in the communities and schools of people of color - Use of Stop & frisk
Race-Based Medicine
- Race used by doctors, researches and institutions as a proxy for other variables (genetics, geographical origin, bone density, and more) - Done today, even though scientific consensus is that there is no biological basis for race
Colorblind Racism Frame: Naturalization
- Racialized outcomes seen as natural or "just the way it is"
Bacon's Rebellion: VA 1676
- Result of wealthy landowners limiting access fertile land, almost 1/4 men were landless - Bacon and other indentured servants sought to take land from nearby Indigenous people but were denied this by Colonial Governor William Berkeley -Bacon led a rebellion against Berkely made up of poor individuals and indentured servants (both "black" and "white") against the landed legislature
Alientation: Productive Activity/Species Essence
- See humans as having a "species essence" in which we realize our full potential in life when doing creative work - Many workers under capitalism must act in a very mechanical way while others are similarly not able to be creative or fully make decisions about how to apply their labor (REDUCED TO A PROCESS) - Instead of embracing our "species being" of creating productive labor, we feel most human when we are most "animal" (sleeping, eating, etc.) (1. reduced to a process 2. meant to do more)
Why will billionaires not save us?
- Sometimes they aren't even donating (DAF) - Only good at one thing (Mark Zuckerberg) - Reputation Cleansing (papa john) - Have too much power (bill gates)
Prejudice
- Stereotypical or negative beliefs, feelings and attitudes held about a group - Not inherent within us but socialized / learned as per norms in one's society
American Independence, generally (1776)
- The Declaration of Independence says "All men are created equal". Yet, how were the founders going to face global stage with so many enslaved people in their new country?
Voting Under Jim Crow: Colorblind Policies of Oppression
- The grandfather clause - a man could only vote if his ancestor had been a voter before 1867 - Literacy tests
American Independence... for some americans
- To maintain legitimation of the enslavement system, the logic needed to be that black people were not created equal after all, because they were not full persons - The timing of the publication of Blumenbach's work on "race" provided this logic with the legitimacy in "scientific" knowledge - Led to a long tradition of "scientific racism" (later eugenics) that was used to justify enslavement and continued oppression after the enslavement era
Alienation: Other People
- We are unable to spend time with others due to working - We are forced to compete with one another for wage labour in the marketplace - Our alienation from the process leads us to feel disconnected from others in society, even when surrounded by the products of their labor
Block-Busting
- When real estate agents exploit the racial prejudices of whites and the fear of whites that an increasingly diverse community will lead to lower property values (self-fulfilling prophecy) - Convince whites to sell housing quickly for low prices or cash before the property values go down - Realtors would turn around and sell to Black buyers for a premium - This would contribute to "white flight"
Who lives in poverty in the world?
- Women make up disproportionate amount of the world's poor (122 women for every 100 men) - Children are more likely to live in poverty than adults (also more vulnerable to its effects)
The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956: Highway Segregation
- construction of 41,000 miles of interstate highways - Highways were largely built through predominantly black neighborhoods - Displaced thousands of people and businesses, brought noise and environmental pollution, lead to lower housing values nearby, increased white flight and increased community racial segregation - Highway placement = a major source of structural racism built into the landscape
Feudalism in England
- dominant social system in Medieval Europe (1066-1660) - Closed caste system
Race and Affirmative Action
- fulfilling racial ''quotas" is illegal - race is able to be considered along with all other individual attributes of a candidate under federal law—this means all private schools and most public universities
Alienation: The Product
- the product is taken away from the worker after they make it - Reappears to them in an alien form as a commodity on a shelf that the worker often cannot afford. It thus also has some power over the worker
Deviance
- the recognized violation of cultural norms - What is considered deviant or "normal" varies due to cultural norms - People in power often control the norms
Peripheral Nations
- very little industrialization - Exports raw materials to core nations
Elizabeth Key Case: Two Arguments
1) she was catholic 2) She was the daughter of free english man Because of this, the Magna Carta applied to her and she could no longer be indentured.
According to Modernization theory, low income countries can improve their global economic standing through:
1. An adjustment of cultural values and attitudes to work 2. Industrialization and other forms of economic growth. Critics point out the inherent ethnocentric bias of this theory.
Four Aspects of Alienation
1. The product 2. The act of production/productive activity 3. Human species-essence/the self/one's human potential 4. Other people
Vagrant
a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and may live by begging
EC: The top 1% has how much percent of total world wealth?
43%
Income
A person's wages or investment dividends. Wages, salaries and "passive income".
Example of Minimization of Racism
Black people still have a "chip on their shoulder'' about slavery, but they should get over it because it happened so long ago, and racism is way less a problem nowadays anyway.
Closed class system
Accommodate no to little social mobility. Do not allow people to shit levels and often do not permit social relationships between levels. Ex: estate, slavery, caste systems
Discrimination
Actions against a group of people
Open class system
Allow for social mobility and interaction between layers and class. Example: US Society (?) (American Dream)
Postcolonial thought
Argues that empire and colonialism shaped our society through history into today
Das Kapital / Capital (1867)
Argument: motivating force of capitalism is the exploitation of labor because unpaid work is the source of surplus value (profit)
Who created Color-blind racism?
Bonilla Silva
US wealth disparity
Bottom 40% share almost none of the total wealth. 1% of america shares 40% of the total wealth of the nation
The Correct Story: Before the height of the
Atlantic Slave Trade, various people from "African" kingdoms traveled to Europe many times, learned European languages, were educated, and even converted to Christianity
Silver Tsunami
Baby Boomers ("Silver Tsunami"). Social Security has been a major source of retirement funds for older adults since it began in response to Great Depression of the 1930s. Going forward, there will be more and more older adults and less and less working adults to pay into social security (in the US)
Example of Cultural Racism
Black people are bitter so they learn to be lazy and don't put enough effort into school and work to be able to buy houses in nice neighborhoods
M --> C --> M1
Bourgeoisie Money --> Commodity --> Capital (money 1) Motive: Profit
Angela Davis Claims that
Colonialism and slavery were the foundations of capitalism.
Conflict Theory (Marx)
Conflict between competing interests is the foundational, animating force of social change and society in general.
3 Major ideological perspectives on deviance ("common sense")
Demonic, Classical/Rational, Pathological
Pathological Deviance
Deviance is caused by sickness / illness / mental illness
Classical/Rational Deviance
Deviance is the result of calculated rational choices made using human reason
Demonic Deviance
Deviance is the result of possession or temptation by spiritual forces/the devil
Minimization of Racism and Mass Incarceration
Discrimination is irrelevant to crime, black people need to get over "it" and move on
Big Philanthropy: Reputation Cleansing
Donating to a good cause in order to cleanse their reputation. Try to fix previous mistakes. Think about Papa John.
Cultural Racism and Mass Incarceration
Drug and gang culture leads to mass incarceration
The War on Drugs was an
Effort combat illegal drug use (drug crime) by greatly increasing penalties, enforcement, and incarceration for drug offenders.
Colorblind Racism: Minimization of Racism
Emphasis that racism and discrimination is no longer a major problem, particularly with enslavement increasingly in the past
Social security tax (SS)
Employees pay 6.2% of income into the program to fund the people who are currently retired). Employers also pay 6.2% of your income into SS (research shows that the employee often pays the entire 12% because the employer is aware of this calculation and will simply pay the employee less to begin with)
Early Bound Labor in the American colonies: To send laborers to Virginia as indentured servants...
English legal authorities framed the situation carefully, they "offered transportation" to the colonies as an act of royal "mercy" = convicted could 'choose' to escape death for their crimes in England by choosing transportation to the colonies
Hegemonic racial ideologies over time
Enslavement --> Racial apartheid and Jim Crow --> Color-blind racism
Ethnicity
Ethnicity is based on shared culture -- the practices, norms, values, and beliefs of a group that might include shared language, religion and traditions, among other commonalities
The Emancipation Proclamation (ending bound labor in the US)
Executive order by President Lincoln during the Civil War that promised enslaved people in the confederacy their freedom (if they can make it to the Union states, given that Lincoln did not have jurisdiction in the Confederate states anyway)
Majority of the poorest people are...
in Asia
14th Amendment (1868) (ending bound labor)
Grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the US"; including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with "equal protection under the laws"
Subordinate Racial Group
Group of people with less power in a racialized system
Dominant Racial Group
Group of people with more power in a racialized system
Race is the...
Grouping of humankind based on shared physical or social qualities that vary from one society to another (through space and time)
Two Ongoing Cases concerning race and admissions
Harvard and UNC
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Why was Plessy chosen for the case?
He had one great grandparent of African ancestry and his lawyer argued that his "colored blood" was "not discernable" (he "looked white")
Naturalization and Mass Incarceration
I see black criminals on TV very often so it's normal that black individuals are disproportionately incarcerated
Example of Abstract Liberalism
I'm all for neighborhood integration and anyone who works hard enough to afford to live somewhere should be able to live there, but people shouldn't be forced to live in integrated neighborhoods if they don't want to.
Who developed World-Systems Analysis?
Immanuel Wallerstein
Elizabeth Key and Race
In 1656, the idea of race did not really exist. However, Elizabeth's story would become less and less common as the idea of race began to develop.
The labor theory of value, defined
In a capitalist system, all value comes from human labor
Difference between CMC and MCM1
In the first case, the aim is to sell in order to buy and then to consume. In the second case, however, the self-expansion of money becomes an end in itself.
Inheritance and generational wealth
Inheritance Not federally taxed by the US. Children will inherit a lot of money from their parents, largely tax free. Wealth can be passed down from generation to generation (generational wealth).
Constructing and re-constructing race through today
Instead of biological, race is socially constructed; race does not exist except as something that is ritually created and re-created through social relations in our society every day
John Locke and the Enlightenment
Invested in companies involved in the Atlantic enslaved persons trade.
Postcolonial theory is an epistemic project, not just an empirical one. ...
It is not just about what happened in the world of empires but also about how empires have shaped how we see and understand the world; or what we do not see, what we do not understand.
Early Bound Labor in the American colonies, in 1607:
Jamestown Settlement established in the new Virginia Colony to be built on growing tobacco
Major figures of the Enlightenment
John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume
Elizabeth Key Case: Result
Key won her case (after a few appeals) and was also owed "Corn Clothes and Satisfaction" for her having served many years beyond the end of her term of service
Early Bound Labor in the American colonies, in 1615:
King James and his Privy Council decide that convicts can be sent out of England and to colonies for labor, but the Magna Carta (1215) protected individual rights of all Englishmen against the 'arbitrary authority' of despotic rulers
Labor Power
Labour is not a definite, specific thing, it is a power. What is being exchanged, therefore, is something indefinite - the ability of workers to use their energy for something limited, which is a set amount of money.
Modernization Theory
Low income countries are affected by their lack of industrialization
Effects of Redlining on African American Communities
Made it extremely difficult for black individuals and areas to get loans and also led to white flight from an area. This created a self-perpetuating prophecy in these neighborhoods.
World-Systems Analysis builds on...
Marx's understandings of labor exploitation
Example of Naturalization
Most people live in segregated communities because they like to live with people who are racially similar to them.
C --> M --> C
Mostly laborers Commodity --> money --> Commodity system Motive: Use Value
Meritocracy
System in which social stratification is determined by one's own merit. This concept is an ideal because there has never been a society in which one's social standing is entirely determined by one's merit.
Ethnicity does not equal
National Origin
The 13th Amendment (Ending bound labor in the US)
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Involuntary servitude banned except as a punishment for crime.The War on Crime
Is race connected to genetics?
No-- you can be more genetically similar to someone of a different race than someone of your own
Different Levels of Feudalism
Nobility, Vassals, Peasants
Marx on Social Class
One class is dependent on the exploitation of the other
Milliken v Bradley
Outcome: school district lines cannot be redrawn for the purpose of combating segregation unless the segregation was the product of explicit discriminatory acts by school districts
Elizabeth Key Case:
Petitioned the courts in 1656 for her freedom when her master tried to once again extend her indenture claiming that she already served long terms.
What kinds of waste are third world countries subjected to?
Plastics; Electronic waste (e-waste); Clothing, cheap fabrics from fast fashion
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Outcome
Plessy lost the case, enshrining the "separate but equal" doctrine into law
Global Inequality and Waste: Poorer countries...
Poorer countries are paid in some way to ''recycle" or dispose of waste—but is it worth it?
Passive income
Portfolio earnings (royalties, interest, dividends), rents, income from investing as a silent business partner. Does not pay social security taxes
The war on Drugs was launched by...
President Richard Nixon in 1971, accelerated greatly by President Ronald Regan
Primitive Accumulation (Feudalism to Capitalism)
Process of "taking land...enclosing it, and expelling a resident population to create a landless proletariat, and then releasing the land into the privatized mainstream of capital accumulation"
Commodity
Produced for exchange rather than for oneself (or one's mater); has both use and exchange value.
Fair Housing Act of 1968
Prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, handicap and family status
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Prohibits discrimination based on race or gender in employment or public accommodations (restaurants, hotels). Provided basis for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal.
We are alienated from the products of society.
Rarely do we know fully how any commodity is made, where the materials came from, who made it, the people and social networks involved, etc. This complexity is simplified in our experience to just an item on a shelf with a price.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
SEC. 2 "No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color"
Semi-Peripheral Countries
Share both qualities of core and peripheral nations
Example of Race-Based Medicine
Sickle Cell anemia is an adaptation in the blood cell that afflicts person from areas where malaria has historically been present. But, Malaria is transmitted in more places than Africa!
The Eric Williams Thesis
Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was a consequence of slavery
socioeconomic status
Social stratification groups people into rankings based on factors like wealth, income, education, family background, and power. An individual's place within this stratification is called socioeconomic status.
Vassals
Tenants of the nobles
Two Classes (Marx)
The Proletariat and The Bourgeoisie
Social Necessary Labor Time
The amount of time it takes to make a commodity must be commensurate with the average time it takes to make that commodity due with current social norms.
Exchange Value
The exchange equivalent by which the commodity is compared to other objects on the market.
Ideology
The ideas of ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at same time its ruling intellectual force. The class, which has not...
Globalization
The increased economic, political, and social interconnectedness of the world
Empire Matters (postcolonial thought)
The industrial wealth of anglo-european societies was made possible through imperial expansion and accumulation overseas
Wealth
The net value of money and assets a person has. Assets include cash porperty/real estate stocks valuables (etc)
Two Values of Commodity
Use value; exchange value
Active income
Wages or salary. Pays social security taxes.
The US has spent 1 Trillion dollars combating the...
War on Drugs
Offense type by gender...
Watch panopto...
The Correct Story: Why Africans were seen as inferior?
Wealth, the appearance of nobility, and good manners appeared to be the main criteria in determining social ranking, along with religion.
Surplus Value
Workers create surplus value because there is a difference between the cost of their wages and the value that their labour produces (necessary labour time and surplus labour time).
The Enlightenment (1600s - early 1800s) is the...
origin of "modernity" or the current "modern" era
Feudalism to Capitalism: Laws against...
begging and vagrancy
Abstract Liberalism and Mass Incarceration
black people choose to commit crimes, so mass incarceration is just a result of these choices
15th Amendment (1870)
cannot be denied the right to vote based on "account of race, color or previous condition of servitude"
Social mobility (upward or downward)
certain societies allow for upward social mobility while others do not promote social mobility.
World-Systems analysis views the global economy as a...
complex system that supports an economic hierarchy that placed some nations in positions of power with the numerous resources and nations in a state of economic subordination
Poverty
condition of people who cannot afford the necessities of life
World-Systems Analysis is developed from...
dependency theory
Original concept of the labor theory of value was...
developed by the "fathers of capitalism," Adam Smith and David Ricardo
Early Bound Labor in the American colonies: Colonists first tried...
enslaving indigenous Americans, but enslaving this group was extremely difficult. They had social support networks and knew the land and ecology.
In Indentured servitude, servitude may be
extended for breaking rules or being unable to work for periods of time
Indentured Servitude is a...
form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without wage/salary for a specific number of years
83 percent of US neighborhoods...
given poor ratings ("redlined") in the 1930s were highly segregated as of 2010.
Dependency theory claims that...
global inequality is primarily caused by core nations (or high income nations) exploiting semi-peripheral and peripheral nations (or middle-income and low-income nations), which creates a cycle of dependence
Nobility
held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service
Majority of Poorest Countries are...
in Africa
Generational Slavery as Gendered/Magna Carta: Since they could avoid the Magna Carta, overtime,
indentured servants born into servitude thus became largely composed of individuals who were not English, and since the individuals in indentured servitude at the time were largely English or people of African decent, most indentured people at birth, over time, were of African decent.
Double Conciousness (W.E.B. Dubois): The sense of always...
looking at one's self through the eyes of others in a culture that views you as less - "It is a peculiar sensation, this double conciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity."
Double Conciousness (W.E.B. Dubois): Black Americans are constantly...
maintaining two: - Scripts on how to behave - identities on the self
New York is...
most segregated educational system
Peasants (serfs)
obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor and a share of produce (in exchange for protection).
Marx was a theorist...
of capitalism. Figuring out what it is and how it functions
Bryan Stevenson: The true measure...
of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.
World-Systems Analysis examines exploitation...
on a global/national scale using an in-depth social historical analysis
As long as peripheral nations are dependent...
on core nations for economic stimulus and access to a larger piece of the global economy, they will never achieve stable and consistent economic growth.
Modernization theory supposes...
that all countries have the same resources and are capable of following the same path.
There is no genes, chromosomes, or other biological variables...
that mark a person as one race or another
Modernization theory assumes...
that the goal of every country is to be as developed as possible
Mass Incarceration and Colorblindness
the conflation of blackness with crime did not happen organically... In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer permissible to hate blacks, but we can hate criminals
Marx further developed...
the labor theory of value with more nuanced understandings of value
Marx claims that...
the only way to profit is from exploiting human labor.
Generational Slavery as Gendered: Usually when an indentured servant became pregnant...
the punishment meted out was extra years added to her service. When the woman was already indentured for what was likely to be most or the rest of her life, however, adding extra years was not viewed by masters as sufficient compensation, and not viewed by the women as sufficient deterrent for forgoing physical intimacy
Global Inequality
the systematic differences in wealth and power among countries
The United States (as a core nation) can support or deny support...
to important economic legislation with far reaching implication, thus exerting control over every aspect of the global economy and exploiting both semi-peripheral and peripheral nations
Peripheral Nations typically have...
unstable governments, inadequate social programs, and are economically dependent on core nations for jobs and aid
Generational Slavery as Gendered: The Tobacco owners and the VA Legislature used...
used English law which imposed sanctions that prohibited/discouraged marriage, "fornication," and child-bearing during the period of service.
Generational Slavery as Gendered/Magna Carta: Legal precedent would make it...
very difficult to assume automatic ownership over the child of an English Servant though (remember the Magna Carta)
Generational Slavery as Gendered: Tobacco owners and the VA legislature did not...
want indentured women's labor in tobacco fields to be interrupted by pregnancy
Big Philanthropy -- Batman
what all the plutocrats do. Cause problems by day, in the way that they run their companies. And then put on a suit at night, and pretend that they are the solution (through their donations)
Generational Slavery as Gendered/Magna Carta: The first tobacco growers who challenged the legal norms that made it difficult to assume ownership of child were those....
who had servants of whole or partial African ancestry because this would be the easiest path toward their goals and avoid the Magna Carta. The argument is that these servants were "not English" and english laws thus do not apply to them. This became the norm
Wealthiest people are those...
who make the majority of their money from passive income. Not an option for many people who are financially disadvantaged.
White Flight
working and middle-class white people move away from racial-minority suburbs or inner-city neighborhoods to white suburbs and exurbs - take their business away --> downfall of tax base
The War on Crime: LBJ hoped 1965...
would be remembered as "The year when this country began a thorough, intelligent, and effective war against crime."