Take Home Test Question A
Yes it is clear that the founding fathers of the United States were nothing but some hypocrites and hypocritical racists. I think that the only way for the “whites” to gain power and control of the land was to make sure that they made the other races “lesser” to the “white people.” Slavery was all about money and the whites used that to bring in the money and when money rolls in so does power. Even today they still hold on to this power, for instance, I go to a huge university and it is not a big shock that the majority that go to the school are white. If there were some sort of huge conflict my friends would look at me in a different way.
Typecasts like “Every black man is scary” or “Black girls have attitudes” are altered assessments we as a community have on each other and other races. The community we live in is focused and created on race that there is racism not merely on diverse races nevertheless individuals of the identical race judging their own kind. Nevertheless no matter what race one is, you feel inferior when you are around a person that does not of your race. I believe ethnic groups are nothing but a way to look at differences in individuals. Humans hate for things to be dissimilar. Words like odd are used typically to label a person who might not look act or speak the way you do.
They were not sincere in their effort to be the “Great White Fathers” for the reason that the founding fathers saw nothing wrong with slavery when they mentioned, “All men are created equal, which was a contradiction. The founding fathers did not see black people as people but as way to achieve their American dream.” This dream was to use blacks through slavery in order to accomplish being rich. The slave owners like Thomas Jefferson believed that using Negros, as slaves would make them rich and for some.
We should not hold them in high esteem because the founding fathers saw no harm in slavery. The slave owners actually believed that if they used blacks in slavery that it would actually make them wealthy and that they could use their blood, sweat and tears to prosper. Takaki mentions “ROOTED IN THE very beginning of the United States in 1776 was a flaw. The Founding Father had professed the “self-obvious truth” that “all men are made equal,” nonetheless in 1787, they wrote the Constitution an establishment that indirectly made slavery legal: the amount of legislatures each state would refer to Congress would be concluded by the amount of “three fifths of all other persons,” and “free persons” and the code expression for slaves.” Takaki mentions this for the reason that individuals in this day and age appear to forget how Blacks were once three fifths of all other individuals for the reason that today an African American has the similar chances as a person that is white. Nonetheless I believe Takaki desires us to think about even though we are free lawfully; in people’s soul and mind they are free.
Bearing in mind the Native American and the African American experiences, should “we” should not hold onto the architects of this “great” nation as our founding fathers. Why? Well, I do not believe that the founders were sincere and also for the reason that dominating Negroes were activities of individual and greed aids. For instance, the founders did not give slaves rights, but then again “three fifths of all other individuals” provided the South control in Congress. This authority in the South guaranteed that slavery would be able to go on. Essentially the slaves were utilized as votes to make sure that slavery would stay lawful, in order for “whites” to continue to remain in power. As mentioned earlier they do not need to be founding fathers placed in high esteem because the world that we live in today, they would be highly against.
Even though racism still does exist in todays world, lawfully speaking all individuals regardless of what color they may be are considered to be equal. It is even interesting to note that some of the unlikeliest individuals in America are of color. Nevertheless this is not the world that the founding fathers intended when they recognized the Constitution. These days we are residing in a nation that is still based off superficial things such as the way a person may look or even the way that they talk, on the other hand in this great country anyone no matter what class or color has a chance to one day seizure “The American Dream.” As a person could look back to slavery and also the Trail of Tears, a lot of African Americans and Native Americans and would see the founding fathers as brutes, not in a sense of flesh-eating people but as thugs for cash. Takaki mentions, “After the Supreme Court ruled in 1832, that states could not lawfully lengthen their authority into Indian Territory, Jackson merely declined to impose the Court’s decision.” Now this basically shows the lack of distress the government had with guarding its people that were of a race that some individuals looked at as being barbarians. The Native Americans underwent a lot of pain in order to make their voices to be recognized. I really believe that Thomas Jefferson would be dissatisfied that Barrack Obama is president of the United States. More than likely Jefferson would look at Obama as someone that is incompetent of being able to hold the position. Takaki talks about how Jefferson looked at Black people as being “savage dogs”
Question C
Takaki describes the expression “Samba” as slaves that were ignorant and who were taught that they were not able of having any kind of feelings for themselves. Takaki makes the point, “Slaves were irresponsible, childlike, lazy, happy and affectionate.”
However, when it comes to the viewpoint of the white southerners Samba was considered to be real, but then again in reality it was really not. Takaki was the one that mentioned, “Everyone knows that if we love our horse, then we are going to treat them well, and if we treat him well, he will become docile obedient and gentle, and if this management has this result upon all the animal establishment then why can it not be said the same with having the exact similar effects when it comes to slaves. Slave owners were the ones that wanted to believe that their animal treatment technique would work because, “In actual fact, slaveholders were frightened by the Spector of slave uprising.” The certainty that you could just treat slaves as if they were actual animals was the approach that the southerners were thinking. Even if the slaves were dutiful to their vendors, it does not mean that they acted or showed how they actually felt. The personality of Samba was just a role which was played by a lot of the slaves. Takaki mentions, “Samba’s: they could have possibly been playing the role of faithful and friendly slaves with the intention of getting favors or to survive, while keeping their inner selves concealed.” These slave owners actually felt as though the slaves would need to be lesser to them, nonetheless fear is still a sentiment. Irrespective of the southerner’s traditions, which caused slaves to think that they did not have any kind of emotions, at the end of the day, they still had emotions. This act just exhibited how brainy the slaves truly were, but then again it furthermore displays how individuals will change the second they start feeling inferior to someone who basically looks different than them.
Take Home Test 2
1.) The group that struck my fancy was the Native Americans. They struck my fancy because they are a race of people that have endured genocide. From small pox, killing, being moved on reservations and then hunted down for annihilation. In American Holocaust, Stannard makes the estimation the total cost of the near-extermination of the American Indians as 100,000,000. Today there around 2 million Native Americans still alive today which is a huge decease from the time Christopher Columbus first step food on American soil.
The group that would serve as a model minority would have to be the blacks. Despite of the oppression blacks indeed did manage to rise to the top. Blacks lost their identity as a result of slavery. This is saying that they lost their language, names and culture. Families were broken up during slavery and even after the slavery life was no walk in the park because they had to endure extreme racism. However, today Blacks are very successful and talented group of people. What can be learned from this group as that they never gave up and they were a race of spiritual people that kept their eye on the prize which was their faith in the Lord. What we can learn from the other groups which were the Jews, Irish, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans as they were a group of resilient people that were determined to make it. All of them were passionate and tenacious groups that would not let anything get in their way. The Jewish people endured hatred and Anti-Semitism for over 2000 years but what we can learn from them is that they never denied their race or who they are as a people. What we can learn from the Asian Americans is in spite of hard times, they stuck together as a family especially during the war location camps that they were forced to go to. From the Mexican Americans we can learn how they are a hardworking and dedicated people that have stuck together throughout the trials and tribulations especially during the beginning of the century.
3.) By 2054 whites will be a minority and yes by this time, I believe that we will be a true multiracial society because by then everything will be mixed and their will also be a lot of interracial marriages. The social stratification will be more salient by then because people will still be classified into groups. As long as you have rich and poor there will be obvious stratification. I think that the vanguard of our society will not have to worry about a “giddy multitude” at some point because as the races mix with interracial marriages and have biracial children, it will not really matter. As far as race goes, as I just mentioned, it could become more of a melting pot like Brazil and it will not matter because people will be mixed. When it comes to gender roles will probably be more reversed. As long as there are rich, poor and middle class than that will not change much.
Works Cited
Takaki, Ronald. "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America." Back Bay Books, 2005. 1-560.
