Assignment: THE POLITICS OF RACE
Direction to write the paper:
1. Choose only one topic; there is no a priori right or wrong answer for the question you choose to address. The merit of the paper will be based on the ways in which you present and discuss your arguments;
2. The paper should be written in a cogent and acceptable manner. Avoid all colloquialism;
3. You may choose the writing style you prefer. If you do, however, be consistent;
4. You need to use 3 more sources (articles, books, class notes, etc.) in addition to the required text;
5. Late papers will be sanctioned, except if you provide bona fide documentation from the campus Disability Support Service (DSS) or other acceptable sources;
6. Plagiarism will be severely punished and you will be referred to the Academic Judiciary Committee if there is enough evidence to sustain the accusation;
7. If you need help to write the paper, you may come to my office for clarification and/or you may go to the writing center;
8. The specifics of the paper are as follows, between 10 to 15 pages in length, double-spaced, regular margins, and 12 font type;
9. Place you name, ID number, my name, the course number, and the topic you plan to address on a cover page;
1. In general, most Social Scientists disagree with the hereditarians and do not support that nonwhites are genetically inferior to whites. Instead, to explicate why, in general, blacks lag behind whites by all measures of assessment, many of them have biologized the nonwhite groups' cultural practices through the Culture of Poverty Theory (Lewis). Others, like Ogbu, ascribe this gap to the choices many of them have made by refusing to embrace the dominant group's culture when they opt, instead, to adopt Oppositional Attitudes to Whiteness (Ogbu).
As you see it, do you think that the Hereditarians' position is correct since the human Genome has finally been decoded? Actually, they feel vindicated since, they argue, the evidence that black people's genes are flawed and inferior to white people's genes has been scientifically proven. Therefore, they support, since black people's genes cannot be altered, the minority groups' conditions are irreparable and no matter what we do, they will never accede to parity with the white population.
Do you think Lewis' and Ogbu's arguments constitute a better line of reasoning to explicate the differences in achievements between the two groups? If the inner-city black dwellers decide to adopt Amy Chua's and Jeb Rubenfeld's Triple Package concept, do you think they will finally reach parity with the white population?
2. Because crime statistics show that blacks and Latinos commit more criminal offenses than whites and that they are more likely to end up in jail than whites, for a long time, a large number of researchers supported that there existed a genetic basis of crime and violence. As a result, to bolster their contention, they actively engaged in research to identify the genes responsible for that kind of behavior and prove their point. They succeeded when they identified the "genes crimes," namely, the Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) and CDH13 and proved that low levels of MAOA together with a stressful environment, may lead some people to commit violent crimes.
For the sake of public safety, would it be judicious and reasonable then to force pregnant mothers who carry these "crime genes," live in stressful environments, and are susceptible of passing them on to their children to be forced to abort their fetuses? It they manage to give birth and their children are proven to carry the genes also and that the likelihood that they will grow up in their parents' stressful environment is high, should society quarantine these children upon their birth to prevent them from causing harm to innocent people later in life?
3. How does "color blindness" promotes racism? To write this paper, refer to Bonilla-Silva's and Embrik's article: Racism without Racists: "Killing me softly" with Color Blindness, in Part 4, Reading 4.2 of the text.
4. Trace the origin and evolution of the Eugenics movement and expound on its impact on US social realities. To write this paper, refer to Paul Campos' article, Eugenics are Alive and Well in the United States in Part 1, Highlights of the textbook.
5. What are the pros and cons of designating the US Asian population as the "model minority"? To write this paper, refer to Rosalind Chou's and Joe Fagin's article, The Reality of Asian Oppression in Part 3, Reading 3.5 of the textbook.
6. In June 2003, the US Supreme Court rendered its decision in the Gruffer vs. Bollinger case. The case addressed the issue of preferential treatments accorded to minority candidates for admission to the Michigan University's Law School. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote the decision for the majority of the US Supreme Court, expressed the court's wishes to allow race to be considered one more time as one among many other admissions criteria favoring the underrepresented groups' candidacy for university admissions and, by extension, job placements. However, she issued the following warning regarding this practice by stating:
The requirement that all race-conscious admissions programs have a termination point assures all citizens that the deviation from the norm of equal treatment of all racial and ethnic groups is a temporary matter, a measure taken in the service of the goal of equality itself. It would be a sad day indeed were America to become a quota-ridden society, with each identifiable minority assigned proportional representation in every desirable walk of life. But that is not the rationale for programs of preferential treatment; the acid test of their justification will be their efficacy in eliminating the need for any racial or ethnic preferences at all. . . . It has been 25 years since Justice Powell first approved the use of race to further an interest in student body diversity in the context of public higher education in the Bakke case. Since that time, the number of minority applicants with high grades and test scores has indeed increased. We expect that 25 years from now, in 2028, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.
Present your view regarding this ominous statement by the US Supreme Court regarding Affirmative Action and the Set Aside Programs for blacks and Latino groups.
7. Present a critic of Ta-Nehisi Coates' article, The Case for Reparations in Part 9, Highlights of the textbook.
8. What is Whiteness? How does it affect the US social order? How do women, in general, and the various nonwhite groups respond to its impositions?
9. In his article, Fear of a Black Athlete: Masculinity, Politics and the Body (Part 6, Reading 6.3 of the textbook, Ben Carrington writes that The black athlete assumes the pre-eminent position of a 'penis-symbol' and becomes a phantasmatic site through which anxieties concerning the fragility of western sexuality are played out. The black athlete is thus poised as a site of voyeuristic admiration-the black male athlete is idolised for his sheer (super-human) physicality but also controlled by a complex process of objectification and sexualisation that once again renders the dangerous black male threat controllable to white patriarchy.
He also cites bell hooks, the black feminist scholar, who argues that "it has taken contemporary commodification of blackness to teach the world that this perceived threat, whether real or symbolic, can be diffused by a process of fetishization that renders the black masculine 'feminine' through a process of patriarchal objectification" (p. 232).
As you see it, in what ways are the black athlete "objectified" and feminized? In what ways does he present a threat, real or perceived, to white hegemony? In what ways does he present a threat to the "white corporeal ego"?
To write this paper refers to our class discussions regarding the Inter-Group and Intra-Group Threat Theories.
10. Are we living in a post-racial society? To write this paper, refer to Kathleen Fitzgerald's article A Post-Racial Society? in Part 8, Reading 8.3 of the textbook.
11. How has the US legal system affected issues related to "race," class, "gender," homophobia, and sexism in US society?
12. What is "Intersectionality"? How does it manifest itself in the study of "race," "gender," class, and sexual orientation in the United States.
13. Compare and contrast the "Black Lives Matter" movement" to the "Alt-right" movement in the United States. What are the factors that have given rise to these two very controversial movements? What do you think they will achieve in the long term?
14. Present a critic of Orlando Paterson's article, Why we Still Need Affirmative Action in Part 9, Highlights of the textbook.
15. Using Nagel's Equality and Partiality Paradigm, Hume's Moral Distance Hypothesis, and Twila Perry's article Family Law, Feminist Legal Theory, and the Problem of Racial Hierarchy in Part 4, Reading 4.5 of the textbook, indicate the ways in which the US Feminist movement nullified the presence and realities of women of color in the struggle for "gender" equality.