Hater Babies

In this article, psychologists discuss the formation of social bonds in infants.  In this experiment, it is shown that babies respond positively to people who harm those who are different from them.  Note, however, that the differences in this experiment are not physical differences but are personal preferences, such as which cereal they like.  I thought this was apropos to our discussion about what kinds of experiments would need to show that the race instinct is natural and not the result of social learning.  How might an article like this weight in on the debate?

China Men: Language, Silence and America

How does language help to establish the otherness of the Chinese family in China Men?  First, the narrator identifies them as being "eccentric" (15).  Otherness is also described on pages 12. 273, 276.  Also, the mere fact that they did not speak English made them an other (45).  Indeed, many Chinese-Americans self-identified as others, calling whites "Americans" (53) and calling themselves "sojourners" (44-45).  Sometimes, it is the mere lack of language--silence itself--that makes a group an other.  It is the untold history and "rule of silence" that keeps us from recognizing the important role that marginalized groups play.  The rule of silence in the book is when the sugar can workers are forbidden from talking while working, but in the real world, it is an overall trend to silence and rob marginalized groups the opportunity to express themselves.

Appropriation vs. Assimilation.  To assimilate means to be similar, whereas appropriation means to make something one's own.  Appropriation is thus a transformation of meaning, whereas assimilation requires fitting into a pre-existing mold.  In this country, however, there is no such pre-existing mold.  What it is to be American has changed drastically in the last fifty, hundred and two hundred years.

Using language to appropriate meanings is one way to find and express power.  For example, choosing a name for yourself is a power (242).  Ed-Da-Son, for example, is a modification of the name for famous inventor Thomas Edison (71).  Lo Bun Sun is a modification of Robinson of Robinson Crusoe. Also, the title of the book itself "China Men", is an attempt to take an offensive, de-individualizing term for Chinese-Americans, "chinamen" (as if they cannot be told apart and are merely some homogeneous mass), and reappropriate the meaning of this term.  Her story is called China Men because she wants this word to represent very individual and personal stories rather than to represent the perceived anonymity of Chinese immigrants.  Also, it is important to note that the translation of "chinamen" into Chinese is perhaps more directly translated as "gold mountain warriors", a reference to their time in California.

Kingston wants us to see that not only American citizens but anybody who helps to make America is importantly "American" even if not in the legal sense.  These people are important contributors to American society and culture, even if they are not citizens.

Supreme Court and the 14th Amendment

In Brown vs. Board of Education, the majority opinion was that segregation was bad because of the negative psychological impact on the people who experienced segregation.  In this video, a pediatrician and father addresses the issue of whether there is harm caused by same-sex marriage.

This month, the Supreme Court is set to hear Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8 in CA, which banned gay marriage.  An argument of the petitioners and of the White House is that Prop 8 does not provide equal treatment under the law, which would be an argument that it violates the 14th Amendment.  How might claims about psychological harm impact this court decision? Read an article about this here.

Beauty is Skin Deep?

Dr. Thomas named the cosmetics and beauty industry as being guilty of imposing a double consciousness on Americans because of the unrealistic standards that are portrayed.

In these two videos, we see how far the images we see are from reality.  Both videos show the process of what happens between the time a model arrives at a photo shoot to the final image used in advertising.  One video features a woman model, the other features a male model.

Busting Open Categories

In "Out of Category", POS claims that he cannot be adequately defined by traditional categories and ideas that we apply to people.  This is a similar to the way in which Kingston wants to defy our traditional categories about race

Excluded Voices in America: China Men

Kingston's goal is to encourage ways in which humans can interpret and understand (or "read") one another.  On page 3, she tells the reader that she wants the experience of reading the book to be a process of discovery.  This story is a narrative about discovery.  The protagonist discovers the land of women.  Rather than being welcomed as a lone man, he is rather kidnapped and turned into a woman.  They bind his feet, which is a practice meant to make a woman beautiful but it essentially immobilizes him.  He is also turned into a servant.  At the conclusion of this little story, we find out that this place is America.

This can be interpreted as a metaphor for the emasculation of Chinese men in America or as a tale about the oppression of women in China.  Likely, both interpretations are true.  Kingston uses humor to engage the reader and to disprove the stereotype that Asian Americans are not funny.  She also tries to take up stereotypes and rather than abandon them, she tries to change them and make them her own.  Her goal with the book is to honor and still be critical towards her male ancestors.

The book is made up of myths and legends and then gives the tale of four generations of male ancestors.  This makes it a special blend of fiction and non-fiction.  In doing so, she not only defies traditional categories applied to Asian Americans, but she also defies traditional categories about genre.

What is the role of law in this book?  Well, part of the story is about becoming an American after immigrating, which is a legal issue.  To be an American, one must be born here or be naturalized.  The process of naturalization is controlled by congress.  The Naturalization Act of 1870 excluded immigrants from Asia from the process of naturalization.  In 1879, Chinese immigrants were banned from owning property or having access to work.  In 1882, legislators from CA helped the federal government create a law that all but completely banned anyone with Chinese descent to enter the country.  In 1892, a new Exclusion Act added the provision that any illegal immigrants from China would serve a year of hard labor before being deported.

Why was there so much hatred and racism towards people from China?  One simple reason is just because they were different from Americans with European heritage.  Also, there were a lot of very racist images that people were exposed to, including "Yellow Peril", commissioned by the Kaiser of Germany in late 19th century.  Another issue was that people from China were not Christian.  Because Chinese immigrants were not well assimilated into the dominant white culture, they were seen as sojourners, or temporary visitors of America (155).  Rest assured, there was also economic motive to exclude Chinese immigrants from American culture.  People thought that Chinese immigrants would lower the standard of living in America because they were willing to work harder for less money.

In 1898, US v. Wong Kim Ark ruled that the any person, regardless of their heritage, is a citizen so long as they are born on U.S. soil.  There are two kinds of jurisdiction: jus soli and jus sanguinis.  In this case, it was declared that American jurisdiction is not a matter of blood (sanguinis) but a matter of territory (soli).  In 1906, the great fire in San Francisco destroyed all proof of citizenship, thereby providing all Chinese immigrants to claim to be citizens (150).  Also, many young men claimed to be the sons of men born in America and thus gained entrance into the country.  These men were known as paper sons (46).

The father figure in the story has two alternate stories about entering the country.  In the story about his illegal immigration, he comes in through Cuba into NYC (48-53).  In the legal story, he enters through Angel Island in San Francisco, where in reality many people were denied entrance (53-60).  She leaves this ambiguity in order to protect her father.  Just as Douglass had to keep his escape secret, Kingston wants to keep the details of her father's immigration a secret.

Segregation Is Happening Now

Here is a link to an article about a segregated bus line in Israel that got torched.

This is an article about de facto segregation in schools in America.

Some students at Oberlin have vandalized school property with racist slogans calling for segregation, such as writing "Whites Only" over a drinking fountain.

Fiji has a history of segregation which is briefly discussed in this essay asking what the purpose of celebrating Fiji's Independence Day... sound like anything else you've read this quarter?

Defying Double Consciousness in Hip Hop

In this track, "Forest Whitiker", Brother Ali rejects popular standards of beauty.  In doing so, he defies the double consciousness imposed by such unattainable standards.  As he claims in this uplifting yet lighthearted track, "You might think I'm depressed as can be, but when I look in the mirror I see sexy ass me!".

Dessa, an MC from the Doomtree collective, inverts common metaphors in order to indicate that she has broken out of the negative role afforded to her through a gendered double consciousness. She invites the reader to "...forget the the bull in the china shop, there's a china doll in the bullpen", indicating that she is perceived as too delicate to succeed in the male-dominated field of rap music.  Yet she is able to thrive, as she points out that  "...now I've got glass floors", which is an inversion of the metaphor of the invisible glass ceiling that is supposed to keep women from succeeding in the workplace.  Here is her track "Bullpen".

Epicanthal Fold, Standards of Beauty

I would not recommend Wikipedia as an academic source, but this short article on the epicanthal fold may help to explain what I was talking about in class.  The article also links to one on epicanthoplasty, the surgery some people get to "fix" the fold.


Here is the link for the video we watched in class that recreates the Clark experiment.

Brown, etc.

The first half of the twentieth century of the United States was marked by segregation.  This was not just a matter of black and white.  In 1927, in Gong Lum v. Rice, a case decided that the definition of being colored is left to states, such that it can include, for example, immigrants from Asia.  In Mendez v. Westminster (1947), it was ruled a violation of due process (14th Amendment) to have segregated education such that minority populations were systematically denied opportunities.  Plessy, however, did not apply because there was no law requiring segregation in California.

Other attempts were made to overturn Plessy.  The role of civil disobedience is well known in this country.  The strategy of the NAACP, however, was to work within the system.  They filed legal briefs and made oral arguments before judges.  They had two main strategies: equalization and anti-segregation.  The goal of the first was to remove systemic inequalities such as salary disparities.  The second goal was to overturn segregation laws.

World War II played a large role in changing attitudes about civil rights.  There was a strong disgust against Nazi racism.  Also, many northerners were stationed in the South and experienced a new level of segregation, which seemed unjust to Northerners who experienced more freedom and equality in the North.  Also, black Southerners left the South and went to more open places, such as California and the North.  Also, many black Americans served in the Army.  The Cold War rhetoric used to demonize USSR made people feel hypocritical to see such injustices in a country claiming to be morally superior to other world powers.

An important part of the NAACP's rhetoric is to show that intangible factors such as reputation of the school are important for determining if a school is truly equal to another.  How does this translate into a case about K-12 education?

In 1954, the plaintiff's claim in the case Brown v. BoE is that the schools for African American schools are unequal and thus violate the 14th Amendment.  A key issue was the intention of the original amendment (285).  Ultimately, it was decided that the intention is unclear.  As such, the judicial branch is granted the power to treat the Constitution as a living, evolving document.  The judge (Earl Warren) considered the role of public education in the current time rather than its role in the previous century (286).  The current function of education was deemed to be necessary for basic civil duties and is the foundation of good citizenship.  As such, everyone should have equal access to quality education.  Warren also noted intangible factors relevant to K-12 education include being denied access to peers (287).  Simply being treated differently is an intangible factor that effects how one perceives oneself.  Separate, ultimately, was deemed to be unequal (287).

Brown was seen to overturn Plessy not based on legal reasons but based on the evidence about the reasonableness of segregation.  New evidence was brought to light in Brown that was not considered and/or available in Plessy (290-1).  This new evidence was the psychological damage of segregation.
There are many ways to interpret the law.  In the Plessy majority decision, the structure and form of the law was the focus.  In Harlan's dissent, he focused on intention of the law.  In Brown, the consequences of the law were more important in the decision (287).      

After Brown there was the task of integrating schools.  The court called for "all deliberate speed".  In 1957, the governor of Arkansas refused to integrate schools.  Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the legal decision.  We have progressed significantly since then.  There is no longer any de jure segregation or legal segregation.  There is, however de facto segregation, or segregation in practice.  Affirmative action is the requirement to take race into account in order to make sure that our workplaces and schools are representative of our larger demographics.

One case relevant to this is Regents of Univ. of Calif. v. Bakke (1978).  Bakke was a white student denied admission to UC medical school.  He claimed that underrepresented minorities were granted preferential treatment, thereby unfairly denying him opportunities.  The court was very divided on this issue.  5 justices said race can be taken into consideration as one factor to determine who is granted admission but there cannot be a quota to be filled.  4 justices claimed that admissions processes should be entirely color blind.  Proposition 209 in CA imposed such a standard.