Issue Paper Prompt: Inequality--Racism
Be sure to look at the relevant section of the syllabus for further instructions about formatting, content, and page length.
Do a search in The Times of London or The New York Times to find one of the newspaper primary sources below (note that in the regular citation I would have provided the accessed date and URL. I haven't done that here because I'd like to have you practice searching).
• "An Account of the Black Republic" The Times (London), April 15, 1830.
• "Abolition of Slavery" The Times (London), August 4, 1834.
• "AUSTRALIA'S BLACK MEN: A STRANGE MORTALITY IF THEY BEGIN TO LIVE IN HOUSES: Natives as Trackers of Game and Criminals-Their Marvelous Sight-A Village and Mission-A Dying Race" The New York Times, May 22, 1892.
• "Primitive Races of Mankind and the Average American: Interesting Results of Professor Woodworth's Anthropological Studies of the Philippine Tribesmen, African Pigmies, Ainoos of Japan, and Other Uncivilized Human Specimens at the St. Louis Exposition" The New York Times, May 7, 1905.
• "SOCIAL PROBLEMS HAVE PROVEN BASIS OF HEREDITY: What the Work Done in the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Has Proved in Scientific Race Investigation" New York Times, January 12, 1913.
• "JEWS LAY TORTURE TO NAZIS IN POLAND: MANY DEATHS ARE ATTRIBUTED TO SHOOTING, STARVATION, AND BEATINGS, LONDON HEARS" The New York Times, January 5, 1940.
Once you have selected the article that you want to explore further, use material from at least 1 lecture and at least 2 course readings that we have studied in this unit to put the article in historical context. The essay should therefore contain:
• An introduction that lays out the topic that you are going to explore, gives a roadmap of the essay, and ends with a thesis (try to use one of the Thesis Statement Formulas) that states what context (historical events/ideas) the article reveals.
• A paragraph summary of the article itself. You may want to look at "How to Evaluate a Primary Source" (Course Reader, p. 400) to refresh your memory with how to look at primary sources.
• Body paragraphs that take specific parts of the article, and then put it into historical context, using material from at least 1 lecture and at least 2 course readings (the course readings include the BBC Racism videos).
• A conclusion that states what we learn when we put the document into historical context. You should consider questions such as: what does it show about the author of the article (or the situation)? How does that relate to racism today? What does this tell us about racism as a system?