The Ethics of Living Jim Crow
The reading provides a detailed narrative of what lessons and precautions a Black person had to take to stay safe in a predominantly White society of the 20th century. Wright (1968) writes that his teachings began in early childhood when White neighbors wounded him and continued into adulthood at multiple jobs. This story is remarkable in a way it uncovers many limitations that a Black person faced when living in a structurally unequal society. These “ethics” of living as a Black person made the author feel less human and lacking human rights, making him a target of unprecedented violence and cruelty. Although this text was written around 50 years ago, the abuse imposed onto Blacks is still present in police mistreatment, proving that a Black person still has to adjust to the White world.
The Nadir: Incubator of Sundown Towns
The text challenges the commonly accepted notion of continuous societal progress in the US. It provides the historical background of discrimination in the context of the Civil War, post-war, and Nadir period. Loewen (2005) argues that, contrary to popular opinion, racial equality was never fully implemented, which is evident from the period when African-Americans returned to being non-citizens. This belief is still dominant in American society: most people ignore the historical complexities of discrimination and believe that racism is a long-gone issue that is still discussed with no apparent reason.
Planned Destruction: The Interstates and Central City Housing
The reading documents how the National Highway Program reinforced the housing and social discrimination of the Black population in post-war America. To connect cities and states, highways had to go through low-income areas and, consequently, destroy them (Mohl, 1999). National Highway Program ruined numerous low-income housing districts and rearranged the composition of urban and suburban areas in a way that indirectly discriminated against and evicted the African-American population. The highway project may be addressed as an act of social lynching and is proof for building White America at the expense of Black stability.
Exquisite Corpse
The chapter explores the culture, explanations, and implications of the historical consequences of lynching. Rushdy (2020) describes the practice as a way to impose racial justice and reinforce social hierarchy with White males on the top. These mystical and overtly violent mutilations of the Black people’s corpses were meant to be a public spectacle for White people to justify their dominance and for Black people to fear. Lynching is horrific historical evidence for racial oppression: although Whites claim that African-Americans are violent, they cause mutilations to the dead bodies to make a political statement.
Autobiographical Narrative
The chapter tells the story of Fannie Lou Hamer, a Black woman who fought for Afro-Americans’ voting rights. In the autobiographical narrative, she describes how she changed since she first heard about the newly gained right to vote. One of the first to register, she transformed from a person who did not understand what rights were to a teacher of citizenship class who enabled others to gain the right to vote too (Hamer, 2020). The abuse that she experienced from the side of White supremacists shows that the time that many people now regard as revolutionary for equality was just as dangerous as the period of slavery.
Video Shows White Teens Driving Over, Killing Black Man
The article shows the modern reflection of the deeply rooted racism and violence that it is associated with. Griffin and Bronstein (2011) write that a group of teenagers has repeatedly beaten and ran a Black man over in an attempt to express White superiority through lynching. Cases like these are not unique, as evident from the contemporary social issue of police officers overusing their power. Thus, Black people often suffer as a result of structural inequality and historically imposed oppression.
References
Griffin, D. & Bronstein, S. (2011). Video shows white teens driving over, killing black man, says DA. CNN Special Investigations.
Hamer, F. L. (2020). Autobiographical narrative. In J. Benjamin (Ed.), Race and ethnicity: difference and decolonization (pp. 71-78). Kendall Hunt Publishing.
Loewen, J. W. (2005) The Nadir: Incubator of Sundown Towns. New Press.
Mohl, R. A. (1999). Planned destruction: The interstates and central city housing. In J. Bauman et al. (Eds.), American Housing Policy (pp. 1-28). Penn State University Press.
Rushdy, A. (2020). Exquisite corpse. In J. Benjamin (Ed.), Race and ethnicity: difference and decolonization (pp. 65-70). Kendall Hunt Publishing.
Wright, R. (1968). The ethics of living Jim Crow. In A. Chapman (Ed.), Black Voices (pp. 288-297). Signet.