No Real Freedom According to Norviel

1. The main point that Zinn is trying to get across in “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom” is that even though after a lot of struggling to be free, the African Americans were not given the same rights and privileges that the white’s had.
2. In the beginning of the reading Zinn talks about the hardships and abuse that the slaves were put through. They were separated from their families at all ages, not know if they were ever going to see each other ever again. They were then forced to work in fields and in homes for their white owners, with only whippings and little food given to them in return for their hard labor. In the reading Zinn quotes another, saying that by the blacks raising their children to be slaves is only adding to their situation, and that they too are responsible for what they are put through by bringing their children in the world to go through the same things that they are. Later on in the reading the author talks about Lincoln working to grant the slaves their freedom. Although they were said to be “free men” and did not have to work for the white men anymore, they were not granted the same rights as the whites were. They were still not allowed to bear arms, own land, and were paid less for doing the same work that a white man is doing. At the end of the writing Zinn questions the motive of Was Du Bois. He asks if the growth of capitalism is in a way making not only blacks but whites slaves of their own country. Since capitalism is such a major focus point in America, people are forced to work and produce profit in order to ensure their survival, much like slavery.
3. Does Zinn not think that we have made any progress, that slavery has just been masked but not really completely abolished? If the focus on capitalism was not made into a main focus what would our country be like today? Would people live more equally, and would we be as advanced as we are not?
4. I personally was not all that overly fond of the reading. It was rather boring and had too many quotes in it, that at times seemed to be quite pointless.

Norviel's Analysis Paper Exercise

I am going to use Johnson chapter 3 and Takaki chapter 3. My position according to these writings is that I agree that race and gender do in deed play a factor in privilege in the sake of capitalism.

Johnson

• After the war, white capitalists would use the Chinese immigrants’ need to work to their advantage, using them for cheap labor.
• Created “whiteness” to employ less privileged whites for low wages
• Mexican immigrants hired over whites because they could pay them less
• People who are disabled were placed under those who weren’t disabled, which gave them little opportunity for challenge or advancement
• Women were thought of as inferior, and that the work they do isn’t really work

Takaki

• The English, rather than employ other whites to do their work, they enslaved the blacks to do the work for free.
• The new settlers took over the Indian’s land because they felt the Indians were inferior to them.

Norviel's view of Differences

1. The author’s main idea in this reading is describing the numerous different classes in which people are placed or associated with. He talks about the way these classes came about, and how they are not “real” classes, but rather something that people have made up in order to make themselves look better than others, as well as distinguish them from others whom they do not want to be associated with.
2. The authors start off their piece by describing how people are associated with multiple social statuses. An example the author used for this is that “a person can be an office manager, a college graduate, and a cousin simultaneously”. Rosenblum and Travis then go on to talk about how there are master statuses that are used to “really” identify people, such as being male/female, gay/straight, white/black; these are said to be a person’s “personal identity” even though they are not the only ones who classify themselves under this identity. They describe the differences of essentialists (observers of something that is) and constructionists (creator of what something is). The authors then talk about naming, and how when a person claims a specific identity, they are also rejecting the possibility of others identifying them differently. When classifying ones’ self in a particular group, not all members of that group will use the same name to describe themselves, that is because most categories have multiple names so people chose the one that they want to be identified as. And just because a person uses one name to identify themselves does not mean that everyone will cooperate with this and use that name as well.

Individuals and groups are not the only ones who have created categories in which people are places, the government creates categories as well. Combining people into a group is called aggregating, while disaggregation involves the process of fragmenting its constituents according to their nation-origin.

Later the authors bring about the concept of dichotomizing, which is dividing something into only two different groups. People often think that there are two groups, which each person can belong to either one or the other, never both. An example of this in association to race is classifying people as either white or non-white. People who are of mixed race (ex. White and Black), are automatically identified as being African American rather than simply American. Dichotomizing is also used in sexual orientation (gay/straight), and sex (male/female). In this way, the authors describe how these different social classifications are brought about in a very similar way.

3. If people do not like being “classified” then why do they self classify themselves into different categories? Do homosexuals, females, and people of different ethnicity actually like being in a separate class of their opposites? How many people actually classify people who are different?
4. The writing was overall very informative but I felt that it was too long and drawn out. By the last quarter or more of the writing I was losing interest and caught myself zoning out. I did like the examples the authors used to show what they were talking about more effectively though.

Analysis Paper #1 Idea

For my Analysis paper #1 I am thinking about using the different writings about the Indians, and the African Americans and comparing their experiences with the Whites. I will show the differences and similarities of how they were each treated and how they were both viewed by the whites. I plan to use Zinn's writings of A People's History of the United States chapters one and two.

I Liked Johnson's writing better than any of the others that we have used, so I would actually like to try to do my paper on his chapters instead of Zinn ; but I'm having a problem coming up with a good topic for my paper using his writings. So if you have any suggestions I'd appreciate it!!

Norviel's Comparison

The author is stating how she feels that all of these different minority groups claim that they want to be treated equally, like everyone else, and continually bring it up. She doesn't see why they keep digging up issues, such as slavery, and using it as excuses as to why they may have a bad life. Barnes does not feel sorry for them. One reason she doesn't feel sorry for them is because she believes that everyone does have a choice in their path through life. Another reason she does not sympathize minorities with this excuse is also because in most cases people have the same chances and opportunities as everyone else so their color and ethnicity does not play a factor in their bad luck like they play it off to be. It is not only race that the author addresses, she even comments on a major gender issue. This issue is the complaining of women, saying that they are not treated equally. To the author, this is not an argument that is valid these days, and seems to think that men are actually treated worse than women these days. She thinks this because of the negative roles men always seem to play in Lifetime movies and other television shows. Another opinion that she comments on is the fact that different groups do not want different treatment, but yet they feel the need to announce their differences to others.
Barnes' article relates to Johnson in the Sick and Tired perspective. Both are talking about how some things are just brought up to often and go on for too long, which makes people sick of hearing about it. Sarah has had enough of hearing about how whites, heterosexuals, and males get treated better than everyone else. It's an issue that has been around for a long time and as far as she is concerned it has been resolved so there is no reason to continually bring it up.

Ethnic Notions Restated by Norviel

1. The main idea of Ethnic Notions is that the way people of other ethnicities, mostly blacks in this case, are portrayed by whites in a negative and exaggerated way. Although this is an old film it's views are somewhat still with us today.

2. In the film it shows caricatures of blacks having excessively dark black skin and exaggerated facial features such as lips and bulging eyes. These views are said to be how the white people see the African Americans, and how they are "ugly". In commercials of black slaves it shows the slaves smiling and singing, as if they were happy to be doing what they were doing, when in fact these images were not true. There were many different views of blacks such as the Mammy for example. The mammy was shown as a large, unattractive black woman who would tend after the master's children and home. The Sambo was a laughing black man who was supposed to represent the immaturity and childlike contempt of the African Americans, making them look as if their lack of education made them simple minded and easily entertained. Coon was another of the many labels put on blacks, which once again was a negative image. Once the slaves were free in the northern states, people said that the slaves missed their labor and missed being slaves. Without the white control they were said to have went back to their savagely ways of life in which they were said to have descended from.

3. Did blacks have a negative image of whites that they made up/designed? How many of these images are still in the media and around us today?

4. This movie actually showed images that I remember seeing similar ones from cartoons from when I was a lot younger. Overall the video was impressionable and brought about many topics. I liked how they showed all of the many different labels that blacks had throughout history. I love Aunt Jemima pancakes, and never thought about the logo on the front as being racial until this video, it helped me to realize and notice things around me more and to start to think about these things in a more curious way.

Norviel's Positive View on What It All Has to Do with Us

1. Johnson's main idea for the piece What It All Has to Do with Us is that even though if we do not realize it or purposely allow the fact that racism, sexism, and homophobia happen around us, we are in fact a part of it. Just because we are not the ones who are intentionally inflicting these bias opinions and actions upon others does not mean that we are not at all part of this ongoing problem.

2. This writing is about how everyone, even the silent person plays a major role in how others are treated. Just because we do not negatively about other groups like other people do, by not doing anything about it at all in fact does do a lot. As in Johnson's example of not purposely buying shirts from other countries that are paying the workers very little for their labor of the shirts, by not ceasing to buy these items is in a way saying that you support the people who believe it is o.k. to pay these overworked women and children little for what they do. People are afraid to stand out from other people, and feel most comfortable just blending in with the rest of the world, Johnson calls this "the path of least resistance". He exemplifies this path when talking about his experience of riding on an elevator facing backwards, which he could tell was causing people to feel uncomfortable and weird being in this situation. People act differently depending on the situation they are in. While playing Monopoly the author describes his total change in personality going from someone who in his normal everyday life as someone who is nice and not greedy, to someone who wants to control the board and take everything from everyone else. He says this is because that is what the game is meant for, so in other words people act in a way that they are supposed to based on the situation they are presented in.

3. Why do people feel so forced to blend in? What is wrong with being different and standing out? How is it decided on what is socially acceptable and what is not?

4. I enjoyed this reading. I felt that Johnson used very good examples that people could understand and relate to. He made his points clear with these examples making the reading continue to hold my attention. I found the topic and his views both to be interesting, because this writing is on something that I have not really ever given much thought about before, even though it is something that everyone encounters on a daily basis. The reading was short but yet still held a lot of information that was easy to understand and enjoyable to read.

Norviel's View on A People's History of the United States

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

1. I personally could not quite figure out a clear view or thought that the author was attempting to convince the reader of. For the most part I thought the writer mostly just stated how things were, which I guess is what he is trying to convince us of. Zinn is mainly just wanting us to see that just because the American's were superior to their slaves and servants, there was still a fear of them they felt.

2. Howard Zinn's writing was done so in a way as to make us see what they American's thought as they were establishing themselves, along with the harsh conditions that they imposed upon their slaves. He showed us the inhumanly ways in which we bestowed upon the African slaves such as treating them as if they were no more than livestock, buying and selling them for our own profit and labor. Along with that, the slaves were put in such terrible conditions that only 1/3rd of the African Americans taken from their home to be sold as slaves actually made it there! They were packed tightly together in small spaces where they were forced to reside with their own feces and with corpses of other slaves. Once again, we are shown how we are the ones who acted savagely, when we accused people of other cultures who did far less savage things as being savages.
Zinn also talked about at the beginning, how we were not all powerful as we tried to be. The Indians knew more about the land and how to survive that what the Americans did, and they were not overpowered by the American's weapons or confidence. In the reading when it talks about how the Americans would just kill the Indians I think it was out of frustration, that they were embarrassed that they were unable to live as successfully as the Indians could, who they thought so poorly of. In order to try and get their dignity back they would murder the Indians to try to show their dominance over them.

3. This reading made me wonder what would have happened if the slaves and the white servants would have been successful with their attempts to overpower and overthrow their "owners"? I also have wondered if the blacks were in the position that the whites were in, if they were the ones who were thought to be superior and more powerful, would they have done the same thing? Would they have enslaved the whites for their own good?

4. I found Zinn's writing to be somewhat biased. He talks negatively about the American's the entire time. I'm sure there were some whites who did not treat their slaves as horrible as others, and I'm sure there were some who did not even believe in owning slaves but rather worked their own land. Overall the reading was easy to understand, but seems somewhat redundant to what we have been reading. For the most part Zinn did not add anything to his writing that we have not heard before.

I originally posted this in the wrong blog!!