GRC Quiz 2

What is the difference between race and ethnicity? What is their similarity?

"Race" refers to physical characteristics such as skin color, shape of eyes, other facial features, hair texture. "Ethnicity" refers to cultural affiliations, including languages spoken, food, music or religious traditions, forms of dress, etc. But BOTH these concepts are invented classification systems that are fluid and have meanings that have changed over time and place.

How does the "new jim crow" benefit white people? (Wise)

"We're not only much less likely to be harassed by the police when we're innocent, we're also more likely to get away with illegal activity when we're guilty"

What was "Roots"? How does "Roots" internalize the American Dream? (Color Adjustments)

A 12-hour show where the whites are the villains and the blacks are the heroes. It internalized the American Dream bc Number one, it showed a power of an underdog overcoming enormous odds to succeed. Number two, it showed the power of family. It showed black people being like every other white immigrant group - family saga about movement into America (assimilation story).

Several shows were discussed in terms of how they represented both a step forward and backward, unpack in relation to the Nat King Cole Show

A black man is seen in prime time TV, not shown in stereotype. He had a smooth, classy voice, very romantic. Black people were very proud bc no images had that kind of sophistication. It was a breakthrough in black representation of music and culture. However, he appealed to the broad spectrum bc he didn't seem forceful - wouldn't make white people uncomfortable. Many minorities had to make adjustments in order to stay away from anger in order to survive. He was the image of assimilation

Did a "post-racial" America become a reality after the election of Obama? Give examples to support your claim. (Wise)

A lot of people (mainly conservatives) believed that after Obama's election, the whole idea of race and racial separation and unfairness was a thing of the past. However, it was ONE person amongst 40 million that beats the odds. It's very difficult to do that. A lot of people wouldn't vote for Obama just because he was black, as seen in the videos, a Democrat said he'd never vote for a black man and was therefore supporting McCain, the Republican candidate. income/wealth - Even with a black president... The median wealth of white families is 20 times greater than the media wealth of black families, and 18 times greater than the wealth of Latino families. education - 70% of students of color attend schools where the majority of students are black and brown, and these schools are 10 times more likely than majority white schools to have high levels of student poverty. College-educated African Americans are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed as collegeeducated whites. College-educated Latinos are 50% more likely than college-educated whites to be unemployed. And studies have found that white job applicants who claimed to have a criminal record were more likely to get called back for an interview than black applicants with no criminal record. healthcare - Children born to African-American women, for instance, are more than twice as likely to die within their first year than children born to white women. Even black women who don't smoke have higher rates of infant mortality for their children than white women who do smoke. African Americans are twice as likely as whites to be uninsured and when they do receive medical attention, studies have shown that they get inferior and unequal care. mass incarceration - Today there are more African Americans under correctional control - in prison or jail, on probation or parole - than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

What kind of concept is race, according to Omi and Wiant?

A pre-eminently socio-historical concept

What is the cost of dehumanization, what is the solution to this dehumanization? (Terrorist Threat)

A study by the Watson Institute at Brown University finds that the U.S. has spent close to five trillion dollars as of 2016 on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria, as well as on homeland security. imagine if we could use these trillions of dollars spent on the means of death and destruction abroad to create good jobs for people so that ending their lives doesn't become a choice, doesn't become a rational choice, for so many tens of thousands of Americans (suicide is one of the top ways people die in the US) we must begin by humanizing the people who have been dehumanized. We must educate ourselves on how racism has been fundamental to reproducing unjust and unequal systems, all the way from the settler colonial project to slavery, Jim Crow, the War on Drugs, and the War on Terror

After what year did the Westerns start to dominate? What did they depict native people as? What was the impact/significance of that depiction? Give an example (the ICONIC Western)

After the 1930s the Western starts to dominate. The US was going thru the Great Depression and needed a new hero. Westerns depict native people as vicious, blood thirsty, backwards. Ex: Stagecoach, directed by John Ford. It's the iconic Western, the one all other Westerns were modeled after. It was the most damaging to NA; shows bloodthirsty NA attacking a stagecoach. It shaped how people saw them and how they saw themselves

How does Matthew Cooke (Race Baiting) describe what happened to blacks after the Civil War? What happened during the era of the Civil Rights movement? Is the caste system still seen today?

After the Civil War, blacked faced disease and Jim Crow replaced slavery. White people were seen as the "chosen people" and religion, politics, and Social Darwinism all reinforced this. During the Civil Rights movement, black power was on the rise, but so was police brutality. Prison harshness and the war on drugs replaced Jim Crow. Black men are more likely to be arrested for drugs and serve longer time. There is still a 3 caste system today - poor blacks, poor whites, and millionaires. The system is set up to push down those in poverty and keep them down

Discuss the crude stereotypes in Amos n' Andy, as seen in the Color Adjustment documentary. What historical context do they reflect? What messages do they give off?

Amos n Andy - all black cast; portraying stereotypes such as the lazy black man, opportunistic black man, the bafoon, the dumb black man. These stereotypes were "audience pleasing". Andy seen explaining to Amos how atoms split, but he's incorrect - talks about fig newtons and morons instead of proper terminology. The struggle to Jim Crow segregation and the portrayal of blacks as second-class citizens inevitably took television to task - this show illustrates a fully autonomous, segregated, separate black community, which was the community in which amos and Andy thrived. NAACP sued, saying the show gives off the messages that black people are either clowns or crooks, and then people begin to believe everyone in the race is like that. They give off the message that blacks might aspire to achieve the American dream, but will comically fail to do so. This was the first prime time show to feature black people

What is genocide? When was genocidal war used? (Dunbar-Ortiz)

Any one of five acts is considered genocide if "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial, or religious group": killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measuring intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group Genocidal war, then, was not just an option, it was necessary in situations of Native American resistance.

Were Native Americans always seen as a race? How were they described? Was skin color a relevant factor?

Based on historical documents such as diaries, novels, newspapers and travel journals of early European settlers in North America - We know that Native Americans were initially not viewed by Europeans as a separate "race" They were described as attractive, strong, wise and ethical people, and were admired. Skin color was not a relevant factor in European discussions about NA

How is the white man's burden seen in the stereotypes of African Americans? Give examples

Black buck - white man needs to save the white woman. Ex: The Birth of a Nation - white man (leader of the Klan) chases after the black buck that is chasing the leader's white sister. When she ultimately jumps off a cliff to avoid the buck, the klan leader uses this as justification to bring violence against blacks. Media critics argue that King Kong symbolically reenacted the Black Buck "monster" threatening the virginal white woman - white man's burden = being civilized

List the black sexual stereotypes. What is the problem with these stereotypes, as a whole? (Larsen)

Black bucks, pimps, and whores. They are "oversexed" - doesn't allow black people romantic love stories. More about power and privilege rather than sex

What is "blackface"? What is its origin? What is an example? (Larsen)

Blackface refers to white's literally blackening their faces with burnt cork in order to portray blacks. The blackface tradition was inherited from the stage where it had existed since before the Civil War, when blacks were not allowed to appear there. Ex: film Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903) included the first black character, Tom, but it was played by a white character

Discuss the man children stereotype. What is it like? What's the problem? Give examples (Larsen)

Blacks also tend to be childlike in film and TV. Ex: the Green Pastures (all black play) all the characters are essentially Sambos - uncomplicated children. Black characters also appear childlike when they are given limited mental or verbal capabilies

Who wrote Representations of Native Americans in the Mass Media?

Casey Ryan Kelly

Who wrote Latino Images in Film?

Charles Ramierez Berg

Explain Berg's 10% hypothesis. What is it? What is the significance? How has the Latino population changed?

Charles Ramirez Berg argues that a critical mass of at least 10% is needed to have the political and economic power needed to demand better media imagery for any group. He uses the example of the Irish in the US. In the 1930s & 1940s US Latino population was only 1.2% of the total. From 1980 (when it was 6%), the US Latino population has more than doubled to nearly 14% in 2009 (US Census data) More Latinos = more advocation for fairer representation

Discuss "color adjustments". What does this phrase mean? (Color Adjustments)

Color adjustments means adjusting people to fit into notion of white America and the American dream

Who wrote Framing Islam?

Deepa Kumar

What are the key Hollywood depictions of Native American men, as seen in Reel Injuns? Who is the embodiment of these ideals and why?

Dominant image = savage, stoic warriors (stand up straight, quiet, don't do much but when they do, it's violent) The construction of native American men as warriors, violent and as unstoppable. Ex: Crazy Horse's victory over Custer. He is the embodiment of the Hollywood Indian. Hollywood has taken this battle and made it into legend. Crazy Horse's victory is a moment of pride, but it has now become such a negative depiction. Instead of being seen as an embodiment of the human spirit, as the Natives in the documentary described, he encapsulates violence

How was violence against native Americans justified?

Europeans classified them as an inferior race that was supposedly immoral, unintelligent, "heathen," and needed to be controlled and ruled by the superior white race

List some Latin female stereotypes (Berg)

Female: The Harlot, Female Clown, Dark Lady

Discuss the Mammies stereotype. What was she like? What is the problem? Give examples. (Larsen)

Heavy, socially unattractive black female servant who ran the household for whites. She could be sassy but was good-natured and loved her "masters." She was happy to serve them and would do anything to help them. Often portrayed as not having her own family; when she did, she loved the white family more than her own. Desexualized, lived to serve. Lovable stereotype of the black domestic. Typically played by dark skinned actresses - include "big, fat, and cantankerous" outspoken characteristics. The mammy was sharp tongued to other black people - Often portrayed as nagging and belittling black men or emasculating them (Beulah calling them "lazy good for nothins") Ex: Mammy in Gone with the Wind (glorification of plantation life), Beulah in The Beulah Show

Describe the hypersexualized black women. What are they frequently shown in?

Hyper-sexualized Black women - "Lusty & always ready for sex" Black women are stereotyped as more sexually "wild," "kinky" or "savage" than White women. The jezebel persists. Frequently shown in "jungles" "forests" or other "wild" and exotic settings, ready to please...

What is white privilege, according to Jensen?

In a white supremacist society, white people have advantages that are not a product of any individual effort or ability but are built into the structure of society

Describe the characteristics of the western. What kind of NA characters were seen? Give examples

In tales of this genre, the cowboy reclaimed territory from both nature and hostile Indians, making the frontier safe for settlement. In the early silent film era (1902-8), hundreds of films featured multidimensional native American characters. Perhaps more than any other, the Indian pictures of D. W. Griffith elucidate the tensions in early cinema between the positive, quasi-ethnographic chronicles of American Indian life and the mythological depictions of screen savages. Griffith's positive images of white-Indian camaraderie in The Redman and the Child (1908) gave way to more popular movies featuring savage warriors (The Battle of Elderbrush Gulch, 1914), mystical pre-encounter primitives (A Pueblo Legend, 1912), and heroic reenactments of General George Armstrong Custer's last stand (Massacre, 1912). Griffith was not alone in his stereotypical, revisionist histories of white-Indian relations.

How were Africans who were Yuruba, Fulani etc. turned into a "black" race, according to Omi and Wiant? Why? What term of self identification followed "black"?

In the United States, the racial category of "black" evolved with the consolidation of racial slavery. By the end of the seventeenth century, Africans whose specific identity was Ibo, Yoruba, Fulani, etc., were rendered "black" by an ideology of exploitation based on racial logic—the establishment and maintenance of a "color line." This of course did not occur overnight. A period of indentured servitude which was not rooted in racial logic preceded the consolidation of racial slavery. With slavery, however, a racially based understanding of society was set in motion which resulted in the shaping of a specific racial identity not only for the slaves but for the European settlers as well. Winthrop Jordan has observed: "From the initially common term Christian, at mid-century there was a marked shift toward the terms English and free. After about 1680, taking the colonies as a whole, a new term of self-identification appeared—white

What kind of stereotypes for black people became popular following the Civil War, during Reconstruction and Jim Crow? Why? What were some that became popular?

Increasingly clown-like media portrayals to "show" that Blacks were unfit for leadership roles. As a backlash to the new freedom of African Americans, Menacing and dangerous media images of Blacks became commonplace in US novels, plays, movies and other media to "prove" that freeing Blacks was a "bad idea" and to justify taking away their civil rights. Black buck

Discuss Kipling's The White Man's Burden. What origin of racism does this relate to? What ideas was he reinforcing? What was he writing about?

It relates to the ideas of slavery. In the late nineteenth century, when the British poet Rudyard Kipling wrote "The White Man's Burden" he was simply reinforcing an idea that was by then widespread. Kipling wrote of the inherent superiority of the West and their "burden" to civilize and tame the peoples of the East. Characterized as "half devil, half child," the colonized were seen as both evil/barbaric, but also childlike and therefore in need of protection. It was originally published in The Times of London with the subtitle "The United States and the Philippine Islands," and was Kipling's call to the U.S. to take on the same responsibilities as the British

Who wrote African Americans in Film and Television Entertainment?

Larsen

List the black subservient/happy-go-lucky stereotypes. What do these stereotypes do as a whole? When did these prominent stereotypes originate? What do their smiles imply? (Larsen)

Mammies, Uncle Toms, and Coons. They all reinforce the status quo. They either work for whites or work to amuse them. They are all desexualized. Originated during slavery. Their smiles implied that they were fine with the existing socio-political system of slavery

What is hypo-descent? Who characterized this idea?

Marvin Harris characterized this idea. Hypo-descent" means affiliation with the subordinate rather than the superordinate group in order to avoid the ambiguity of intermediate identity. . . . The rule of hypo-descent is, therefore, an invention, which we in the United States have made in order to keep biological facts from intruding into our collective racist fantasies

Who wrote Racial Formations?

Michael Omi and Howard Wiant

What is the "new jim crow"? Why is this so detrimental to people of color? (Wise)

Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, argues persuasively that America's War on Drugs has resulted in a devastating new system of racial control. The war on drugs launched a get-tough movement that swept millions of poor people, overwhelmingly poor folks of color, into our prisons and jails, primarily for nonviolent and drugrelated offenses. Once they're caught, they're swept in to the criminal justice system, branded criminals and felons and then ushered into a parallel social universe in which the basic civil and human rights, that were supposedly won in the civil rights movement, are stripped from them. Once branded a criminal or felon, they're denied the right to vote in many states, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education and public benefits.

How is the white man's burden related to the rescue of brown women? (Kumar)

Myth of rescue stemmed from when British invaded Egypt in 1882. The British used women's freedom as justification to take over, yet no changes came about. That is still used today - US argues that the women are oppressed (the Islamic veil seen as a symbol of this) and need to be liberated, brown women need to be saved by white men

Was skin color initially a powerful identifying characteristic in colonial America?

NO. When Black slaves were first brought to the US, skin color was not a powerful identifying characteristic in colonial America (1600s). Both Black slaves and White indentured servants worked side by side and experienced a lack of freedom. But talk of different human "races" did not exist.

Describe what happened when Napoleon was in Egypt. What did it begin?

Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 Began a period of "Enlightened colonialism" Napoleon took with him not only soldiers, but an army of scientists, botanists, biologists, architects, etc. all with the goal of producing a "scientific" survey of the country that was designed for use not by the Egyptians but by the French. Brought them there to study the people and write down what happens. Various imperial nations commissioned scholars to develop knowledge about what they called the "Orient" in order to better control their subjects. Using knowledge to subjugate.

What are the stereotypes that Euro-Americans have crafted of indigenous peoples?

Native American stereotypes: savage, bellicose, unintelligent, subhuman, lazy, without property, and welcoming of colonization

What is the story about head bands, as seen in Reel Injuns?

Originally in the 30s when the Westerns started to blow up, Hollywood wasn't interested in explaining the different tribes and making sure their unique characteristics were seen. Instead, they just wanted the Indians to be identifiable as such. So, every Indian became a Plains Indian - with the headband, the headdress, and the buckskin. HOWEVER, the Plains Indians didn't wear headbands. Hollywood did it bc you had stunt people falling off horses and needed a way to secure the wig. So, they used headbands with elastic backing, something you'd never see on a native

What is the origin story and what is it based on? (Dunbar-Ortiz)

Puritan Settlers had a covenant with God to the take the land inhabited by native Americans. This story is supported and reinforced by the Columbus myth and the "Doctrine of Discovery." European nations acquired title to the lands they "discovered" and the Indigenous inhabitants lost their natural right to that land after Europeans arrived and claimed it.

Who wrote Indigenous People's History of the US?

ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ

Is race biological? Is race a social construct?

Race is not biological. Race, like gender, is not a fixed biological category but an IDEOLOGY. (an ideology is a collection of normative ideas and values. It is a taken-for-granted framework through which a particular social order and its corresponding power relations are naturalized (just assumed to be the way the world is).

Describe what Omi and Wiant mean by: race as a pre-eminently socio-historical concept

Racial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific social relations and historical context in which they are embedded. Racial meanings have varied tremendously over time and between different societies.

What kind of process is racialization, according to Omi and Wiant? What is it constructed from?

Racialization is an ideological process, an historically specific one. Racial ideology is constructed from pre-existing conceptual (or, if one prefers, "discursive") elements and emerges from the struggles of competing political projects and ideas seeking to articulate similar elements differently

Discuss slavery as an origin of racism. Why was racism related to slavery?

Racism, as an ideology to justify slavery and conquest, grew up around this time. Scientists dividing people into races during the Enlightenment. Scientists like Carl Linnaeus and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach divided human beings into various races with distinct characteristics. The logic that flowed from this classification, in the context of colonization, was that white Europeans were superior and other "darker, colored peoples" were both "ugly" and at best "semi-civilized" When slavery began to be implemented on a huge scale in the 1700s, skin color was used to justify the "right" of the self-proclaimed superior white "race" to enslave and control the supposedly inferior Black "race."

What is Red Face? Give some examples, as seen in Reel Injuns

Red face is when a white actor portrays a Native American. Makeup is typically used to darken the skin, or in the case of Johnny Depp in the Lone Ranger, painted to look tribal. Ex: Elvis, Victor Mature, Burt Reynolds

Discuss the significance about the genocidal period of California Gold Rush and give examples

Resulted in decimations of NA in that area. The American takeover of California caused an indigenous population decline that was sharper than in any other time or place in U.S. history. In 1848 the California Indian population was probably about 150,000. By 1860, it was only 30,000. Direct killing was a significant factor and may have explained the majority of deaths for some nations, such as the Yukis and Yanas, but overall more people died from disease and malnutrition as they were subjected to coerced labor, land loss, destruction of game, and reservation confinement

Who wrote Whiteness?

Robert Jensen

Discuss whiteness as a race. What does Robert Jenson point out about the creation of modern whiteness? Discuss white labor - what work did indentured servants do, when were slaves brought in, why slavery was written into law?

Robert Jensen point out that the creation of modern whiteness is connected to a "divide and conquer" strategy. Indentured white servants did a bulk of the work in the British colonies in North America. When poor whites began to demand better conditions it was seen as useful to bring slaves from Africa. To destroy any alliance and solidarity between blacks and poor whites slavery was written into law

What is settler-colonialism? What does it perpetuate/normalize? What does it include? (Dunbar-Ortiz)

Settler colonialism is an ongoing system of power that perpetuates the genocide and repression of indigenous peoples and cultures. Settler colonialism normalizes the continuous settler occupation, exploiting lands and resources to which indigenous peoples have historical relationships. Settler colonialism includes interlocking forms of oppression, including racism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism. This is because settler colonizers are Eurocentric and assume that European values are superior. In a nutshell, settler colonialism consists of the dispossession of indigenous peoples' lands, resources, and cultures as well as the genocide of native peoples. It is justified by racist ideologies. It is a genocidal policy, one that requires violence or the threat of violence to achieve its goals. Its goal is elimination of indigenous populations in order to make land available to settlers

Explain how Omi and Wiant show the classification of human beings into races. What methods were used? What was race thought of as?

Spurred on by the classificatory scheme of living organisms devised by Linnaeus in Systema Naturae, many scholars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries dedicated themselves to the identification and ranking of variations in humankind. Race was thought of as a biological concept

When do stereotypes develop? Can they change over time?

Stereotypes develop during specific historical contexts and can change over time. They may fade away or become re-worked and modified into new variations on the same old theme

How does TV naturalize the "imaginary middle" and the American dream? (Color Adjustments)

TV alone cannot liberate us, it continues to mold how are seen and defined. You can't get rid of 300 years of history and the original stereotypes by putting one man in the lead role of a situational comedy. What we get is the continuing press towards an imaginary middle. And part of the critique is of that imaginary middle is whether it's a class middle, whether it's a racial norm, whether it's some idealized aspiration about what are good life is. We need are more complicated ways of imagining African Americans in the world that are truer to what people know and different from what people's imagination are about. And that those things are inflected by difference and that what we need to do is begin to illuminate that difference, not so that people are divided and can't have access to each other, but so that we understand the ways in which inequality gets perpetuated and operates. But also so that we learn more about each other and more about ourselves. And I think the television simply hasn't done that. It pushes black people towards the "imagery middle" - referring to the middle-upper class that is the center of the American dream - by showing families like those in Cosby, by showing characters like Julia that are fully assimilated and don't show a lot of their culture

What is the "white negro"? In what shows is this argued to be seen in? (Color Adjustments)

The "white negro" is a black character that was almost over endowed with attributes that comfort white middle class sensibilities. They stripped him or her of anything else so that the, the sense of the white negro becomes what it takes to make them acceptable. "he has very little negro-ness." Diahann Carroll. Julia from "Julia" was seen as a white negro - black community saw her as a sellout, called her an oreo (black on the outside, white on the inside). Could move into your community without bothering you at all

How is the White Man's Burden seen in advertisements? Are similar ideas still seen today?

The White Man's Burden ad = Pears' Soap. They say: first step towards lightening the white man's burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness. Commercialism is tied in with the white man's burden = teaching the semi-civilized to be clean. Idea that washing skin makes it lighter, therefore better - ad with kids taking a bath = black kid washing the black away. Kept the face black tho to emphasize that no matter how hard you try, you'll still be inferior Dove Lotion ad from 2017 - black girl becoming a white girl. Unilever, which sells Dove, also sells Pears Soap

Explain how Omi and Wiant show that race comes to explain why some people should be free and others not and why some should have access to land while others should not

The expropriation of property, the denial of political rights, the introduction of slavery and other forms of coercive labor, as well as outright extermination, all presupposed a worldview which distinguished Europeans—children of God, human beings, etc.—from "others." Such a worldview was needed to explain why some should be "free" and others enslaved, why some had rights to land and property while others did not. Race, and the interpretation of racial differences, was a central factor in that worldview

Discuss the whores stereotype. What is it like? What's the problem? Give examples (Larsen)

The frequent characterization of black women as sexually promiscuous has been used to subjugate them, providing an excuse for their sexual mistreatment by white men. Ex: first black ***** appeared in the 1929 film Hallelujah. Seen in films directed by blacks, such as Boyz n the Hood

Discuss the Black bucks stereotype. What was it like? What's the problem? Give examples. (Larsen)

The stereotype of a hypersexualized black male dehumanizes black men, helping to justify their subordination. Described as oversexed and savage, frenzied by their lust for white flesh Ex: Clubber Lang in Rocky III; the character in the Birth of a Nation that chases the white woman. out to rape white women and a menace to all whites

Discuss US oil interests and the terrorist threat (Terrorist Threat)

Think about the causes of the Iranian Revolution - replaced the first guy bc of how he was going about oil. the roots of Islamophobia in the U.S. lies not so much in a misunderstanding of Islam, or in a kind of blanket demonization of all Muslims, but rather in the political, economic, and geo-strategic interests that the U.S. has in the region, particularly the flow of oil What are some of these agendas in the Middle East, North Africa, Central and South Asia? Well, the U.S. has multiple geostrategic interests in the region, but one of them is oil. The region holds one of the greatest supplies of oil in the world. And oil, as we know, drives the world economy. that groups of people are turned into racialized threats when there are larger political and economic agendas at work.

Who created White Like Me?

Tim Wise

What are the polarized views of civilizations? What does this go hand in hand with? (Kumar)

WEST: Freedom, law, rationality, science, progress, intellectual curiosity, the spirit of invention, and so on, were seen as the core values of "the West," thus constructing the West as a unique civilization with its roots in ancient Greece EAST (Islam): Every other civilization was then defined in relation to this notion of a superior "West." The world of Islam was characterized as despotic, static, undemocratic, rigid, barbaric, misogynistic etc. Goes hand in hand with the idea of the "us" vs "them" mentality. "they" are inferior in some way

Why is it necessary to study whiteness, according to Jensen?

White people often do not think of themselves as part of a racial category, so studying whiteness can promote a clearer analysis of the racial system and a more honest self-assessment on the part of the individual whites. Understanding race and racism requires an understanding of the pathology of whiteness that is at the core of our racial system.

Discuss the Coon stereotype. What is it like, overall? What are the different types of Coon variations? (Larsen)

a harmless, child-like, eye-popping, clownish character. Portrayed as naïve or dumb, but friendly. Often shown tap dancing, joking, storytelling or otherwise entertaining white folks. Can be loud and scheming like Amos & Andy, George Jefferson, Sanford & Son. Variations: Pick-a-ninny, Uncle Remus, and pure coon

Describe the El Bandido stereotype. What are some physical and character traits? (Berg)

criminal, immoral, ruthless. Physical aspects: dark skinned, large mustache, sing-songy voice, ungrammatical speech, unkempt/dirty/sweaty-oily skin/greasy hair, bad teeth, wears sombrero, often black clothes/boots. Located in desert/border region his roots go back to the villains of the silent "greaser" films (Broncho Billy for ex) but his appearance continues in Westerns character: immoral (no sense of ethics), deals in contraband, Ruthless/cruel/enjoys torturing others, Preys on vulnerable people (children, women, the elderly), Wild, unpredictable "outlaw" character, Sneaky, Arrogant, smiles as he foils the authorities ex: Al Pachino's character in Scarface

What is Islamophobia? What does it draw on? (Kumar)

dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force. Draws on Orientalism and creates "Muslims" as a race of people

Describe the Buffoon stereotype. What are some physical and character traits? (Berg)

ditzy, clown, untrustworthy. Simpleminded, cannot master standard English

Just because race does not exist as a biological category...

does not mean that racism is not real. Race is still a powerful social idea that gives people differing access to resources, goodwill, and opportunities. There are very REAL effects of racism. Ex: Race and Crime video. White guy tries to break into a car, people just pass by and let it happen. Black guy does it and immediately gets cops called on him

What are the origins of racism?

slavery and colonialism

Describe the Latin lover stereotype. What are some physical and character traits? (Berg)

suave, overly sexual "ladies' man". Origin = Rudolph Valentino. Smoldering presence

Explain the story of Marlon Brando and Sashine Littlefeather and the occupation of Wounded Knee, as well as its significance. (Reel Injuns)

the NA were occupying Wounded Knee, gov owned, to protest programs controlling reservation development. They were up against the federal government and were facing weapons and training that completely outmatched them. NA were fighting for their lives. Help came from Hollywood thru Marlon Brando. He was nominated for an Academy Award bc of the Godfather and asked Sashine Littlefeather to refuse the award and represent him. At the awards, she was told by a producer not to go over 60 seconds or she'd be arrested. She used the time to make a speech abt why Brando wasn't accepting the award - bc of Hollywood treatment of NA, bc of chaos, and bc of Wounded Knee. The Morale at Wounded Knee was low, but this uplifted them

How does Disney depict native Americans?

the children think that all Indian people hit their faces and go "Woo, Woo, Woo." The other is that all Indian people ride on a horse, and have head dresses on with a lot of feathers, and that they all live in Teepees. Also there's the sitting crossed legged with your arms folded and you have to look like this and very often, Native people are portrayed as saying 'UGH!' Pocahontas - she's already canoed a wild river, searched for gold, discovered a new world, explored a Native American village, learned new words, hunted for stowaways, stopped a war (what it teaches children, seen thru the computer game the little girl plays) not only a rewriting of history in ways that eliminate some of its most controversial political moments and free it of particular conflicts, or eliminate particular kinds of conflicts, or in many ways make it appear as if certain social events have nothing to do with power. For instance I mean when you look at a film like Pocahontas, which is really about colonialism, it's about Native Americans being killed in terms that can be adequately described as genocide Pocahontas - white people sing about NA being savages, NA singing about white people being "different" from them, meaning they "can't be trusted"

What did Westerns depict the cowboy as? What did they depict Indians as? Give examples (Reel Injun)

the cowboy as the "real American" and Indians as stopping the real Americans from settling the frontier. Ex: John Wayne = icon, starred in a lot of Westerns, embodied the cowboy image. Very violent but his actions are excused

In tales of this genre (James Fenimore Cooper novels), what does the cowboy do? (Kelly)

the cowboy reclaimed territory from both nature and hostile Indians, making the frontier safe for settlement.

What is "the vanishing Indian"? Where is this seen? (Kelly)

the mythological "vanishing Indian," an updated noble savage who had been removed from the arc of history, fated to either assimilation or extermination by the inevitable onslaught of manifest destiny seen in James Fenimore Cooper novels

What is the term racialization used to signify, according to Omi and Wiant?

the term racialization is used to signify the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice or group

How are politics and Hollywood's images linked? When did the Arab image begin to change? What three things impacted that changed? (Reel Bad Arabs)

they reinforce one another. Policy enforces mythical images, mythical images help enforce policy. The Arab image began to change immediately after World War 2. There were three things that impacted the change: The Palestinian/ Israeli Conflict, in which the United States is unequivocally supported Israel; the Arab oil embargo in the 70's, which angered Americans when gas prices went through the ceiling; and the Iranian Revolution, which increased Arab-American tensions when Iranian students took American diplomats hostage for more than a year (Hostage Crisis). These three pivotal events brought the Middle East into the living rooms of Americans, and together helped shaped the way movies stereotyped Arabs and the Arab world. One of the primary changes - the image of the sheik

Discuss the Western and John Ford's Indian—how were Indians and cowboys represented in the 'golden age' of the Western? (Kelly)

throughout the golden age of the American western (Stagecoach, 1939; Drums Along the Mohawk, 1939; Fort Apache, 1948; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 1949; Wagon Master, 1950; Rio Grande, 1950; The Searchers, 1956; Sergeant Rutledge, 1960; Two Rode Together, 1962; and Cheyenne Autumn, 1964), white cowboys, frequently portrayed by "The Duke," heroically defeated hoards of faceless and menacing Indians to prepare the frontier for settlement the films of John Ford are the most responsible for the Hollywood image of the screen savage (Nolley, 1998). John Ford's films are the most instructive because of their influence in defining the modern character of the white man's Indians in popular culture. Many scholars of the American western argue that Ford's films eradicated distinctions between diverse nations, collapsing them into one generic and simplistic image Ford's Indians were extraordinarily violent and cruel, frequently the initiators of bloody confrontation (ex: Stagecoach)

Why is the terrorist threat a social/political construction? (Terrorist Threat)

who is considered a terrorist threat is very much a political process. It is not an objective designation, rather it is a socially constructed process. far-right-wing groups are responsible for more killing of people in the United States than Muslim American citizens or residents. White people not seen as terrorist threats, yet they are committing terrorist acts

What did "blackface" acts do?

"Blackface" acts romanticized and reinforced the image of happy, dancing, singing "darkies". Blackface caricatured Blacks for the entertainment of Whites

Several shows were discussed in terms of how they represented both a step forward and backward, unpack in relation to Good Times

"Good times" was the first primetime series to feature a black family with both mother and father. In contrast to the integrationist shows of the 60s, "Good times" was set in the heart of Chicago's black Southside community. "All in the Family" made the TV family a political battleground since Archie would say racist things and it was the first step towards reality and depicting American households. This show continued that but made it more relevant to what was happening to black families in black communities. "Good times" represented the, the greatest potential and greatest failure. It had the greatest potential because it was an inner city family that was nuclear, that was solid. They talked about real world issues and how black families deal with racism and economic inequality. Failure - They elevated J.J.'s role, which had been one of amusing and sometimes sophisticated comedy, to that of a buffoon. His humor was tied to the long tradition of the minstrel character. the show had the use of a character to rob the show of the political bite that it might have

List the seven simplified complex representations and how they are both a step forward and backward (Alsutany)

1. Inserting Patriotic Muslims - "positive" Arab and Muslim characters; usually a patriotic Arab/Muslim American who assists the US government in its fight against Arab/Muslim terrorism, either as an agent or a civilian. Challenges the stereotype that Muslims are not American/un-American 2. Sympathizing with the plight of Arabs and Muslims after 9/11 - shows Arab/Muslim Americans as the unjust victims of violence and harassment. Viewer is nearly always positioned to sympathize with their plight. Challenges long-standing representations that inspire a lack of sympathy and even celebration when an Arab/Muslim character is killed 3. Challenging the Arab/Muslim conflation with diverse Muslim identities - challenges the common conflation of Arab and Muslim identities. Ex: Sleeper Show (show) shows a diverse cast of Muslim terrorists - French, Euro-American, Arab. Pos for showing that not all Muslims are Arab and not all Arabs are Muslim, BUT they're still terrorists 4. Flipping the Enemy - involves leading the viewer to believe that Muslim terrorists are plotting to destroy the US and then revealing that those Muslims are merely pawns for Euro-American or European terrorists. Viewers discover that the terrorist is not Arab or they find that the Arab or Muslim terrorist is part of a larger network. Shows that terrorism isn't an Arab monopoly 5. Humanizing the terrorist - focuses on the terrorist's interpersonal relationships, motives and back stories. While it's humanizing the terrorist, they're still terrorists! 6. Projecting a multicultural US society - projects a society in which people of different racial backgrounds work together and racism is socially unacceptable. Yet, it still represents Arabs and Muslims as terrorists 7. Fictionalizing the Middle Eastern or Muslim country - rests on the assumption that leaving the nationality of the villain open eliminates the potential for offensiveness Pos - they present an important departure from stereotypes into more challenging stories and characters; this new breed of terrorism programs reflects a growing sensitivity to the negative impact of stereotyping Neg - these programs remain wedded to a script that represents Arabs and Muslims only in the context of terrorism and therefore do not effectively challenge the stereotypical representations of Arabs and Muslims

What three events that give rise to the Arab/Muslim terrorist construction (Terrorist Threat)

1972 Munich incident - at the Munich Olympics, the Israeli Olympic team was taken hostage and eventually killed by a Palestinian group called Black September. And this was broadcast live by the global media, that were already gathered for the Olympic Games, to an estimated 900 million viewers worldwide. after the Munich incident, there was a UN General Assembly meeting that was held to discuss and to define terrorism 1979 Iranian revolution/hostage crisis - In 1953, the U.S. deposed a democratically elected leader of Iran, a man by the name of Mohammed Mosaddegh. And they replaced him with the Shah, a U.S.-friendly dictator. The US replaced OG guy bc he dared to nationalize the oil industry in that country because he wanted to use the oil profits for the benefit of his own people rather than to line the pockets of British oil companies and American oil companies. The Shah dissolved all political parties except his own. All dissenters, in fact, were severely tortured. Savak, which was the secret police of the Shah, they were trained by the CIA, would ruthlessly torture political dissenters. In 1979, the Iranian people overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah in a popular revolution involving large sections of the Iranian population. He was a U.S.-backed dictator, so he fled to the U.S. And when the Iranians asked for him to be sent back, so that he can be tried for his many crimes, the U.S. refused to extradite him. As a response to this, students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and they took a few dozen Americans hostage for a period of 444 days two Jonathan Institute conferences - he Jonathan Institute, which is headed by Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, held a conference in 1979 in Jerusalem and another one in 1984 in Washington D.C. And at both these conferences, there are dignitaries and politicians and high-level officials from countries around the world who are brought together to shape the language of terrorism. And in fact, the Jerusalem conference was explicitly framed as an intervention to change the international discourse on terrorism. For Israel, it was about getting the West to see the enemies of Israel, the secular nationalist PLO, as enemies of the West overall. The language of colonialism, this idea that the civilized world is being attacked by these barbarians, by these savages, being introduced into this conference

Discuss the pick-a-ninny stereotype. What is it like? What is the problem? Give examples (Larsen)

A buffoonish child, a "harmless, little screwball creation whose eyes popped, whose hair stood on end with the least excitement, and whose antics were pleasant and diverting." Big eyes, hair that sticks up, association with watermelon Ex: 1920s Our Gang comedy series movie - antics of 3 characters demonstrates the simplemindedness and foolishness of the stereotype. Eddie Murphey's SNL interpretation of one of those characters, Buckwheat

What is the "noble savage" image? What is wrong with the "noble savage" image? Give an example

A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. Whether it is the gentle Natives or "noble savages" described by Rousseau or the demonic hordes invented by Puritan leader Cotton Mather, such dehumanizing portrayals of indigenous peoples prepared the lands and people of North America for colonization. Ex: "Reel Injuns" - Iron Eyes Cody

Several shows were discussed in terms of how they represented both a step forward and backward, unpack in relation to I Spy

Bill Cosby's character was seen as a hero, very smart. It's a show featuring two male leads - one black, one white. Producer said it had nothing to do with race - had to do with male bonding, friendship, and love. Cosby's acceptance was immediate and overwhelming. Alexander Scott from I Spy and Julia were designed to overcome the received images of black people from all forms of media, whether it was minstrelsy and vaudeville, or whether it was television's own early history itself. The political climate of the 1960's sort of forbade liberal-thinking producers from putting any other kind of image on television and part of their mission if they perceived it as such to amplify the Civil Rights movement rested in telling America that black people were just like white Americans. Again, you have an assimilated black character

Discuss the shift from religion to science justifying colonialism and racism. At what times were each of these used as justification? What caused a shift in thinking?

As Spain, Portugal, Britain, France and other imperial nations embarked on a mission of colonial expansion, they developed ideologies to justify conquest. 16-17th Century: Religion as justification: During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the exploitation of the native people in the New World was condoned by arguing that the Indian "savages" were idolaters whom God had ordained to be enslaved by Christians. The enslavement of Africans was similarly justified through the book of Genesis. It was argued that Africans were a cursed people (drawn from the myth of the Curse of Ham or Canaan) whose skin color had blackened to mark the curse. Thus, even after the African slaves converted to Christianity they could be retained as slaves (Fredrickson, 2002). 18th century on: "Scientific "Justifications: The shift from religious to "scientific" justifications took place in the eighteenth century in the context of the Enlightenment and the growth of science. Slavery and colonization and conquest have a long history in human civilization, but the various revolutions that took place in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as the English, French and American revolutions were based on the ideas of the Enlightenment (equality, fraternity, democracy) In terms of "science" they were studying skull sizes. They would say black people's skulls are closer to those of monkeys - more animalistic

Discuss the significance about the genocidal period of War, 1776-1815 and give examples

Because a significant number of Indians consistently rebuffed demands that they cede their lands and because Americans were determined to acquire them anyway, the United States constantly pursued war against Indians. Indeed, America was born fighting Indians. In the early phases of the Revolutionary War most Indian nations allied with Great Britain in large measure because they saw a new settler nation as an unprecedented threat to their lands. In 1779 the United States declared war on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) to punish them for raids they had undertaken to roll back colonial settlement. The number of Haudenosaunee directly killed by the American army was around two hundred (including some women and children), though as many as a thousand died from disease (primarily dysentery but also smallpox) and starvation in refugee camps. Out of a population of 9,000, the death toll from all causes was probably around 15 percent. Had the Haudenosaunee decided to defend their towns, it would almost certainly have been higher. Endless War - what made U.S. military operations effective was their relentlessness. Indians might repulse a single invasion of their country or, if that was impossible, abandon their towns and rebuild, but because the United States had a large and growing population, a high capacity to continuously mobilize young men to fight, and an unwavering commitment to expansion, the nation was able to wage endless war. Faced with the very real possibility that their people would eventually be destroyed utterly, leaders of Indian resistance eventually agreed to U.S. treaties requiring land cessions. The threat of genocide in this very strong sense of the term played a crucial role in allowing the United States to achieve its primary goal of taking Indian lands.

Several shows were discussed in terms of how they represented both a step forward and backward, unpack in relation to The Cosby Show

Before "The Cosby Show" came on, the American public had been bombarded with negative images of the black family. When "The Cosby Show" came on, the Huxtables family were seen as a good opportunity to project the images of black people in America that ultimately might diminish attitudes and racism rather than to support them. In part, the show's success was its image of success, an image perfectly attuned to the politics of post Civil Rights America = The Reagan ideology was predominantly that if you open up access to corporates to make money, then the opportunity structure opens up. Which wasn't true. During Reagan's time, there was a record number of hungry and homeless. The show acts as a mythic sanctuary - shield from social crisis. It reaffirmed the American dream and hardcore middle class values = work hard, you'll be rewarded, nothing wrong with society

What was the difference between the depiction of African American's in the 1960s in the news and on sitcoms? (Color Adjustments)

Civil Rights movement was a golden opportunity for prime time - the images of black people dominated the news. And it was-- they were images of, on the one hand, black men and women being tortured and, and beaten and abused, and whose rights were being systematically violated. On the other hand, there was a certain nobility of spirit and no one knew what to do with, with black people in terms of representing them in a TV series. Think MLK, showing protests, singing (Go Tell it on the Mountain) On sitcoms, African Americans wouldn't face these problems. Sitcoms avoided the conflict, they didn't reflect the changes that were happening in society. These families still pushed the American dream.

What is the "clash of civlizaions"? (Terrorist Threat)

Clash of Civilizations - book written by Samuel Huntington. Huntington argues that in the post-Cold War world, that is after the collapse of the Soviet Union, conflict between nations is no longer going to be driven by politics. It is going to be driven by culture. According to him, the world is characterized by seven or eight civilizations. Each would have developed uniquely with their own culture. And as a result of that, conflict, he says, is inevitable. And the way he puts it, he creates a very "Us vs. Them" mentality

What's the difference between colonialism and settler colonialism?

Colonialism - people coming in to take over the resources, this ends SC - after they take the resources, they want to take over the land and make the natives vanish. Ongoing unless it reaches a point of complete evacuation (ex: Roanoke)

What does "playing Indian" mean? Give examples from Reel Injun of people "playing Indian"

Deloria (1998) coined the term "playing Indian" to describe the Euro-American tradition of ritually enacting American identity through stylized performances of Indianness—from the use of Mohawk disguises at the Boston Tea Party to the Indian aesthetics and spiritualism adopted by the 1960s counterculture. For Deloria, "playing Indian" began as a performative enactment of American frontier identity in contradistinction to Europe. Today, fans of collegiate and professional sports franchises with Native mascots still disguise themselves in war paint and feather headdresses. Every year, children still wear Indian Halloween costumes and adopt Indian spirit names at wilderness camps and Boy Scout retreats across America (Huhndorf, 2015; Moore, 1998). Ex: Noble savage idea alive in many summer camps. The documentary shows a summer camp that has tribal games, where the boys are split into "tribes" and become natives at war. An Austrain (WHITE) camp counselor named David said he watched two movies and got the "perspective" of natives, said he understood they were about brotherhood and family. The doc showed the campers (all boys) shirtless, chanting, singing a song about crazy horse, and slamming on the table Groovy Indian - summer of love (60s in San Francisco). Indian seen as a free spirit, people thought one of the ways to honor Indians was to dress like them - false idea. Hippies created a false notion of native society, and it was supported by the movies that they were seeing

What does "playing Indian" mean? discuss too in relation to the Red Skins (and the documentary "More than a Word),

Deloria (1998) coined the term playing Indian to describe the EuroAmerican tradition of ritually enacting American identity through stylized performances of Indianness—from the use of Mohawk disguises at the Boston Tea Party to the Indian aesthetics and spiritualism adopted by the 1960s counterculture (see also Grinde & Johansen, 1991). For Deloria, "playing Indian" began as a performative enactment of American frontier identity in contradistinction to Europe. Today, fans of collegiate and professional sports franchises with Native mascots still disguise themselves in war paint and feather headdresses. Every year, children still wear Indian Halloween costumes and adopt Indian spirit names at wilderness camps and Boy Scout retreats across America (Huhndorf, 2015; Moore, 1998). The ongoing tradition of playing Indian illustrates the malleability of the Indian image and its assimilation into the Euro-American imagination. Think about the Red Skins football team and the camp from the documentary

Discuss the Indian Princess. When was it introduced, was are the problems? (Kelly)

Disney reintroduced American screen audiences to the legend of Powhatan Pamunkey "princess" Pocahontas and the colonial settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The gross historical inaccuracies of the film are too many to identify here, but of greater importance is how Disney has romanticized and softened the brutal realities of EuroAmerican colonialism. The predominant image, the Indian Princess is first and foremost exotic, wild, and sexually available to Euro-American men. For instance, Disney's version of Pocahontas is highly sexualized, drawn by animators as scantily clad and voluptuous. Despite the film's billing as a children's feature, Pocahontas is made to embody the physical traits that meet the highly unattainable conceptions of Western beauty, including an extraordinarily small waste, large breasts, flowing hair, and long legs. She also embodies patriarchal attributes of traditional Western femininity, including naiveté, compliancy, passivity, and sexual availability. Above all, she is more attracted to white heroism than to the cruel and stoic masculinity of her tribe Second, the Indian Princess must save, give aid to, or collaborate with white men to bring civilization to her tribe

Describe the Female clown stereotype. What are some physical and character traits? (Berg)

Ditzy/sexually available /spitfire. Her character is sullied (made promiscuous and criminal) or ridiculed (portrayed as sexually "easy" or simply silly and comical)

Who wrote challenging the Terrorist stereotype?

Evelyn Alsultany

Discuss the Jezebel stereotype. What is it like? What's the problem. Give examples. What kind of stereotype is this?

Female black buck. The portrayal of black women as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype. It was used during slavery to justify the rape of black women by slave masters. The Jezebel is "seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd." While white middle class women were presented as sexless and models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty. The Jezebel stereotype was used during slavery as a rationalization for sexual relations between white men and black women, especially sexual unions involving slavers and slaves. The Jezebel was depicted as a black woman with an insatiable appetite for sex. She was not satisfied with black men "antebellum" (Latin for "pre-war") images because they were popular before the Civil War

What is "implicit bias"? (Wise)

Implicit racial bias is the thoughts that pop into our mind. It's the quick, random, gut reaction when we think about a particular group. So, when I see somebody who is white, how quickly and easily do good thoughts - good, healthy, successful, educated, smart - come to mind? Versus when I see someone who is black or Latino, how quickly do those kinds of happy, successful, educated, smart, pop into mind?

Why did shows like Frank's Place and East Side, West Side receive praise? How were they received by black communities? What about the rest of the country?

Frank's Place - it showed a broader range of types of black people, was seen as the best TV program involving black people for many POC. Tim Reid, who starred in the show, said "they want you to be funny, they want you to be colorless, not to bring your race." The show didn't hide from issues of skin color - the documentary showed a scene where Tim Reid's character talked to another POC about the difference between Creole (lighter skin color) and creole (darker skin color) and their treatment in New Orleans. It was the closest thing to a reality that a lot of black people experience - it was too real for white Americans, who want to endorse the fantasy. Was ultimately killed by ratings, was constantly moved in the TV schedule East Side, West Side - Stories were set in a variety of communities each dramatizing not America's dream, but her nightmare realities. No happy endings seen in this show. For example, a black man with a baby needs help and no cab stops for him bc of his race. In one episode, the show even challenged the unspoken assumptions behind American integration - two white characters talked about different "types" of negroes - "We have a different yardstick for measuring a Negro, don't we? If he went to Harvard, if he plays golf, if he looks like a Boston gentleman and talks like a Philadelphia lawyer, why? Fine. Let him be brown, only not too brown." The show undercut the myth of American progress and was cancelled after one season

What was the highpoint of the western? What was the frontier? What are the three main aspects of westerns? Who is the main hero of the western, who is the most famous?

Highpoint = 1939-64. Frontier = edge of colonized vs. uncolonized; border of what was colonized + Indian territory. "westerns set up a language that extends the metaphor of the frontier into paired opposites of the following three elements: the wilderness versus civilization, the individual versus community, savagery versus humanity. The cowboy, most famously in John Wayne films, heroically defeats hoards of faceless and menacing Indians to prepare the frontier for settlement.

Why does "colorblindness" not address racism?

Ignoring real differences in how people of different skin colors are treated allows discrimination to continue by not acknowledging or addressing it. It helps support it Pg 26 of Jensen: "To be color blind is to endorse blindness when assessing the effects of color, therefore to lend tacit support to white supremacy." Pretending racism does not exist will not bring equality. Systematic inequalities in how people are treated must be remedied.

Discuss the symbolic annihilation of native Americans. How is this done? (Dunbar-Ortiz)

In addition to actual extermination and removal Indigenous peoples were erased in local histories. Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) historian Jean O'Brien names this practice of writing Indians out of existence "firsting and lasting." All over the continent, local histories, monuments, and signage narrate the story of first settlement: the founder(s), the first school, first dwelling, first everything, as if there had never been occupants who thrived in those places before Euro-Americans. On the other hand, the national narrative tells of "last" Indians or last tribes, such as "the last of the Mohicans," "Ishi, the last Indian," and End of the Trail, as a famous sculpture by James Earle Fraser is titled (Dunbar-Ortiz, p. 9) Removes NA from history

According to Matthew Cooke's Race Baiting video, when are Africans turned into a race and why?

In the early part of the 17th century, you see convicts, poor whites (indentured servants) and African Americans working on plantations. 1670's - after Bacon Rebellion, it was necessary to create a caste system to split whites, blacks, browns, and reds. They had to create race in order to divide the unity, poor whites had to believe they had some advantages in order to put themselves in a separate category than the others

Discuss the significance about the genocidal period of Removal and give examples

Indian Removal Act - After 1815, the United States intensified its efforts to expand. To do so, it adopted a policy, formally institutionalized through the Indian Removal Act of 1830, of moving all Indians living east of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory (the modern states of Kansas and Oklahoma). As measured by lives lost, Indian removal was far more destructive than the earlier period of war. Consider the three largest Indian nations east of the Mississippi, the Choctaws, Creeks, and Cherokees, each with approximately 20,000 people. During the removal process in the 1830s, approximately 2,000 Choctaws, 4,500 Creeks, and 5,000 Cherokees perished, mostly from intersecting factors of disease, starvation, exposure, and demoralization. The death toll for all three nations—close to 20 percent—is equivalent to 60 million for the current U.S. population. Idea was to move them to "Indian Territory" Trail of Tears - In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died. Andrew Jackson tried to justify Indian removal by saying "They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement"

Outline some shifts in the representation of Indians after the protest movements of the 1960s and 70s. Give an example (Kelly)

Influenced by the social transformations of the 1960s and 1970s, Hollywood produced more sympathetic but nonetheless problematic images of American Indians. While the western largely demonized American Indians, the countercultural Indian feature romanticized the anti-establishment and pro-environmental values that sympathetic Euro-Americans grafted onto American Indian culture. Abraham Polonsky's Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) is a case-in-point. The film is based on a 1909 incident in Banning, California, in which a drunken Paiute named Willie Boy shot the sleeping father of a young white woman, whom he abducted and raped. Willie Boy absconded with the young woman and was pursued through the desert by two armed posses. With no way out, Willie Boy committed suicide (Lawton, 1960). Polansky's adaptation, however, transforms Willie Boy (Robert Blake) from a drunken savage to a legendary outlaw whose tragic death symbolized the anti-war, anti-government values of the period Ex: Perhaps the only few anti-establishment films to humanize American Indians are Little Big Man (1970) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). Though not without its flaws, Little Big Man satirized pioneer society throughout the lifetime of a white boy adopted by the Cheyenne nation. The film portrayed Indians as multidimensional characters, neither wholly bad nor good, who exhibited complex emotion and intellect. To a lesser extent, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's Chief Bromden (Will Sampson) defiantly mocked stereotypes by playing the part of a mute stoic Indian. When Mac (Jack Nicholson) discovers the ruse, he laughs, "you fooled them, Chief ... you fool them all."

What two events brought terrorist language to the forefront and linked it to Muslims? (Terrorist Threat)

Iranian revolution and hostage crisis and two Jonathan Institute conferences Hostage crisis - some of the images that Americans were inundated with were images of Iranians marching in the streets, U.S. flags being burned, tearful interviews with families of the hostages, and images of hostile and irrational Iranians. In fact, President Jimmy Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy." a very strong "Us vs. Them" rhetoric was beginning to take shape at this point. Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them

Who was Iron Eyes Cody? Explain how the noble savage idea is seen in the Iron Eyes Cody ad (Reel Injuns)

Iron Eyes Cody was the most famous Hollywood Indian. Starred in close to 100 Westerns, he embodied what people thought NA should be like. In reality, he was Italian, was spray painted Indian red, married a NA, and raised his sons NA. in the ad, you see him in a canoe, then trying to pick up trash, then someone throws trash at him and you zoom in and there's one tear rolling down his face. Even though he's in the dress with the headband (which is associated with the violent warrior), he's showing his emotion and connection to nature = noble.

What are the five new Orientalist media frames from the Kumar essay? Describe them briefly

Islam is a monolithic religion = goes against the idea that Islam is practiced around the world in a variety of ways; denying the diversity of Islam practices allows people to render it violent as a whole Islam is a uniquely sexist religion = a lot of religions have histories of sexism. Christian creation myth (Eve out of Adam's rib), US continues to curtail women's rights The Muslim mind is incapable of reason and rationality = simply untrue. During the dark ages, Muslim scholars established libraries and translation centers where works of science, medicine, and philosophy were gathered and translated. Muslims created astronomy, algebra. European scholars flocked to these libraries Islam is an inherently violent religion = was spread through war, yes, but they weren't convert or die. They were convert or pay a tax. Unlike Christians, who had the Crusades, which were incredibly violent Muslims are incapable of democracy and self-rule = relates back to white man's burden to civilize. Yet, US middle east policy has remained focused on controlling the oil in that area.

Discuss the significance of the Oklahoma city bombing in relation to the notion of Muslims as inherently violent (relates to Kumar essay) (Reel Bad Arabs)

Islamophobia now is a part of our psyche. Words such as Arab and Muslim are perceived as threatening words. After the tragic events of 9/11, instead of saying, that's the lunatic fringe, we say no no no no, the actions reflect the actions of 1.3 billion people (all Muslims). We don't say that the actions of Ku Klux Klan members who are Christians represent Christianity, do we? Look at Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh, a good Irish-Catholic boy. Do we say all Irish-Catholics are terrorists? No one knew McVeigh's religious beliefs, where he went to church or his ethnic background. It was not part of the story. Yet of course had that been an American with Arab roots or an AmericanMuslim, it would have been a part of the story. When news of the bombing broke, reporters, politicians, nearly everyone rushed to judgment that it was a Middle Eastern terrorist. Media converage - "The attack in Oklahoma City appears to have a familiar mark. This was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible. That is a Middle Eastern trait"

Discuss the Uncle Remus stereotype. What is it like? What is the problem? Give examples. (Larsen)

It is a version of the coon and is "harmless and congenial" black man. He is a first cousin to Uncle Tom, but he is different in that he has a "quaint, naïve, and comic philosophizing" manner. Ex: character in Song of the South, a Disney film set in the Old South. Character in it sings and tells stories to white children

What is racism?

It is an ideology that posits that one group of people is inferior to another. This ideology is then institutionalized so that discrimination of an entire group of people based on a physical characteristic becomes possible (e.g. slavery, job discrimination, longer prison sentences). Institutionalized racism seen in jails

Discuss American identity and the cowboy, as talked about by Kelly. Give an example

James Fenimore Cooper novels as much as Euro-Americans enjoy playing Indian, there is no more powerful archetype to signify American identity than the cowboy. Nineteenth century authors such as James Fenimore Cooper gave birth to the cowboy and the architecture of the American Western in The Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels about the captivating travails of a frontiersman hero

List some Latin male stereotypes (Berg)

Male stereotypes: El Bandido, Buffoon, Latin lover

List some African Americans stereotypes. (Larsen)

Mammies, Uncle Toms, Uncle Remus, pick-a-ninny, Coons, Black bucks, pimps, whores, mulattoes, man children, matriarchs, Jezebel.

What is manifest destiny? How was manifest destiny implemented? (Dunbar-Ortiz)

Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, expressed the philosophy that drove 19th-century U.S. territorial expansion. Manifest Destiny held that the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. The seeminly inevitability of US extent and power, its destiny, with an implecation that the contient had previously been terra nullius, a land without people "However our present interests may restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits and cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar form by similar laws."—President Jefferson (1801) Implemented by obtaining native American lands - done through war and policies. Monroe Doctrine, for ex, signaling the intention of annexing or dominating former Spanish colonial territories in the Americas and Pacific. Henry Knox sanctioned a war in 1790 when he ordered the U.S. Army to "extirpate, utterly, if possible" a confederacy of Indians centered in Ohio that had rejected U.S. demands for a land cession

What is the stereotype for Palestinians typically seen in movies? Give an example. What is one reason we have not been allowed to empathize with any Palestinian on the silver screen? (Reel Bad Arabs)

Movies repeatedly depict Palestinians as terrorists, making it seem that all Palestinians are evil. Ex: Cast a Giant Shadow. The Palestinians in this movie are the lowest of the low. We see them solely as vicious gunmen, wide-eyed maniacs. They will kill anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. There is one brutal image in particular of a burnt out bus with a dead Jewish woman tied to its side with the Star of David carved into her back. Palestinians become demonic: One reason we have not been allowed to empathize with any Palestinian on the silver screen is due to two Israeli producers, Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus. These two filmmakers created an American company called Canon. And they released in a period of 20 years at least 30 films, which vilify all things Arab, particularly Palestinians. Cannon Pictures vilify all Palestinians

List some black stereotypes of incompleteness. What is the issue with these stereotypes, as a whole? (Larsen)

Mulattoes, man children, and matriarchs. They reveal blacks as being seriously flawed - either hurting themselves or others in the black community or exist for whites

How were groups that weren't considered white depicted in media?

Native Americans = cruel people. Scalping and hanging white men, savaged; NA attacking innocent white women Chinese - "The Yellow Terror"; looks ape-like, has gun in one hand, fire in the other, limp body of a dead white woman Irish = apes, destroying democracy Italians = rats, mafia, bringing weapons into the country

Biologically, is there anything different between the races?

No! biologically, there is nothing different. Yes, there are different markers of people, such as height, but we aren't categorized that way

Are Arab women's advancements displayed in entertainment? (Reel Bad Arabs)

No! they are either submissive, belly dancers, or increasingly, terrorists (Think the end of Bodyguard when the woman is revealed to be an engineer who created all the bombs). The Arab woman today is bright, intelligent. She's someone who is exceeding in all professions. And yet this reality, still, is being denied us on silver screens. The highly sexualized belly dancer has been with us from the beginning of Hollywood's history. Inspired by early images of the orient, as the place of exoticism, intrigue and passion. But in recent years, this image has dramatically changed. The Arab woman is now projected as a bomber, a terrorist. Added to this image is what I call "bundles in black" - veiled women, in the background, in the shadows - submissive. It seems the more Arab women advance, the more Hollywood keeps them locked in the past.

Are Native American women present in Hollywood films?

No, they're typically absent. If they are seen, it's only through the stereotype of the Indian princess - ex: Pocahontas. She becomes the embodiment of American society and desire - you learn nothing true of native culture from this image

What is the origin of "The Arabs are buying us" myth? Why is it so detrimental? Give an example on where this is seen. What stereotype does it have similarities to? (Reel Bad Arabs)

One of the myths in the 70's was that the Arabs are coming over, buying up chunks of America, and of course this was reflected in the cinema. Seen in the movie "Network" which is about commercial television. "Network" features the TV anchor, rising to super stardom. How? He unleashes wild rants against the system on the air, but he directs the angriest of all his rants at Arabs, who he says are buying up America. The anchor, Howard Beal, calls on the American people to rise up and stop the Arab buyout of his T.V. network. "Listen to me, *******it! The Arabs are simply buying us. There's only one thing that can stop them: YOU!" Americans rage in response. This kind of anger, the anger born of fear, all of it in response to a perceived conspiracy and threat by a specific group of people similarities with the stereotype of the money lending Jews. If we look at the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis, at its core is an identical type of economic threat. This economic myth even made its way into children's books

What is Orientalism? What are the characteristic features of orientalist thought? (Kumar)

Orientalism is a body of thought that emerged in Europe in the 19th century in the context of European colonization of the Middle East and North Africa. It was an ideology that helped to justify colonial conquest—Edward Said civilizational theories and race based theories = features. the "civilizational view" of history is based on the idea that civilizations come into being, prosper, and then go into decline. Such a view of history assumes that civilizations are distinct entities, which exist in isolation from each other, and which have a core set of values that drive them race based theories - The 19th century sees the birth of the notion of "homo islamicus," the notion that Muslims are a species of human beings. From this flows an understanding of inferior and superior races, each driven to behave in particular ways.

What are some other stereotypes of Muslims, as seen in Reel Bad Arabs? Give an example of where this is seen

Other stereotypes: rich and stupid sheiks, buffoons, Palestinian terrorists Buffoons - one-dimensional caricature, a cartoon cutout used by film makers as stock villains and as comic relief; their only purpose being to deliver cheap laughs. Seen in Jamie Farr's character in "Cannonball Run 2" - I have a weakness for blondes (kissing noises) and women without mustaches. he's oversexed, lecherous, uncontrollably obsessed with the American woman. "Here, my desert blossom, keep the change. Have you ever considered joining a harem?" Rich and stupid sheiks - too rich and stupid to know the value of money Ex: Aladdin. "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face, it's barbaric but, hey, it's home."

Discuss whiteness and WASPs. What does WASP mean? How is it related to whiteness?

People who we consider to be White today, were not "White" always as the term was reserved for WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants)

Discuss what Matthew Cooke talks about in his Race Baiting video. What does he say about the caste system of the 1600-1700's? What does he say about slavery?

Poor whites were indentured servants for rich British people - described in vile and brutish stereotypes. Slaves were considered unfortunate. Indentured servants and slaves united, so the caste system was created to make the white indentured servants be treated slightly better. They believed they could eventually escape their servitude, while slaves would not. In reality, neither party could escape. The caste system was: masters, poor whites, and poor blacks

What does "post-racial" mean, according to Wise?

Post-racial means a society that no longer emphasizes race as a factor of how people are treated. It means that we've moved beyond racism, we've moved into a color-blind society, where racism is a thing of the past. The thought that everything is "fine" in terms of race

Discuss the mulattoes stereotype. What is it like? What's the problem? Give examples (Larsen)

Presented as exotic but tragically flawed. Some of the fair skinned "tragic mulattos" are introduced sympathetically but are ultimately ruined by their passing for white. Typically pulled back to the black community by dark-skinned mammy. Ex: Angel Heart character

Describe the Harlot stereotype. What are some physical and character traits? (Berg)

Sexually available "bad girl". Lusty and hot tempered. Without a man she's a leaf in the wind

Discuss white supremacy as explained by Jensen. What is it? How does the study of whiteness go against it? What does white supremacy protect?

Shifting whiteness closer to the center of the analysis offers a way to de-center whiteness by making visible the category of white, challenging the unspoken assumption of white as norm, and stripping away whiteness's always-present claim (explicit or implicit) of superiority = WHITE SUPREMACY. White supremacy was initially crafted and imposed by elites, but was eventually accepted by most of the white community. White supremacy today protects the status and wealth of a range of whites

Several shows were discussed in terms of how they represented both a step forward and backward, unpack in relation to Julia

Show starred a young black lady who was a nurse, who had a family, and an education. And she lived in an integrated environment. She wasn't overly grateful or subservient, like she belonged there. Many black people saw it as a step above the domestic image of the grinning dark skinned servant. Steps forward: educated, has a family, a job, is intelligent. Steps back: has no husband, primarily white community, so perfectly integrated = no racism (not real). Gives off the idea that black women without threatening black male prescence makes them more acceptable. This show reflects the idea of the white negro - could move into your town without bothering you

Discuss welfare and the representation of blackness in the media as Wise explains it in his documentary. How do people tend to view welfare? What group is associated more so with welfare, is this the reality? How has this changed throughout history?

The American public tends to view welfare recipients as undeserving, not really working hard to support themselves and they view welfare recipients as disproportionately black. Even though the clear majority of people who benefit from government assistance are white, there's this perception that welfare and other government programs are somehow a black phenomenon. This is bc of what the media portrays. Starting in 1965, media portrayals of the poor have been disproportionately African American. If you look at either print news or television news coverage of poverty, you see far too many black faces relative to the true proportions of African Americans among the poor in this country. Before the mid 60s, media coverage of the poor consisted mostly of whites - it was the unemployed during the Depression, the people who fled the Dust Bowl, the rural poor in places like Appalachia. And the coverage of these poor white folks was overwhelmingly sympathetic and humanizing. As a result, public support for social safety net programs was high from the period of the Great Depression all the way into the 1960s

Discuss the crude stereotypes in the Beulah show, as seen in the Color Adjustments documentary. What historical context do they reflect? What messages do they give off?

The Beluah Show (1950s) - to start off with, it was literally sponsored by milder Dreft for dishes and fine washables, and deep cleaning Oxydol for the family wash, which emphasizes and links to the idea of the domestic. Ad for that seen as the show opens, so it links these ideas to Beulah right away as her face is seen right after the sponsorship. Beulah idealized what every person would love to have in a housekeeper. Beulah was the mammy stereotype - she took care of a white child, seen teaching the child how to dance. She was a domestic. They made her happy, unaware of her own children, aware of someone else's child. Gives off the message that she doesn't need a family of her own. Doesn't show the reality of how many black domestics of the time worked those jobs in order to pay for their children's education, didn't want their children to experience what they had to

Discuss the early history of whiteness and how it is connected to divide and conquer strategies, as explained by Jensen. Have people always been categorizing themselves by race?

The creation of whiteness, and accompanying rigid notion of racial categories, is connected to the "divide and conquer" strategies that elites throughout history have used to control the majority of a population and maintain an unequal distribution of wealth and power. This notion is fairly recent Early years of the British colonies in North America: Indentured servants and slaves usually had personal relationships and alliances. When workers from England began to demand better conditions, the planter elite saw those alliances as a threat to their power. The "solution" was tp increase the use of African slaves and separate them from poor white workers by giving the whites a higher status with more opportunities without disturbing the basic hierarchical distribution of wealth and power

Discuss the significance of John Ford in relation to the representation of Native Americans

The films of John Ford are the most responsible for the Hollywood image of the screen savage. John Ford's films are the most instructive because of their influence in defining the modern character of the white man's Indians in popular culture. Ford's Indians were extraordinarily violent and cruel, frequently the initiators of bloody confrontation. Stagecoach (1939) reduced Geronimo (referred to as "the butcher") and the Apache to generic bloodthirsty monsters who menaced peaceful settlers (mostly women and children)

What is the Hollywood WASP story? What is a WASP? How does Berg argue that this was reaffirmed? How does Berg argue what people of color represent?

The great white hero is the sun in which the film narrative revolves, and the rationale of a typical Hollywood story is to illustrate how moral, resourceful, intelligent - in a word, superior - he is. It follows that the rest of the characters must necessarily be shown as inferior in some way. The cultural logic of Hollywood films reaffirmed the superiority of Whiteness. All heroes and heroines were White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP), while people of color were the foils (bad guys, dumb folks) against which the White hero was evaluated He argues that POC represented a challenge to WASP hegemony and the status quo power system, so the threat was blunted by portraying racial minorities as being inept, immoral, dim-witted, ugly etc

Discuss colonialism as an origin of racism. Why is colonialism related to racism?

The ideologies of racism are tied to ideas of power and profit. You need racism to justify colonialism bc the colonizers wanted land. It was necessary to turn NA's into a race; conquest of land, acquiring resources (gold, silver) = saying they don't deserve it in order to justify taking it. Relates to lessons of toxic masculinity/the masculine script - objectifying NA's instead of women. If you objectify them and make them the other, you justify/don't feel bad about taking what you want

Discuss the matriarchs stereotype. What is it like? What's the problem? Give examples (Larsen)

The matriarch stereotype portrays black women as domineering, driving away or emasculating men with their aggressiveness. It began with Sapphire, a shrewish woman, on Amos n Andy

Who is responsible for maintaining the moral panic and why? (Terrorist Threat)

The media and the government play no small part in keeping the threat of terrorism alive. various terrorism experts, politicians, military generals, ex-generals, and so on are central to maintaining the moral panic. And every two months or so, the FBI announces yet another high-profile arrest of a Muslim terrorist suspect, keeping the U.S. on its War on Terror footing and sustaining the multibillion dollar homeland security industry Because the War on Terror is very useful for the elite in this country. Because just like the Cold War and the fear that was generated at that time around a nuclear attack, which won the consent of the American public for U.S. policies both abroad and domestically, today the War on Terror does the same

Discuss the pure Coons stereotype. What is it like? What is the problem? Give examples (Larsen)

The most blatantly degrading of all black stereotypes. Lazy, good for nothing, natural born comedian. TV coons were rascalish, loud, pushy. Big teeth, big red lips, very dark skinned. Also known as sambo § Ex: JJ Evans from Good Times; Will Smith's early characterization of the Fresh Prince

Discuss the Uncle Toms stereotype. What was he like? What is the problem? Give examples. (Larsen)

The servile Uncle Tom. Kindly but without backbone. He does whatever the master says. While in the end, he dies trying to protect other slaves, he is seen as the "good" negro for knowing his place. Origin = Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Even though they are enslaved and insulted, they never turn against their white masters and remain stoic, selfless, generous, and submissive. Ex: "Uncle Billy", a character in multiple movies with Shirley Temple - happily serves the little girl, teaches her how to dance, also risks his safety for hers. Amos Jones from Amos n Andy

What are the "wages of whiteness," according to Jensen? What did this do to solidarity between poor blacks and whites?

The strategy of elites to increase white workers to a "higher status", written into law in the slave codes, destroyed solidarity between poor blacks and whites. The limited benefits that elites bestowed on white workers have been referred to as "the wage of whiteness", which is, in large part, psychological - white workers in this system get to think of themselves as superior to non-whites, and especially blacks, no matter how impoverished they may be or how wide the gap between their lives and the lives of wealthy white people

When and where was the term "Indian" coined to describe native Americans? How did this term flatten out differences among native Americans? (Kelly)

The term Indian itself derives from Christopher Columbus' geographically misguided categorization of the Arawak as los Indios, an act of naming premised on the erroneous assumption that he had landed somewhere in Asia. the Arawak and all indigenous Americans thereafter were distilled from their incredible heterogeneity to a singular one dimensional image the invention of the Indian "flattened out the multitudinous realities of actual Indian communities, blurring their individuality and trapping them permanently in European fantasy"

Discuss the significance about the genocidal period of The Indian Wars and give examples

The term Indian refer to the U.S. Army's campaigns to subjugate Indian nations of the American West beginning in the 1860s. It consisted of a series of massacres such as the: Colorado territorial militia's slaughter of Cheyennes at Sand Creek (1864), the army's slaughter of Shoshones at Bear River (1863), Blackfeet on the Marias River (1870) and Lakotas at Wounded Knee (1890). Some scholars have begun referring to these events as "genocidal massacres," defined as the annihilation of a portion of a larger group, sometimes to provide a lesson to the larger group.

How does Jensen explain why there is no "white history month"?

There is no white history month because history in a white-supremacist society is routinely taught from the perspective of white people. There is no white student center bc the services on campuses typically are designed to serve the needs of the dominant white student population. Embracing white identity is not equivalent to non-white peoples' embrace of racialized identities

What are simplified complex representations? What do they help do? (Alsutany)

They are strategies used by television producers, writers, and directors to give the impression that the representations they are producing are complex. While some of these were used more frequently (and to greater narrative success) than others, they all help to shape the many layers of simplified complexity. These representations appear to challenge or complicate former stereotypes and contribute to a multicultural or post-race illusion

Give examples of how films cover terrorism and Muslims from 1980s to the 2010s, as seen in Constructing the Terrorist Threat

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) o White Cop: Right there, fella! o Muslim Man: Death to Israel and America and all the enemies of Islam! (the Muslim man detonates a suicide bomb) True Lies (1994): Muslim Man: I, we, are all prepared to die. With one turn of that key, two million of your people will die instantly. o White Man: What key? o Muslim Man: That key! Who's taken the key? American Sniper (2014) - women and children just there for him to shoot at. The film "American Sniper," for instance, presents Muslims as savages, as demonic, and completely lacking in humanity. In fact, the only purpose, it seems, to have Muslims in this film is so that the main protagonist, the sniper, can actually shoot at them Zero Dark Thirty (2012) - reproduces all the stereotypes of Muslims. The film is actually set in Pakistan, and it relies on the wholesale demonization of Pakistani people, who by the way are constantly referred to as "Paks."

What are the roots of the El Bandido Stereotype?

US Mexican War 1846-1848 = The US invades Mexican territory, provoking war and ultimately taking over the land that is now California, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Texas Mexican Revolution = Massive popular uprising against dictator Porfirio Diaz and his corrupt administration, Led by farmers, students, workers, Supported by a majority of the population, Vast majority of Mexicans were illiterate, living in dire poverty Results of the Mexican Revolution = land reform, universal education (free), universal health care (free), presidential elections every 6 years = this is what people like Pancho Villa were fighting for Mexicans and Latin people are part of the Western genre. Manifest Destiny - about going Westward and also all of North America Mexican revolutionary heroes such as Francisco "Pancho" Villa and Emiliano Zapata were commonly depicted in US movies and news coverage as being dirty, ruthless, and sneaky "outlaws"

List the four periods of genocide (native americans) (Dunbar-Ortiz)

War, 1776-1815; Removal, 1815-1840; California Gold Rush; The Indian Wars

What is racial formation, according to Omi and Wiant?

We use the term racial formation to refer to the process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings. Crucial to this formulation is the treatment of race as a central axis of social relations which cannot be subsumed under or reduced to some broader category or conception.

Explain how Omi and Wiant link racial formation to the discovery of the new world

When European explorers in the New World "discovered" people who looked different than themselves, these "natives" challenged then existing conceptions of the origins of the human species, and raised disturbing questions as to whether all could be considered in the same "family of man."

Unpack the mascot controversy (Kelly).

When George Preston Marshall moved the Boston Braves professional football franchise to Washington DC in 1937, he renamed the team "the Redskins" in honor of coach William Dietz. Passing himself off as Sioux, William "Lone Star," Dietz counted himself among the small number of professional Indian athletes and was known for proudly dressing in war paint before games. Dan Snyder is now the present day owner - he insists it honors American Indian history. The term is a racial slur, originally used to refer to the severed scalps of American Indians The term's Indian-hating roots, along with the visual icon's exaggerated skin color and Native phenotypes, illustrate how mascots negatively portray American Indian communities. At the center of the mascot controversy is who has the right to control the production of a group's image, especially when such imagery has the power to convey racist ideas about that group. Advertisers have a long history of using Native images to sell products First, mascots construct a generic stereotype that replaces diverse Indian cultures with nonspecific images. For instance, the Cleveland Indian's grinning and cartoonish Chief Wahoo lacks any cultural distinctness Mascots take proprietary ownership over indigenous images. Spindel (2002) argues that mascots transform American Indians into "symbolic servants" whose visual labor generates profit for largely white institutions. Mirroring the physical dispossession of indigenous lands, mascotting makes images of American Indians the property of the franchise

What is racialization? Why is this a problem?

When a group of people is assigned a race, qualities of that race, and are treated as such. Race isn't real! It's a result of power dynamics

Describe the relation between brown men and white women. How is this relationship depicted? (Kumar)

When brown men come into the picture, they are portrayed as victimizers. Death of Sardanapalus (1827-28; both Louvre). Men wearing turbans and beards, aggressive. The white women getting attacked, stabbed, dead. Victims = light skinned women; victimizers = dark skinned men. Similar to depictions of NA and African Americans. Used to justify violence against this group

What happens when natives are seen as part of nature?

When natives are seen as part of nature, they are dehumanized. This justifies the lack of rights and the dispossession of land.

How are whites and non-whites (Muslims and brown people) covered by the media when they commit an act of violence? Give some examples (Terrorist Threat)

When you Google the term "terrorism" or "terrorist" and you hit images, you primarily see either fully masked men or of brown men with beards and guns. You don't see white men like Robert Dear, who was responsible for the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado Springs that killed three people and injured nine. You don't see Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, a member of the neo-Nazi movement. He killed nine people in Charleston, South Carolina. these white men are not considered terrorists, even though the acts of political violence that they carried out involved killing innocent people - even though they carried out the textbook definition of terrorism, they are in fact not considered terrorists. there are two very different frames used to cover violent acts. When one is a white perpetrator, there's one kind of frame, and when one is a Muslim or is brown, there's another kind of frame. So, if you are white and you commit an act of violence, usually the causes of violence are explained as something internal to the person. They have a psychological problem or they had life circumstances that were difficult or what have you. But if it's a Muslim that commits violence, then it is automatically explained as the cultural proclivity of all Muslims to be violent. Muslims, because they follow Islam, are prone to violence, and they're driven to commit such acts. Whites = individual problem; Muslims = cultural/group problem

How did the "savage" and "noble savage" image justify colonization and the dispossession of native lands? (Kelly)

Whether it is the gentle Natives or "noble savages" described by Rousseau or the demonic hordes invented by Puritan leader Cotton Mather, such dehumanizing portrayals of indigenous peoples prepared the lands and people of North America for colonization. For instance, the notion that indigenous peoples neither held a concept of property nor cultivated their "empty" lands suggested to European colonists that Indians were not entitled to ownership (Hall, 2003; Marks, 1998; Smith, 2007). Moreover, the more dangerous "demonic" archetype legitimized preemptive violence to clear a safe path for European settlement

How can we see our media creating alternative images and messages about blacks vs whites?

White athletes - straight faced, stoic, could be smiling. They look serious, approachable, professional (ex: Eli Manning). Black athletes - look angry, making animal like faces (snarl), showing their power (ex: Shaq)

Discuss the rescuing white women theme often seen in Western movies. How is this significant in relation to the depiction of NA? give an example

White cowboys all riding on horses, shooting at Native Americans. The white cowboy = rescuer, hero. Ex: The Searchers, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. White woman kidnapped by NA, idea is she's being contaminated by NA, John Wayne's character saves her. Similar to D.W. Griffth's Birth of a Nation. In both cases, white women serving as justification for violence against NA. a lot of times in history, white women would go off to live freely with NA, not kidnapped

What is white privilege, according to Tim Wise? Give examples and explain how they show white privilege

White privilege - the structural advantages built into our very system that have helped white people, often without us knowing it, while making things more difficult for people of color. white people in the U.S. have had privileges throughout history that people of color simply haven't. when you're part of the dominant group, you don't have to think about how you fit in Naturalization Act of 1790 - the very first law passed by Congress after ratifying the Constitution... the Naturalization Act of 1790, which said that free white persons, and only free white persons, could become full citizens of this country. Basically, our very first law as a Constitutional republic gave white immigrants privileges that black people and immigrants of color and indigenous native North Americans weren't given - all of it based purely on skin color Social Security Act - passed in 1935 by Franklin D. Roosevelt. One of the social programs that pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression and helped create the middle class in this country. Programs like job insurance, which provided cash to people to give them a leg up as they looked for work. Agricultural workers and domestic service workers didn't qualify for assistance, and it turns out that this had everything to do with race. These two jobs were overwhelmingly held by black people and over eighty percent of all blacks worked in those professions. So, the only way FDR could get Southern Democrats to support the Social Security Act was if he agreed to exclude these workers from benefits. This was a conscious attempt by some in Congress to exclude as many blacks as possible, and the net effect of it was to give preferential treatment to whites home loans - Loans provided by the FHA, the Federal Housing Administration, allowed working class families, for really the first time in American history, to own their own homes. For the first 30 years of the program, 98% of the recipients were white. People of color were almost completely barred. GI Bill - provided immense benefits to returning veterans - including low-cost mortgages, loans to start a business, cash payments for tuition and living expenses. What the GI Bill didn't do is protect black veterans, who qualified for that assistance also, from the kinds of legal discrimination rampant in pre-Civil Rights America. The result was that the vast majority of those who benefited from the GI Bill were white veterans. If this ended up disproportionately benefitting POC, we'd call it welfare - a handout

What is the American dream? What is at the center of the American dream? (Color Adjustments)

White, middle-upper class, heterosexual (mother and father) family. The mythic American family is at its center. Free from conflict, very happy

Discuss whiteness and the "psychological wage." Who came up with this idea? What was its concept?

Whiteness was created in the 1700s (slavery = big) to grant a "psychological wage" to whites and to divide and conquer. In his 1935 Black Reconstruction in America, W. E. B. Du Bois introduced the concept of a "psychological wage" for white laborers. This special status, he wrote, divided the labor movement by leading low-wage white workers to feel superior to low-wage black workers. He coined this to explain why there is no longer solidarity with poor whites and blacks. Poor whites given a "psychological wage" - they believe they are given some kind of privilege. When, really, they don't have any upper hand

What is the reason for the construction of racialized "others"? Give examples (Terrorist Threat)

as a way to reproduce unjust economic and political systems the process of turning people into a race, a threatening race at that, has been central to the foundation of the U.S., the consolidation of capitalism, and the growth of U.S. power on the global stage. the War on Terror, really, is only the latest example of this process, and it relies on anti-Muslim racism and the moral panic of the terrorist threat as a way to justify military intervention around the world and reshape U.S. society internally. ex: Native Americans, who were considered savages. These savage Indians, as they were called. Why? Because they fought to keep their lands, and they failed to just hand it over to the white Anglo settlers ex: African slaves, who were dehumanized and then turned into property. And, from then on, any effort by the slaves to free themselves was seen as threats to the southern plantation system

What do black characters often lack, according to Larsen? Give an example. What is this a form of?

black characters lack cultural identity, background and family. This would make them more developed and understandable ex: Driving Miss Daisy - Morgan Freeman's character = chauffeur. Black characters are usually shown in the context of their relationships with whites rather than with each other. His life is undramatized when he's away from Daisy's house, car, life this is a form of selective exclusion - blacks being relegated to certain genres, roles, and stories

Why is color-blindness a problem and give examples (Wise)

black success stories actually reinforce the logic of the prevailing caste system, the superficially colorblind logic that "it's their fault they're at the bottom and if they only tried harder, they could be President Obama." And that simply isn't the case. We notice race - people have implicit/unconscious racial bias - the quick, random, gut reaction when we think about a particular group. the vast majority of whites implicitly associated the faces of black Americans with negative words and traits like "evil character" colorblindness as an ideology is almost a willful neglect. colorblindness by virtue of keeping matters of discrimination and racism under wraps can lead to an actual intensification of racist thinking ex: when people see two, or even one black pilot, they might immediately think "Can these two guys really fly the plane?" Seeing a minority in a powerful position - are they educated, capable enough? Also, that crime rates video (implicit bias)

Discuss minstrel shows or "minstrelsy." What were they? Who performed? What was their purpose? What did they portray black people as? (Larsen)

form of US entertainment that began in the 1830s and persisted through the 1940s, consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and singing performed first by whites and later (after the Civil War) by blacks. For the benefit of white audiences. Minstrel shows lampooned black people as being ignorant, lazy, clown-like, childish (easily frightened) and superstitious. They were the most popular form of public entertainment in the US from the 1830s until the 1920s. think the Cotton and Chick Watts Blackface Minstrel Show Comedy video. The man, who is in blackface and therefore portraying a black character, isn't very coherent. The woman calls him stupid. He has big eyes and big lips

In the white man's burden, Kipling describes the colonized as what? What does this mean? What is this similar to?

half devil, half child = devil justifies colonial violence; child = childlike, not civilized, need to lift them up similar to half terrorist, half victim

Describe the Dark Lady stereotype. What are some physical and character traits? (berg)

has mysterious problem and is always saved by the white male hero. Virginal, inscrutable, aristocratic. Her cool distance makes her fascinating to Anglo males

Why were silent films so important for NA depictions, as seen in Reel Injuns? Give an example. Who was one of the first people to show NA?

in early silent films there were complex roles for native people with native people writing and directing film. Ex: The Silent Enemy from 1930, which featured real NA actors. The silent enemy = starvation, this was made when the NA population was dipping to about 250,000, this was the chance to capture them and their struggle. Chief Buffalo Child Longlance was the star of this film (he was tri-racial (black, white, NA) and ended his life when his true ID was threatened to be revealed) Thomas Edison one of the first to make movies abt NA's. showed their dances, etc. silent movies in the 1800s

How has the Mammy stereotype evolved and become etched in US consciousness? Where does the need for the Mammy come from?

in the character of "Sapphire" on the Amos 'n Andy Show, one of the most popular radio and TV shows in America from the 1920s - 1950s. up until the 60s and slavery, domestic work was the only option for a lot of black women

Who were the Myths of Arab land inherited from? Describe what Arab land means, what is seen there (supposedly). (Reel Bad Arabs)

inherited from Europe: The British and the French who traveled to the Middle East and those who didn't travel to the Middle East conjured up these images of the Arab as the oriental other. desert, oasis, palaces, harems, belly dancing, scimitars, carpets, snakes and baskets. We have this fictional setting called Arab Land, a mythical theme park, and in Arab Land, you know, you have the ominous music, you have the desert. We start with the desert, always the desert as a threatening place. We add an oasis, palm trees, a palace that has a torture chamber in the basement. The Pasha sits there on his posh cushions, with harem maidens surrounding him. None of the harem maidens please him so they abduct the blonde heroin from the West who doesn't want to be seduced

What are the material and psychological benefits of being white, according to Wise?

material: better job opportunities, better housing access, better educational opportunities. But some of them are psychological. Just the realization that I'm not going to be racially profiled when I'm driving around town or when I'm shopping in the mall. White kid in the interview literally said he'd shoplift and wouldn't worry about getting caught. Studies which have found that students of color all around the country are worried about confirming negative stereotypes in the classroom. Any fear that, somehow, they might live down to a negative group stigma directly affects their performance on tests. That's something that white students don't have to worry about

What is Moral panic? What is an example of moral panic for the 21st century? (Terrorist Threat)

moral panic - a condition, episode, person, or group of persons, emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values. in the 21st century, I think that we can analyze "terrorism" as a moral panic that has changed not just U.S. society, but in fact the entire world

What was 1970s media coverage of terrorism like? (Terrorist Threat)

prior to the 1970s, it might surprise you to learn that there was no such thing as a terrorist threat in the United States. Acts such as hijacking of U.S. planes or kidnappings did in fact occur, but the people who were responsible for such acts were not called terrorists, and the acts themselves were not consistently labeled as terrorism. these people were called bandits, rebels, guerillas, or later urban guerillas, or revolutionaries, or insurgents. They were not called terrorists. speeches before the 1970s shows that the term "terrorism" or "terrorist" was rarely if ever used, and when it was used there was no consistency in terms of how it was actually used. This is not true of France, the United Kingdom, Israel, and South Africa where, in fact, there was a developed vocabulary around terrorism because all of these countries had experienced national liberation struggles against colonial rule however, those fighting for freedom were called terrorists. In fact, Nelson Mandela was considered to be a terrorist, a designation that the United States honors all the way up until 2008. So, it gives you an idea of how one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter the New York Times index didn't even include terrorism as a significant category before 1972. One study of the New York Times found that, in 1971, there were zero articles that dealt in any substantial way with terrorism. However, by 1985, that figure had risen to 785

Discuss cultural racism, the way the actions of a few are applied to the whole, and what the response is, as seen in Constructing the Terrorist Threat

since 9/11, the number of Americans killed in the U.S. by jihadists is 95. the total number of Americans killed internationally due to terrorism is 15 (2016). In all of the West (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, European Union, etc) the number of terrorist plots and attacks from 2001 to 2011 was 66, and it involved a total number of 220 individuals in the West all the way from Australia to Canada. This number, 220 individuals, divide that by 10 because this is a study that was conducted over 10 years. Every year there are 22 new perpetrators of either attacks or are involved in plots Estimate 25 million Muslims in the West, if we divide 25 million by the 22 new perpetrators of political violence each year, what we get is that less than one Muslim per million per year in the West participates in political violence. And yet the dominant explanation is that it is the culture of Islam that leads people to carry out violence. a form of cultural racism has become so dominant in the West that all Muslims have been held responsible for the actions of the tiny, tiny minority because of the actions of a tiny minority, large numbers of Muslims have been placed on no-fly lists for absolutely no good reason. Muslim communities have been infiltrated and spied upon by the FBI, by local law enforcement agencies. There are agents who have been sent into mosques, into community centers, even to spy on children's sporting leagues the response is to wage war on all of these people, to dehumanize all of them. This is what the French philosopher Albert Memmi meant when he talked about something called "the mark of the plural." What he meant is that acts of racialized others are seen as being generalizable to entire groups, while as those of whites are limited to the individual

What are some stereotypes of Native American women that are seen in Westerns? Describe them

the "squaw" or "drudge" image, this is the image found in Westerns of the "bad" Indian women are defiant, lack any sense of sexual morality, and constantly emasculate their male counterparts the Indian Princess - is better than the squaw/drudge. However, that stereotype is also limiting. The Indian Princess is first and foremost exotic, wild, and sexually available to Euro-American men. For instance, Disney's version of Pocahontas is highly sexualized, drawn by animators as scantily clad and voluptuous. Despite the film's billing as a children's feature, Pocahontas is made to embody the physical traits that meet the highly unattainable conceptions of Western beauty, including an extraordinarily small waste, large breasts, flowing hair, and long legs. She also embodies patriarchal attributes of traditional Western femininity, including naiveté, compliancy, passivity, and sexual availability. Above all, she is more attracted to white heroism than to the cruel and stoic masculinity of her tribe. Second, the Indian Princess must save, give aid to, or collaborate with white men to bring civilization to her tribe. This inherent desire for colonization is premised on the vague promise of greater respect for women's rights and dignity under the control and influence of Western values. Thus, the Princess appropriates and distorts Western feminism and human rights discourse as a rationale for colonization in the name of protecting women

What two groups of people were initially not considered white? Why?

the Irish and the Italians. When Irish immigrants began to arrive in the US in large numbers from the 1850s onwards, they were considered "non-white" because they were of Celtic rather than Anglo Saxon background. Italians were not considered white because they were Mediterranean

Native Americans were not seen as a race until?

they resisted the conquest of their land. Only when Europeans began to take Indian lands & resources and forced them to convert to Christianity. the discourse of the "savage" and "wild" Indian "race" arise in written documents and media. Only at this point did skin color begin to be used as a justification for ideological discourses of "inferior" and "superior" humans