Where Do You Want To Go Today?

In “Where Do You Want To Go Today?” Lisa Nakamura chronicles attempts by advertisers to extinguish or moderate racial issues through the use of the internet.

Nakamura starts out describing a commercial that claims that on the internet there are no infirmities, no gender, no age – only minds. It concludes by saying that (the internet) is uninfluenced by the rest of it (pg 4). Nakamura takes issue with the “rest of it” portion of the commercial. She states that the “rest of it” is racial and ethnic difference. The commercial seeks to bolster the claim that the internet will break down the wall of racial and social oppression. She goes on to quote many other similar commercials that make her point.

This article was written in the late 1990’s. It is very important to note that this was the time when the internet was coming of age. The advertising campaigns illustrated what the Chairmen of the Federal Reserve at the time referred to as “”irrational exuberance”. People were just starting to see the power the internet had, but were still unable to put things into perspective. Why else were internet companies with no hope of ever turning a profit trading with the like of General Electric, Phillip Morris, and Alcoa. We really didn’t have a grasp on things and were not able to make insinuations about “the rest of it”. The article has many of the trappings of McPherson’s article. Present in both are the ideas of the cyber-self being something other than your true being.

Nakamura draws an interesting connection between colonialism and tourism. The allusions made me put down the paper and think about what she meant, but she did not really clear up the issue. Since she didn’t elaborate I will. I see tourism as a powerful tool for understanding, tolerating, and celebrating other races, religions, and ethnicities. Colonialism was also a force for progress but it came at the expense of race, religion, and ethnicities.

I may have been successful at getting my arms around what Nakamura is talking about if I was able to actually see the commercials she refers to. At times it was hard to really understand what she meant and she made things more confusing by referring to other obscure commercials that I have never seen. I lived through this period of time, and I have to say that the sentiment held by the people on the cutting edge of internet technology was quite different from the average person. We didn’t understand the internet and they had wild eye notions (like what Nakamura details) that were ridiculous. I postulate that it is silly to think that the internet will deliver us into some post-ethnic utopia. It is another clear example of hopeful people irresponsibly looking for a magic bullet to solve the challenges of race and racism.

I’ll Take My Stand in Dixie-Net

In “I’ll Take My Stand in Dixie-Net” Tara McPherson details a new form of group identity over the internet. The main idea behind McPherson's article is that cyberspace often blurs the role race plays in identity formation
McPherson introduces us to neo-Confederates. Neo-Confederates are individuals and groups who seek to reconstruct the Confederacy in cyberspace. McPherson uses the example to illustrate how an individual in cyberspace can transcend race, gender, income, geography, and most other characteristics that determine what Johnson referred to as privilege. On page 123 McPherson makes a point that groups like the neo-Confederates do not use specific descriptions of race and tend to stay away from discussions of racism. She states on the bottom of the page that groups like the neo-Confederates are covertly racists rather than overtly racist. The group is not represented in any one given website but rather in a group of websites that each has a different focus. They all have some of the same iconography such as Confederate flags and music steams of Dixie. Some also have geographical maps delineating the 11 states of the Confederacy. McPherson gets away from specifics and asks what our online identity is. In her summary conclusions McPherson calls peoples participation in cyberspace as “non-traumatic multiplicity.”

By avoiding debate over issues of race those in cyberspace can avoid the negative connotations associated with groups like the Klu Klux Klan. In fact many less than tolerant groups like the neo-Confederates masquerade as benign organizations and even put anti-Klan icons on their websites. Essentially these sites attempt to white-wash history and only dwell in the elements of the “proper southerner” that they deem to be important, and overlooking the part about racism. They take the opposite side of the issue and defend against the degradation of white masculinity, as opposed to blackness. In the context of cyberspace the evasiveness detailed is quite effective when the source’s gender and race are not as readily apparent.

I found McPherson’s article interesting as I had never heard of neo-Confederates. I always thought that sinister groups could exist on the net, but I never paid any real attention to them. I think that they are sinister because they don’t come right out and say who they are and what they are all about, and they are definitely trying to advance an agenda. I also found the concepts of transcending or uprooting (pg 127) race to be quite interesting. I look forward to trying it some time in the future. I wish McPherson would have created a piece that was easy to understand. I thought that she was overly wordy and she spent way too much time quoting others and referencing what she assumed was commonly disseminated popular culture. It seems difficult to gage what shapes racism and tolerance will take on the internet, but I am now looking out for it more after reading this article.

Takaki Chapter 12

In chapter 12 El Norte: The Borderland of Chicano America, Takaki outlines the origins Chicano Americans. Takaki suggests that Chicano Americans were treated unfairly and discriminated against.

The challenges facing the Chicanos were unique to their group. They made their way north to the United States first to escape civil war and then to find work or trabajo. The circumstances are similar to the Japanese Americans that were immigrating around the same time. The work they engaged in was mainly unskilled agrarian jobs. They mainly received wages inferior to their Anglo counterparts, and were generally not represented in the supervision and management of the companies they worked for. Furthermore management used them as a fulcrum against ever more powerful indigenous labor unions. Chicanos were a unique minority group in America in that they shared an actual boarder with the United States, and crossed and re-crossed the boarder with regular frequency.

Did the Chicanos of the early century pose a real threat to the racial identity of the United States? The point can be made that they did not show lower rates of assimilation of other similar groups. Some (especially those who were refugees of the civil war) had no desire to assimilate, and were Mexicans living in America (pg 314-315). It is suggested that Chicano resistance to assimilation threatened to roll back the gains made in the Mexican American War. I have heard this suggestion made by modern protectionists such as Pat Buchannan. I do not think that non-assimilation poses the kind of threat to American culture that some would lead us to believe. The American culture unique and strong and the Chicano heritage only enriches that culture.

In this case I feel that Takaki is stretching to make his point that the Chicanos were oppressed. They came to America by their own free will. I understand that they were often motivated by the backward and primitive systems that Mexico’s government and society is founded on, but cannot this argument be made regarding most European immigrants. The difference I see is that those European immigrants essentially made a bigger commitment and from that commitment came a greater buy-in. Most gave up everything they have ever known in order to get on a boat and maybe find a better life in America. The Chicanos in comparison had to make a medium to long walk north to a part of America that wasn’t dissimilar from the land they vacated, and when they got there they lived in Barrio’s or communities that were nearly identical to those in their native country.

Wu

When I was a freshman in High School I felt very out of place. I had had a relativly sheltered school life, with 8 years in a small Catholic school. When it came time to go to High School I choose to go to the public school because it offered soccer as a varsity sport. In one particular class (graphic arts it think) I was in the minority. Most people in the class were black. They defined me as soccer karati dude. Soccer because I wore my jersey to school on game days, Karati - I have no idea why, and Dude because I was different then they were. I have never felt so misrepresented since.

Takaki Chapter 10

In chapter 10 of “A Different Mirror” Ronald Takaki takes up the America’s history of oppression and discrimination surrounding the Asian race and the Japanese in particular. It is scathing incitement of those in power’s manipulation of the Japanese in the unending quest for profit.

The first section of chapter 10 discusses the differences in the Chinese and Japanese cultures that affected immigrants to the US and specifically Hawaii. Chinese immigrants were typically male and relatively younger. The Chinese immigrants took on something of a bachelor culture. This would lead the proud Japanese government to have more stringent standards for potential immigrants. Due to cultural institutions such as arranged marriages, Japanese immigrants were much more prone to relocate with wives and families. After arrival Chinese and Japanese found agricultural work in Hawaii. Takaki outlines strategies by wealthy landowners to keep the ethnic groups at odds with each other, and specifically to disrupt attempts by Japanese laborers to organize. Other ethnic groups such as Koreans, Philippians, Portuguese and Puerto Ricans were put into the mix to further complicate the organization and striking process. The landowners finally relented and improved conditions for the Japanese. They provided housing as well as other amenities to pacify the Japanese laborers. Takaki points out that Japanese immigrants in Hawaii were relatively successful compared to their counterparts in California. Due to racially motivated exclusion from the labor market, Japanese immigrants turned to agriculture and private ansulary enterprises for subsistence. The self-imposed racial seclusion proved to be a big hindrance to assimilation. Meanwhile a generation of native Japanese Americans were born, and educated. They faced most of the same discrimination their parents did. The chapter ends shortly before the start of World War II with Japanese Americans not seeing much progress in rolling back the specter of discrimination.

The second section of Chapter 10 makes no real mention of the Great Depression as a factor for the racial intolerance of the Japanese Americans. The conditions faced by Japanese Americans of the time period must have been very similar to those faced by Blacks in Reconstruction Era America. Takaki makes no attempt to connect the tight economic market and increased competition for scarce funds as a contributing factor for Congressional enactment of immigration restrictions. He even goes so far as to say that the success the Japanese enjoyed was due to an expanding economy, and downplays the entrepreneurial genius they clearly had.

I found Takaki to be not very thorough in this chapter. He clearly overlooks the economic factors of the day and conveniently ends with the start of World War II. He usually covers most if not all the contributing factors with great attention to detail. This chapter left me with an incomplete feeling. He should have covered the internment of the Japanese Americans in this chapter. However I did find the first half of the chapter very informative. His explanation of labor practices in Hawaii was fascinating and I felt totally plausible. He could have explored the cross-racial discrimination the Japanese had for the Chinese and the Koreans a little, but I guess the book is indeed about race and culture in the United States.

How Jews Became White Folks

In “How Jews Became White Folks” Karen Brodkin outlines the progression of Jewish Americans through the strata of American society. Brodkin relates personal experiences growing up to the overall struggle of Jews to throw off the chains of religous and cultural bigotry.

One of the first important points Brodkin makes is that there was discrimination between the races of Europe. The Nordic races were considered to be the pure races of Europe, and the Alpine and Mediterranean races were considered inferior. Jews even though found among most of the sub sects were automatically considered inferior. Bodkin details her own experiences of living in a semi closed ethnic community as well as similar closed ethnic communities such as Irish and Italian communities. On page 44 Bodkin explains that public high schools and colleges were not welcoming Jews into their ranks for both structural and racist reasons. The cessation of hostilities and the GI Bill would change all that for the Jews. In post war America Jews were swept up into the rapidly expanding job force and were able to break out of their closed ethnic communities. They were able follow the waves of suburban migration, and take full advantage of government low cost housing loans. Bodkin explains the title of the piece by comparing the prosperity enjoyed by the Jews as well as other ethic groups was not being shared by the Blacks. Through what Bodkin claims that the government and in particular the Veterans Administration and the US Employment Services were actively excluding Blacks from enjoying the rights promised to them by the GI Bill (Bodkin 46).

I really enjoyed this article. It highlights a positive outcome for a minority group. The issue of affirmative action is one of real conflict for me. It is righteous to want to help the oppressed and propel them to their rightful place in society, but to do so by taking away opportunities of those who were not taking part in the oppression is not fair. Two wrongs never turn out to make a right, and affirmative action is just that. Also I ask the question that once affirmative action programs are started when does it become clear that they have achieved its goal. I put forth that government is not capable of making that judgment.

Extra Credit

Although slavery had been abolished, a new and sinister mechanism of oppression took hold of the post-civil war era. The African American community struggled to participate in society in the face of Jim Crow.

Richard Wright describes childhood through the eyes of a young black man. As he is growing up he is faced with different challenges that require leave him with a good understanding of how African American’s were being harassed, intimidated, brutalized, and even murdered. Wright’s asserts that white racism in the South was widespread and commonplace.

A variety of situations are presented in the text. The first is an encounter with local white boys. The main character engages in a mock battle with neighborhood boys. The throw harmless cinders from the nearby railroad tracks and the white boys return with salvos of glass bottles. A second encounter is when the main character goes to work for an optical company. His coworkers refuse to train him for any meaningful work, and later confront him with unfounded accusations. Under threat of a bludgeoning and with no recourse the main character is forced to leave the jobsite never to return. Additional experiences are provided to further the notion that southern whites engaged in truly abominable behavior in a concerted effort to physically and mentally intimidate African Americans.

Wright implies that the methods and instances of intimidation and brutality were commonplace. Wright also assumes that the experiences detailed by the main character are both true and not exaggerated. The excerpt is from a book called Uncle Tom’s Children first published in 1937, and we can assume that the unethical treatment was in fact still going on or those who the book was based on were no more than a generation removed.

Evidence that leads to different conclusion: The evidence presented seems to run in step with some of the other works by Takaki and Johnson. The physical brutality described is consistent with Takaki as well as Zinn. The psychological oppression described is similar to the chapters in Johnson’s book. The article describes the aftermath of the abolition of slavery. The slaves were freed from the oppressive hands of the wealthy whites only to enter into a more hostile environment dominated by the poor whites of the time.

It is hard to put into words the distain I have for the perpetrators of violence and intimidation described in the text. The callousness with which they treated the African Americans was astounding, and it is a lesson of which I gladly will not repeat.