The Moving Target of Racial Stratification and Gender Inequality

Presenters: Jack Dedrick, Ditra Comer, Shauntel Burzynski, Aaron Verrett

Question: How is racial stratification and gender inequality “a moving target?”

The Great Migration – Ditra ComerDe Jure Segregation – Jack DedrickRacial/Gender Inequality in the Workplace – Shauntel BurzynskiAffirmative Action – Aaron Verrett

What was the Great Migration?• Southern blacks moving up north. • Freedom of movement.• Voted against southern segregation. • Blacks have lack of income. • Blacks live in poorer areas.• Blacks have lack of employment.• They were discriminated in applying for

housing and jobs.• Later things started to change for

African Americans now and in the future.

The Great Migration• In 1630 and 1640 about ten thousand

settlers crossed the Atlantic Ocean.• Movement of 6 million African American

out of the rural southwest United States to the urban north east, Midwest, and west that occurred between 1910 and 1970.

• The great migration was also a movement for African Americans.

• A change in the ethnic make up of cities.

• A movement of African Americans to the north.

The Great Migration• World War I and boll weevils were major factors in pulling blacks to the North.

• The war created a huge demand for labor in the North when it caused millions of men to leave their jobs to serve in the armed forces and forced immigration to slow down.

• In the South, a boll weevil infestation of the cotton crop that ruined harvests and threatened thousands of African Americans with starvation also caused people to head North.

• Railroad companies were so desperate for help that they paid African Americans' travel expenses to the North.

• While northern labor agents traveled to the South to encourage blacks to leave and go find jobs in the North.

• With black labor leaving the South in large numbers, southern planters tried to prevent the outflow, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

• The more progressive southern employers tried to promise better pay and improved treatment. Others tried to intimidate blacks, even going so far as to board northbound trains and to attack black men and women to try to force them into returning to the South.

• Despite the jobs and housing available in the North, the challenges of living in an urban environment were daunting for many of the new migrants.

• The stream of migrants continued apace, however, until the Great Depression and World War II caused northern demand for workers to slacken.

The Second Great Migration• The Second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million

African Americans from the South to the other three regions of the United States.

• It took place from 1941, through World War II, and lasted until 1970. • It was much larger and of a different character than the first Great

Migration (1910-1940). Some historians prefer to distinguish between the movements for those reasons.

• In the Second Great Migration, more than five million African Americans moved to cities in states in the North, Midwest and West, including many to California, where Los Angeles and Oakland offered many skilled jobs in the defense industry.

• More of these migrants were already urban laborers who came from the cities of the South. They were better educated and had better skills than people who did not migrate.

We Wear the Mask

By: Paul Lawrence DunbarWritten in 1896Appears in Dunbar’s published volume lyrics of low life.

What is De Jure Segregation?• Following the Reconstruction period, slavery

was replaced by De Jure Segregation, also known as the Jim Crow System

• Minority group is physically and socially separated from the dominant group and consigned to an inferior position in every area of social life

• ”De Jure” means “by law”, which means that the system is sanctioned and reinforced by legal code

Examples of De Jure Segregation• In some southern cities during this time

period, it was a law that African Americans had to ride in the back of the bus

• Only a matter of time until all aspects of life were encompassed by de jure segregation, including in neighborhoods, jobs, stores, restaurants, parks, schools, bathrooms, and even drinking fountains

• If an African American did not comply with these laws, he or she would be arrested

De Jure Segregation Continued• Segregation created a vicious cycle. The more

African Americans were excluded from mainstream society, the greater their objectiveness and powerlessness became.

• The more powerless they became, the easier it was to mandate more inequality

• During the peak of the Jim Crow Era in Birmingham, Alabama, it was against the law for blacks and whites to play checkers together

• Some southern courtrooms would even have a different bible for African Americans to swear on

COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL

Where is the Jim Crow section

On this merry-go-round,

Mister, cause I want to ride?

Down South where I come from

White and colored

Can’t sit side by side

Down South on the train

There's a Jim Crow car.

On the bus we're put in the back--

But there ain't no back

To a merry-go-round!

Where's the horse

For a kid that's black?

Merry-Go-RoundBy Langston Hughes

De Jure Poetic Justice

Technological/Economic Changes Leading to Racial/Gender Inequality in the Workplace • From slavery to rigid competitive systems to fluid

competitive systems• Agrarian to industrial to postindustrial from in a

relatively short period• Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Occupations• Deindustrialization

• Shift away from blue-collar secondary manufacturing positions

• Primary Labor Market• Secondary Labor Market

Social Changes Leading to Racial/Gender Inequality in the Workplace

• Ownership to Segregation to Discrimination• Changing gender roles

• Women’s career goals and aspirations• Wider access and availability for higher

education• Globalization and its effect on how we perceive

ourselves and do business

Modern Struggles with Gender Discrimination• Pay gap between men and

women

• The elusive glass ceiling

• Transgender/LGBT work

discrimination

Modern Struggles with Racial Discrimination

• Modern institutional racism

• Black women and the

workplace

She is the vessels on the table before her: the copper pot tipped toward us, the white pitcher clutched in her hand, the black one edged in red and upside down. Bent over, she is the mortar and the pestle at rest in the mortar—still angled in its posture of use. She is the stack of bowls and the bulb of garlic beside it, the basket hung by a nail on the wall and the white cloth bundled in it, the rag in the foreground recalling her hand. She’s the stain on the wall the size of her shadow— the color of blood, the shape of a thumb. She is echo of Jesus at table, framed in the scene behind her: his white corona, her white cap. Listening, she leans into what she knows. Light falls on half her face.

Natasha Trethewey, 1966

Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus, or The Mulata

Diego Velàzquez, ca. 1619

Affirmative Action•The moving target Affirmative action

•How has Affirmative Action evolved?

•What is the outlook for Affirmative action in the future?

The Moving Target Affirmative Action•Industrial Revolution

•Original concept

•Benefits

•Obstacles

Evolution of Affirmative Action•Executive Order 10925 March

6, 1961

•Executive Order 11246 September 24, 1965

•Ricci v DeStefano June 29, 2009

Outlook for Affirmative Action in the future•Outcome vs. Intent

•The downward trend of legality

•Current survey

Solely on merit %

Consider race %

U..S adults 67 28

Whites 75 22

Blacks 44 48

Hispanics 59 31

June 13-July 5, 2013

Gallup poll

Lyndon B. Johnson commencement, Howard University June 4, 1965But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.

In ConclusionRacial and Gender Inequality are moving targets because with new technology, different social norms and expectations, society changes. When society changes, so too do the racial stratifications and gender inequality. From the Great Migration and Jim Crow laws, to workplace inequality and Affirmative Action, postmodern America is a vastly different society than its predecessor. We cannot help but ask ourselves, how will these moving targets help shape the America of the future?Discussion Question: Are American postmodern ideologies a direct product of subsistence technology(Gerhard Lenski), or are they influenced solely by the current intersectionality of people of various races, ethnicities, genders, and socioeconomic classes (Patricia Hill-Collins)?