African-Americans Americanization Experience

The Black Experience in

American Society

African Americans

• Among all racial minority groups, African Americans (or Blacks) have suffered the longest … an have been and continue to be the principle victims of racism: the primary objects of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation.

Kitno, 1997, p. 121

THE GREAT MIGRATION

AND WHITE FLIGHT

Examining Two Periods of American Transitioning

The Great Migration

• The mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960

• The economic motivations included a desire to (1) escape oppressive economic conditions in the south and (2) the promise of greater prosperity in the north

As found in http://www.blackpast.org/aah/great-migration-1915-1960

The Great Migration

Blacks also moved north in order to escape the oppressive conditions, which included,

• lynching

• unfair legal system

• inequality in education

• denial of suffrage

As found in http://www.blackpast.org/aah/great-migration-1915-1960

White Flight

Over the course of the first three decades after the turn of the century, coinciding with the start of the Great Migration, this pattern accelerated:

• As blacks arrived in northern neighborhoods, more whites left.

As found in https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/17/white-flight-began-

a-lot-earlier-than-we-think/

White Flight

• The dissimilarity and isolation indexes are two tools researchers use to measure segregation

• Dissimilar index captures the degree to which blacks and whites would need to move around a city to turn homogeneous neighborhoods into diverse ones

• Isolation index captures how isolated blacks are from whites in the neighborhoods where they live.

As found in https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/17/white-flight-began-a-lot-earlier-

than-we-think/

STRATIFICATION

Mainstream Orientation and Acceptance

Mainstream Orientation

INITIAL CONTACT

VOLUNTARY

INVOLUNTARY

BOUNDARY MAINTENANCE MECHANISMS

ACCESS

Quality of Mainstream Access

Status Distinctions within ethnic communities parallel those of the white community – ability to Anglo Conformity

• Income

• Occupation

• Education

• Family Background

• Property Ownership

PATTERNS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS

INTEGRATION STRATEGIES

Access and Denied Access to Mainstream Participation

Adaptation Strategy

Theoretical Framework

Double Consciousness Ethnic Integration

Conformity Accept the goals defined by mainstream value system and the legitimate means of acquiring these goals.

Even if many African Americans may not believe superiority of t he white person, they may often act if though they do.

Successfully and functioning within Mainstream White culture systems.

Innovation Accept the formal goal of mainstream society, but significantly reject or alter the means of acquiring the goals.

African American’s sees traditional means of his/her white counterpart is incompatible with their experiences.

The recognized differential experiences require some African American’s to alternate the legitimate means of to achieve the desired societal goals.

Ritualism Scaling down or Rejecting high cultural goals but accepting/ retaining the moralistic prescriptions of society; lower their level of aspiration

Differential experiences or treatments are attribute to their race/ethnicity. Ritualist double- conscious is also referenced as “internalization of unequal stress”

These members self-alienate from the majority societal culture; They conform to the mandates of the larger society and socialize their children accordingly.

Retreatism Rejects both the goals of mainstream society and the legitimate means to attain them.

These African American members become aware of extreme levels of relative deprivation to their White societal members.

“I Had Enough!” Unfavorable housing, economic, and education conditions; the experiences force members to withdraw from previously defined aspirations.

Rebellion Reject all mainstream value systems and means of achieving the goals, but also replace them with new ones (positive or negative replacement)

Some African American members separate from White mainstream societal values and replace them with ones consistent with their experiences. Also referenced as Aggression using some form of retaliation

Direct Aggression; grows out of acute despair (insurrection, race riots, strikes/boycotts) Indirect Aggression; more typical method employed (fine arts and literature, ethnic humor, passive resistance, role change, etc.)

The Black Experience

• The two models that closely approximate the black position in society are domination and paternalism

• Analogous to a colonial possession – Blacks are there to serve the large community with a supply of cheap labor