**REQUIREMENTS FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT**
1. Further explore this assignment by
adding an additional TWO academic resources
and TWO public criminology resources
to those you used in the written assignment.
This means that for this presentation you will be drawing upon eight total resources (four you already used in the written assignment and four new ones that you’ll add for this assignment).
2. The additional resources should change / enhance your analysis beyond what you provided in the written assignment.
3. Develop your presentation to accomplish the following:
· Summarizing the findings of the resources you use relevant to the topic of the assignment.
· Describe and assess the topic you’ve chosen — provide more detail on your topic than is provided in the documentary, and explain how your analysis and research helps the viewer to better understand what has been covered as of now in assignment 1 or assignment 2.
Race relations in L.A. pre-O.J. trial
The Black Community is a diaspora of liberal and conservative viewpoints and experiences that can and never be crystallized into a single hive mind (Noble, Kenneth, 1995). In that regard, most Blacks supported and defended OJ Simpson due to a variety of factors. When Simpson was arrested, and the proverbial book was thrown at him, most people understood that this was legal karmic vengeance for the murder conviction he circumvented (Medina, 2017). Black people did not rally around Simpson because they knew he was not worth the effort or political capital. However, issues of race relations surrounded the OJ Simpson case. The problems of race relations in America can be understood by going back to the early 90s to understand the alienation of African Americans. A young black generation, offspring of baby boomers, were in college. The first real black capitalists were becoming millionaires, black talent in high tech industries demanded attention black culture had crossed over and dominated popular music (Medina, 2017). Despite the investigation of numerous violations of the civil rights of black people, a commission laying blame on the LAPD was a foregone conclusion a Black man regardless of how dubious his innocence, how famous his history was going to be shafted (Martel, 2005). However, it was a complete surprise across America that O.J. was acquitted. Like his T.V. commercials and his football career, he slipped and slid, vaulted overturn styles, and made a touchdown in the red zone where it counted. For White America, the decision was a breakdown in the justice system. It was entertainment for Black America, who knew the justice system needed severe repair.
However, the problem of race relations started in America during the 1930s and 1940s. The period was marked by lynching, and mob violence was a constant and credible concern (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). Terrorization by police and groups, the Klan, or just angry mobs, was continued, especially in the South and to a lesser extent in the North. Moreover, access to capital to start businesses, own homes, or pay loans was restricted, and of course, travel was a dangerous and psychologically exhausting activity (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). Furthermore, Black people were not allowed to vote in most parts of the country through violence, intimidation, poll taxes, and elaborate literacy tests, thus giving them very little political voice.
Moreover, Black Americans were terrorized and completely lynched in the open by their fellow white men. Unfortunately, even the New Deal, enacted by then-President Franklin Roosevelt, barely helped Black people whereas, it helped whites a lot (DiTomaso, 2015). Therefore, the Black people were mistreated. However, even today, the Sundown towns still exist through hostile policing and harassment and neighbor and citizen behavior, if not explicitly stated intent, as any black motorist can tell the story. Many African American families do not simply move from one place to another without knowing something about the safety they can expect. In Battle royal by Ralph Ellison, the author reveals racism, race conflicts, and the reader is introduced to an African American’s ordeals during the 1930s.
The Negros across the southern U.S. experienced racial discrimination. Since 70% of them lived there, the state-supported such racial discrimination because the whites believed the blacks would overwhelm them in numbers (DiTomaso, 2015). Ellison insinuates that the Black Americans were mainly enslaved until 1865 (232). Many free black people were generally as free as whites, but the South suffered from slavery and later Jim Crow. This short story explicitly serves as a bridge for the black people to understand their life in American society during the 1930s and 1940s. Therefore, the report reveals to the black Americans how the Native Americans were semi-independent people on the frontier until they were forced onto the reservations.
On the other hand, white women gradually gained more freedom in the 19th Century but were not equal to men until the 1980s. Finally, the white American males gained more independence under Andrew Jackson, who pushed for universal manhood suffrage. Racism became more rampant as blacks and whites competed over the scarce manufacturing jobs (Nemeur & Azoui, 2019). The U.S. government bureaucracy and taxation system were not incredibly overbearing or developed. Arguably, a man living in 1890 had more control over his life than now.
Consequently, with racism, bigotry, and prejudice part of the American law and culture in the United States, it was a tough and challenging time for minorities. Jim Crow laws and lynching and terror by the Ku Klux Klan plagued the Southern States and other parts of the USA. In most United States areas, the phrase used was “last hired, first fired.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government fought for all Americans to get jobs, including Black Americans (Nemeur & Azoui, 2019). However, in disenfranchisement, blacks were locked up at a much higher percentage than whites (Smith, Howard, et al., 20). First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was an essential link between FDR and the African American community leaders. Most prominent was Mary McCleod Bethune, who had a friendly relationship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The military remained segregated until President Truman integrated the armed forces in 1948. However, despite the Tennessee Valley Authority’s promising to end discrimination, whites were more privileged than blacks regarding employment.
Consequently, Gerrymandering, the ability of the party in power to draw voter districts, basically nullified the votes of blacks that voted for the opposition (Nemeur & Azoui, 2019). The 1930s was when many people became interested in “eugenics,” or the belief in the need to manipulate reproduction to “purify” humanity. It was not an atmosphere in which the concept of racial equality found much fertile ground. Blacks in Mississippi continued to be second-class whites and had ongoing limitations imposed on their rights. Mississippi’s racial division has also been present from the territory’s initial settlement through the current time.
In the early 1800s, settlements and business relationships in the United States centered on cotton farming, which was difficult and required more help in fields. The constant effort to divide Americans along racial or class lines was a signature move of Marxism and was the cornerstone of the U.S. government (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). The slave trade in Mississippi delivered significant numbers of Africans used to fill this labor need in the cotton fields. Some enslavers took good care of their slaves, but others were abusive and sadistic, and some enslavers, who disputed this cruelty, also turned a blind eye to the white overseer’s harsh treatment of the enslaved people. The Mississippi culture has been stratified from the beginning, and these class divisions continue, although much more subtly. As far as education was concerned, most Caucasian parents were hesitant about allowing their children to go to public schools in the later years of elementary school due to heightened racism (Smith, Howard, et al. 40). The Works Progress Administration (WPA) discriminates against Black workers, making them live, survive, and go through hardships (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). Some whites are educated and successful but not aristocrats, lower-class whites, or “white trash.” The white population, with notable exceptions, was unified in the view of blacks as inferior to whites.
Furthermore, during the period leading up to the Civil War, there was increasing anxiety about the plantations’ viability and the state’s economic health (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). Also, blacks in Mississippi equaled or exceeded the whites’ population, much like South Africa’s situation during apartheid. Mississippi joined the Confederacy based primarily on their desire to continue slavery and keep blacks from political or social influence. Following the 13th amendment, the Black Codes limited Mississippi blacks’ activities and freedom (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). Again, the 1950s and 1960s triggered the fears present in the Civil War era that blacks would get out of “control” with dire consequences. The presence of activists from the North also triggered resentment. Again, all the cultural trends and beliefs about blacks have existed since the settlement of the Mississippi territory and have continued, with periods, like the Civil Rights movements when increasing tensions brought them to the foreground.
The bottom line is that racism was present in the 1930’s – in Mississippi and elsewhere. In Mississippi, the racial division has been embedded in the ethos of white culture as an integral part of the economic needs of early settlers (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). Interracial marriage was also illegal in most USA states until 1967 when laws prohibiting such marriages were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Relatively few White men were in the open, known relationships with Black women. However, if a Black woman did have children with a White man in those days, especially in the old Confederacy states, the father’s identity was mostly kept quiet in most situations. The relationship may or may not even have been consensual. The children were identified as Black and generally absorbed/assimilated fully inside the Black community and subject to the same discrimination and mistreatment common to that era.
In conclusion, between1930’s and 1940s was the worst for blacks, especially when the Southern Democrats ended the brief years of absolute freedom with new local laws after 1876, with thousands of lynchings. It was significantly worse than any other form of racism, often preceded by torture with being burned alive, not uncommon (Black, Johnson & VanHoose, 2015). However, the situation changed in that period, primarily by people blamed as racists with those who enforced the racism. The period was characterized by Mexicans who were readily shot or enslaved and dispossessed from their ranches, farms, and mines. The new element of Chinese workers treated much like slaves and killed/beaten or raped with impunity in California, and the American Indians who had much of their population dispossessed and starved to death if not killed outright.
References
Black, L. L., Johnson, R., & VanHoose, L. (2015). The relationship between perceived racism/discrimination and health among black American women: a review of the literature from 2003 to 2013. Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, 2(1), 11-20. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40615-014-0043-1
DiTomaso, N. (2015). Racism and discrimination versus advantage and favoritism: Bias for versus bias against. Research in Organizational Behavior, 35, 57-77. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191308515000076?casa_token=aWljdKeFPwQAAAAA:u3F0dKbPW4bGDBiMGUfRo8fSfQNwviX3M34IgSIqO0rspjSIMwuQqnbZm3Wr860Jg2-v_FWd
Nemeur, R., & Azoui, S. (2019). African Americans struggled for social justice during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
http://bib.univ-oeb.dz:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/9030/1/African%20Americans%20struggling%20for%20social%20jistice%20during%20the%20FDR%20presidency (Links to an external site.)
Medina J. (2017). As O.J. Simpson Wins Parole, a Quick, and Divided, Reaction. The New York Times. Retrieved
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/us/oj-simpson-parole-reaction.html (Links to an external site.)
Martel N. (2005). The Media and Race in O. J. Trial. The New York Times. Retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/arts/television/the-media-and-race-in-o-j-trial.html
Noble, Kenneth B. (1995). Issue of Racism Erupts in Simpson Trial. The New York Times. Retrieved
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/14/us/issue-of-racism-erupts-in-simpson-trial.html (Links to an external site.)
