Study Guide

EXAMPLE OF A QUESTION AND ANSWER COMPLETED

While the US government plays an important role in protecting the civil liberties and other rights of its residents, how has our country’s government mistakenly or purposefully infringed on the liberties and rights of certain groups of people? In other words, describe the role of the US government in perpetuating discrimination and ultimately contributing to the misconstrued image and unfair treatment of a particular ethnic group. Choose two or more groups we have studied this semester and discuss how this mistreatment, abuse, or exploitation took place. To the best of your knowledge, try to explain why it was not stopped or altered (or if it was stopped, how so and by whom?). You may select examples from historical or modern times. Cite authors and sources to defend your reasoning in all responses.

African Americans and Native Americans have faced unique challenges across our nation’s history. The circumstances in which both groups grew, and to an extent, “assimilated” into U.S. society, are strikingly different: one population was enslaved from their home countries and sent overseas in the guise of a material resource whose humanity was denied by their abductors/oppressors. The other saw powerful forces invade and occupy the only land they had ever known, with disastrous consequences. Both these populations did, in common, systematically undergo cruel and barbaric treatment at the hands of the U.S. government—sometimes misguided, sometimes intentional.

The construction of the African-American identity is inextricably interwoven with the legacy of slavery. In 1860, there were 4 million African-American slaves in the U.S. South, accounting for 35% of the population (Takaki, 2008). The horrors of slavery, and the sheer number who suffered under the institution, are staggering. However, the situation for Blacks in free states was also dismal, as they experienced segregation and discrimination in almost all areas of public life: “They were barred from most hotels and restaurants and were forced to sit in separate sections in theaters and churches, invariably in the back” (Takaki, 2008). Even after the war, segregation persisted in the U.S. for another century, cementing an “outsider” status that continues to shape the construct of what it means to be “Black” in the U.S.

In the post-Civil Rights era, certainly there have been sweeping changes in the way African Americans are able to participate in public life. Nonetheless, there are multiple disparities that continue to disadvantage Blacks in the U.S. Alexander (2009) notes that, in 2000, 80 to 90 percent of drug offenders imprisoned in the U.S. were African American. Alexander also mentions disparities in the way African-Americans are treated by legal authorities, citing studies indicating that, regionally, Blacks are twice as likely to be stopped by police, and that highway stops involve wildly disproportionate numbers of African-American drivers. Sterba (2009), among the many statistics he cites, reveals that nearly half the Black children in the U.S. live in poverty, Blacks are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed, and that Blacks have, on average, far greater chances of becoming crime victims than do whites.

Native Americans, unlike African Americans, were not taken from their land: rather, their land—previously unknown to Europeans—was taken from them. Disease, particularly in the form of smallpox, decimated entire populations of Indians, and paved the way for the English to take possession of Indian lands (Takaki, 2008). The Dawes Act of 1887 provided Native Americans the chance to gain U.S. citizenship, on the condition that individuals accept land allotments determined by the President. It was a move that, in theory, seemed to benefit Native Americans, but whites were aware of the strategic benefits of the allotment program, enabling railroads a right-of-way through Indian lands, and allowing white farmers to obtain larger tracts of land. As Takaki (2008) puts it: “While giving Indians what they already owned, their land, the Dawes Act also took lands away from them.”

Determining their identity has been a historically difficult process for Native Americans. During the early days of English settlement in North America, Native Americans were literally demonized, coming “to personify the Devil and everything the Puritans feared—the body, sexuality, laziness, sin, and the loss of self-control” (Takaki, 2008). Coming to terms with the reality of the U.S. government and the power it wielded over their lives has been another challenging road to navigate. According to Wilkins (2009), to be eligible for federal services, there are a number of criteria to meet, many of them having to do with who is considered a member or descendant of a tribe, or indeed what constitutes a tribe itself. All of this is contingent upon “who does the defining and how these emotionally laden terms are defined” (Wilkins, 2009).

Assimilation is a challenge in and of itself: when there are significant obstacles between groups of people and the society into which they might assimilate, the challenge is incalculably increased. Both Blacks and Native Americans were historically kept on the fringes of the U.S. mainstream through oppression and marginalization: even today, the reservation system that houses Native Americans serves as a barrier between the dominant society and the “Other.” African Americans have integrated into the mainstream more fully, but remain ostracized due to racism, discrimination, and limited economic and career opportunities. Both groups comprise important components of the U.S. population—one visible and engaged, the other largely forgotten on the periphery of the national consciousness.

SOURCES

Alexander, M. (2009). The new Jim Crow. In C. Gallagher, Rethinking the color line (pp. 217- 224). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Sterba, J. Race and gender discrimination: contemporary trends. In C. Gallagher, Rethinking the color line (pp. 122-127). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Takaki, R. A different mirror (2008). New York, NY: Back Bay Books.

Wilkins, D. A tour of Indian peoples and Indian lands. In C. Gallagher, Rethinking the color line (pp. 68-78). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.