African American

Question 1

Key features of paternalism

Answer 1

1) Vast power differentials and large inequalities between dominant group and minority group
2) Repressive system of control
3) Caste system (a closed stratification system– no mobility between social positions)

Question 2

Definition of paternalistic relationship

Answer 2

Members of the minority group are viewed as being docile, childlike, in need of supervision.

Question 3

African Americans as an example of Chattel

Answer 3

African Americans were forced into minority status by superior military power and political power of the dominant group. They were chattel.

Question 4

What are the five central components of slavery?

Answer 4

1) Slavery was for life
2) The status was inherited
3) Slaves were considered mere property
4) Slaves were denied rights
5) Coercion was used to maintain the system

Question 5

Why were African American selected to be slaves? Why not Native Americans?

Answer 5

Physically different

Non-Christians

Not familiar with territory

Lacked organization

Ideological belief that they were different

Question 6

Slavery in Brazil (4 facts)

Answer 6

1) Portuguese came to Brazil with more tolerant attitudes towards people of color (had earlier contact with Africans)
2) More intermixing with native and slave populations
3) Did not see slaves as lacking souls – unfortunate human being (economic necessity)
4) Slaves were recognized as humans with certain legal rights (entitled to own property, marry freely, seek out another master if dealt with harshly, and even buy freedom)

Question 7

Dred Scott Decision

Answer 7

The Supreme Court ruled that African
Americans had no rights which whites
were bound to respect.

They could never become citizens of the US

Question 8

Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

Answer 8

Proclaimed slaves to be free and authorized

the armed forces of the United States to enlist free slaves.

Question 9

13th Amendment (1865)

Answer 9

The legal institution of slavery was abolished.

Question 10

Civil Rights Act (1866)

Answer 10

Declared Blacks to be citizens of the United States, gave
them equal civil rights, and gave federal courts jurisdiction over cases arising under
the act.

Question 11

14th Amendment (1868)

Answer 11

Declared that states could not deprive any person of

Life, liberty, or property without ‘due process of the law.’

Question 12

De jure segregation

Answer 12

The system of rigid competitive race relations that was characterized by laws mandating racial separation and inequality.

Question 13

De facto segregation

Answer 13

A system of racial separation and inequality that appears to result from voluntary choices about where to live, work, and so forth. (It “just happens.”)

Question 14

Booker T. Washington

Answer 14

Argued that Blacks were still too recently removed from slavery to take their place as equals among the Whites.

He emphasized that Blacks must adopt an economic program of manual labor and self-help as the best means to win their full rights as citizens rather than engaging in political action

Question 15

W.E.B. Du Bois

Answer 15

Du Bois formed the Niagara Movement to express opposition to Washington’s views. He advocated that Blacks should protest the curtailment of their political and civil rights.

Blacks should strive to establish economic independence. They should join together to attempt to solve their problems, and that the ultimate goal of any strategy should be the full acceptance of African Americans as first-class citizens of the US.

Question 16

NAACP (The National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People)

Answer 16

Niagara group’s members merged with a group of White liberals to form the NAACP.

NAACP adopted a legal and legislative strategy. It called on Congress and the president to enforce strictly the Constitution’s provisions on civil rights.

Question 17

Major outcome of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education

Answer 17

“separate is not equal”

Question 18

Marcus Garvey (key contributions

Answer 18

Garvey organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association which
had as its long-range goal to help African Americans leave the US and settle in an independent nation in Africa.

Garvey believed that the solution to America’s racial problem was the
Renunciation of American citizenship and permanent separation of the two races.

Question 19

What is civil disobedience?

Answer 19

Civil disobedience is based on the belief that people have the right to disobey the law under certain circumstances.

Question 20

Some ways to show civil disobedience (6)

Answer 20

1) Active nonviolent resistance to evil
2) Not seeking to defeat or humiliate opponents but to win their friendship and understanding
3) Attacking the forces of evil rather than the people who happen to be doing the evil
4) Willingness to accept suffering without retaliating
5) Refusing to hate the opponent
6) Acting with conviction that the universe is on the side of justice

Question 21

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Answer 21

Banned discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin, and gender.

Question 22

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

Answer 22

The act banned literacy tests and other practices that had been used to prevent Blacks from voting

Question 23

Factors that Facilitated the Success of

the Civil Rights Movement (4)

Answer 23

1) The changing economic, social, and political environment
2) The movement embraced the dominant code of American values and beliefs
3) Support from other groups
4) The influence of the mass media

Question 24

Why are reparations troublesome?

Answer 24

Victims of direct harm are dead

Perpetrators are diffuse

Some of the actual harms were legal at the time they were committed

The causal chain of harm is long and complex

Question 25

Malcom X (contributions)

Answer 25

In the mid 1960s, many African Americans were losing hope that new laws would end segregation and bring equality. They were frustrated with integrationist goals. Black power movement emphasized separation and power.

The Black Muslims advocate for a separate nation right here in the US and have suggested that several states should be set aside for this purpose

Question 26

Culture of Poverty

Answer 26

Poor people develop particular patterns of values and ways of coping (e.g., not working hard, not valuing school) with their difficulties and pass these patterns down from one generation to the next.

Question 27

Ethnic Resource Model

Answer 27

Cultural strengths (e.g., extended families, strong kinship bonds, high values on family stability) have protected the Black family through devastating effects of slavery and recent pattern of Black male unemployment.

Question 28

Secondary Structural Assimilation in African Americans

Answer 28

Since their emancipation, African Americans have moved in many ways toward the goal of full secondary assimilation. However, large gaps still persist between whites and blacks in regards to income, jobs, education, and housing.

Question 29

Primary Structural Assimilation in African Americans

Answer 29

Black – White relations in the US are changing as the social and historical contexts of racial relations change.

Studies reveal that contact in the ‘public’ sphere is more common than contact in the ‘private sphere’ (social contact is close, of long duration, frequent, and involves a significant numbers of African Americans).

Question 30

Marital Assimilation in African Americans

Answer 30

Out-marriages among Black have been much less common than out-marriage among other racial and ethnic groups.

The rate of Black – White intermarriage went up rapidly during the 1960s and nearly doubled in the 1980s and 1990s.

The declining pool of of Black males who are eligible as marriage partners has resulted in more Black families that are headed by women who have never married and has encouraged those who do marry to marry outside their racial group.

Question 31

cultural encapsulation

Answer 31

Cultural encapsulation is the lack of understanding, or ignorance, of another’s cultural background and the influence this background has on one’s current view of the world

Question 32

Jim Crow laws

Answer 32

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States.

Question 33

Plessy vs Ferguson

Answer 33

In 1892, in a planned act of civil disobedience, Plessy boarded a train in New Orleans and sat in the car reserved for whites only.

Plessy, a man who was one-eighth black, but classified as black by Louisiana law, refused to leave in order to trigger a case about the legality of segregation.

In 1896, after years of trials appeals, the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” was fair, and was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment requiring equal protection to all.

Question 34

Be familiar with the concept of white enrichment, black losses

Answer 34

Overall, Whites benefited from federal programs, jobs (due to economic multiplier effects) and Blacks were excluded from benefits, worked harder and made less(Jim Crow Laws)

Question 35

the pseudoscience of “intelligence” testing.

Answer 35

IQ tests don’t reflect environmental factors but genetic differences between black and white groups. Low social status/income = intellectually & genetically inferior.