midterm 1 [quizlet import]

including imported concepts and reading flashcards from quizlet (check overlap between lectures, readings)

Black Politics

Characterizes behaviours, ideals, and ideologies in societies where self-described African descended populations participate and deliberate over:

1. Distribution of resources

2. Modes of inequality

3. Racial identity and identification

4. Matters of power, justice, and equality.

Vectors of Black Politics

1. Formal/informal

2. Time/space

3. Intersectionality/solidarity

4. Respectability/fugitivity

Formal/Informal

Black Politics has a wider conception of "formal" b/c there is less participation in this sector

• Voting, legislature, policy, the state, etc
  Black Politics use this realm

• Pop culture, social movements, etc

• The state/formal politics cannot liberate, bring justice for Black people because its exclusionary

Time/Space

• Elements of racial dynamics

  • Not the measurement of political phenomenon

• Time is distributed unequally according to:

  • Race, gender, class

• Diaspora experiences

Intersectionality/Solidarity

intersectionality as the ways in which relative position of privilege and disadvantage intersect with hegemonic structures that end up positioning people differently
linked fate -> black ppl have sense that fates are tied together (collective identity/solidarity)

Respectability/Fugitively

ways in which white middle class norms infiltrate racialized ppls understandings of themselves and make them change behaviours to fit into societies

• originates from black women's struggle for civil rights
  "the outlaw status of black politics"

• revolutionary / liberatory basis of black politics bc slaves being caught were "stealing property" -> that property was themselves

Phases of BLM

1. After Trayvon

2. After Ferguson

3. The Third Reconstruction

Phase 1 of BLM

• After Trayvon
  "Stand Your Ground Law" in Florida used to acquit George Zimmerman -> when black woman uses same law to defend herself from abusive husband she is charged 20 years

• police killings of black ppl between 2012-2014 start protests

#SayHerName

Phase 2 of BLM

• Ferguson Missouri starts national movements
  Woodly's Four Characteristics of Ferguson

1. recursive trauma of Michael Browns killing

2. confluence of injustice (racial capitalism)

3. Established, black led social justice ecosystem (indigenous organizations)

4. Mobilization across USA (black activists w experience provide advice, support, planning)

Phase 3 of BLM

• Third Reconstruction 2020

• era of backlash (Trump) happens after reconstruction historically

• shift of opinions on BLM, protests increase all over world

Reasons for Third Reconstruction

1. covid -> ppl stuck at home, social media, sense of vulnerability leading to empathy

2. trump -> supported all lives matter, combative personality, BLM used other protests about trump

3. disappointment in democrats (biden being dem leader)

4. George Floyd video / recursive trauma

5. Minneapolis -> history of anti-fascist mobilizing and big network of radical progressive activists

6. Established infrastructures and messaging -> BLM organizations throughout USA that could mobilize across country

7. Police Response -> police were violent during protests which helped solidify police violence exists

Key themes of BLM in historical perspective

• challenges to state domination

• the potential of the law to fight for racial justice

• black knowledge production

• demands of / on USA democracy

• Novel modes / models of grassroot organizations

• internal debates/fissures

Key periods of resistance

1. abolition

2. NAACP and anti-lynching campaigns

3. civil rights movement

4. Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party for Self Defence

• 1966 lead by college students advocating

• 10 point program is direct action and clear message about police violence and black treatment in USA

The Abolition

• first transnational social movement of new world

• abolition of trans atlantic slave trade

• used black knowledge production (pamphlets, newspapers, stories) as network to help free slaves / underground rail road

NAACP and anti-lynching campaigns

• early 20th century southern states implement formal segregation in public spheres

• new form of slavery: share cropping

• after reconstruction era, KKK emerges and starts kidnapping and murdering black ppl
  -NAACP tries to bring bills to congress arguing that if black ppl could not exist safely all other rights did not matter

Civil Rights Movement

• challenges state domination and legal segregation

• new forms of grassroot organizations

• using law as tool for black liberation

External challenges of BLM

• rallying point for white supremacists / right

• democratic party's efforts divide pragmatists from radicals

• BLM during trump

• performative allyship and maintenance of momentum after 2020

Internal Challenges of BLM

• structure of BLM

• diff visions about working with political establishment

• legitimacy and accountability

• murky finances

Racial inequality and wealth

• income vs wealth -> wealth inequality high in non-white families

• racial wealth gap grows with age

• differences in earnings add up over lifetime and widen racial wealth gap

• disparities in homeownership persist and disadvantage black families

• black families have less retirement savings

• black families have more student loan debt

Explanations for racial wealth inequality

1. cultural pathology

• Daniel Moynihan argues black ppl are poor bc they have "culture" of poverty

1. structural determinants

• home ownership -> redlining, black ppl have less intergenerational wealth / inheritances (cant do down payments or pay off mortgages)

• income and employment -> hiring and workplace discrimination, black ppl dominant wage workers

• lack of inheritance

• college education -> disparities in completion rates, lower income students = lower quality schools, cost of college high

• social and cultural factors -> white ppl getting married increases wealth, opposite for black ppl

Reconstruction

• period after civil war where black ppl freed / gained more rights

• backlash from is, rise of KKK happens

• redemption of white supremacy, 2nd wave of slavery

The Great Migration

-black populations from the south move to northern urban areas to seek better economic opportunities and escape KKK / white supremacy

• in north still can't attend colleges, segregated schools, can't join labour unions

The New Deal

• federal reforms in 1930s to reduce hardship of great depression

• designers of "new deal" made it exclude black ppl so things to deal w poverty not available to them

The G.I. Bill

• post ww2 black veterans excluded from access to benefits (free higher education, home loans, pensions, etc)

• bill caused emergence of white middle class bc it allowed ppl who couldnt previously buy homes to do so

School Resegregation

• backlash at attempts to integrate schools

• some schools closed instead of having to integrate

• private schools and charters created for white middle and upper class fams to send kids to avoid sending them to school w black ppl

Discriminatory housing and lending policies

Redlining

Southern Strategy

• White southern dems angry over civil rights and abandon democratic party and move to republican party (origins of ideological split we see today)

Law and order and war on drugs

• penalties puts non-violent offenders in jail

• causes american prison population to explode

• black men center of this system of punishment

Welfare reform and poverty governance

• reagan administration brings neoliberal policies regarding welfare

• stereotype of "black welfare queen" -> strips welfare programs and benefits
  Supreme court decisions and affirmative action

• states with history of high black voters go through pre-clearances which is abolished by courts

• states enact voting restrictions after this is passed which purge voters

• affirmative action ends in 2023 so college cohorts less diverse

The American Dream

• need to rethink it as a racially coded construct

• it has been made possible for some but impossible for others

• black americans have had to practice democracy in ways non-black ppl havent which changes dominant narritives of USA

Black political ideologies

1. Radical Egalitarianism

2. Disillusioned Liberalism

3. Black Marxism

4. Black Nationalism

5. Black Feminism

6. Black Conservatism

Radical Egalitarianism

• early dr.king, ida b wells, early dubois

• critiques racism and the USA for living up to its ideal (we can be better, we are better than this)

• pressures society and state to achieve justice and support for strong central state that promotes and protects racial justice

• racism will disappear when white people see it as "morally bankrupt" / alliance with all good people important

Disillusioned Liberalism

• starts with USA is racist but redeemable then USA IS racist

• capitalism is problem

• white racism is entrenched bc they dont wanna give up benefits of being white

• unstable ideology and leads to marxism or black feminism

Black Marxism

• central / exploitative role of capitalist system

• emphasis on race and spirituality

• black freedom struggle as revolutionary

• skeptical alliances of white workers but seek alliance with others struggling from colonial regime

• black freedom struggle apart of global struggle

Black Nationalism

• black panthers and Malcom X

• all about autonomy

• america is racist
  -suspicious to allies outside of black community
  egalitarian liberalism tool of white oppressors
  Black Feminism

• intersection of race/gender/class

• if you want egalitarianism you must start with lowest people / most marginalized

• struggle against patriarchy and white feminism

Black Conservatism

• idea that appealing to state prevents progress which conflicts with progress of liberalism

• focus on economic development

• reject claim that black ppl have suffered special oppression in USA

• idea that things like DEI hinder progress towards racial equality bc it assumes there is equality, etc

Radical Black Feminist Pragmatism

• core ideology of BLM

• Deeva Woodly

• constitutive and substantive elements

Constitutive elements

1. pragmatic imagination -> taking theories of justice and applying them in the real world

• using imagination to see what justice looks like, what does it mean to live in just world, etc

1. social intelligence -> connecting old customs and habits to new conditions

• Function of decentralized leadership structure is way of correcting civil rights movement (focused on men)

1. liberatory aim -> freedom is constant struggle

• blm centred around future and liberation and change

1. democratic experimentation -> the movement itself aims to be democratic

• in blm how does everyone have a voice and how does everyone agree, etc

substantive elements

1. the political claim -> all black lives matter

2. radical mandate -> feelings of joy and anger are legitimate and appropriate

• intergenerational responsbility

1. intersectional lens -> dominate poweer arrangements are interconnected not additive

• eg can be white+poor+experience class oppression

• patriarchy and capitalism intersect to create certain subject positions relative to one anohter

1. margins to center ethic -> center voices of most vulnerable

• their needs first

Race

• not biology, neutral, ethnicity, universal, a fiction

• about power

• concept that emerged from modernity

• the cumulative effects of ideological, political, economic, and social practices of racial oppression, domination, and resistance

Wages of Whiteness

Poor whites see themselves as being more connected to elites than with african americans who share their class struggles

Double Consciousness

• paradoxical sense black americans feel about being black and american

• identity is not just about viewing oneself but how one thinks they are being viewed
  -black ppl have always had hyperawareness of how they are being perceived

Black life world

• dubois argues there are 2 worlds seperated by transparent veil

• black ppl able to see white world but white ppl cant see black life world

• problematic for democracy bc these 2 worlds are pitted against each other which deteriorates substance of democracy

Citizenship

• value of citizenship is that it is social status

• slavery is key institution that separates citizens from non-citizens (slaves as property not ppl)

• value of citizenship is its exclusivity

Whiteness

• a political status marked by shifting set of characterstics and access points that have changed over time

• you can buy into whiteness

Paradox of Citizenship

citizenship enshrines both equality and inequality

America's Democratic Paradox

democracy is:

• participation

• competition

• civil and political liberties
  BUT ALSO:

• contingent consent… what do winners and losers do after they win or lose?

• the fairness of the GAME

Hooker and democracy

• being good loser CRUCIAL for democratic stability

• dem sacrifice must be voluntary, equally shared, honoured -> black ppl havent experienced this

• democratic exemplary citizenship -> "appropriate protests"?

• the "perfectibility of US democracy" thesis -> idea that US is progressing slowly towards equality

• democratic repair/fugitive tradition of BP

Magic Actions (Haslett)

- white supremacy hurts everyone
- idea that if you are "good" protestor, police won't hurt you is NOT true
- MLK been used to reinforce ides that protests must be peaceful
- abolition not just reform

Introduction in Reckoning (Woodly)

- Obama's view of social movements as way to get you to the table/room to solve problems is incorrect
- social movements are necessary for survival and health of democracy
-politics of despair: feeling of hopelessness / sense that nothing will change no matter what
- argues complete theory of dem politics must include social movements as FIFTH ESTATE to check system

Chapter 1 in Reckoning (Woodly)

Four characteristics that made Ferguson catalyst for movements following murder of Michael Brown:
1. his killing represented recursive trauma for black americans
2. Ferguson was center of vivid convergence of racial and economic justice in form of anti-black extortionist schemes created by gov (eg community subject to routine and systematic exploitation of black residents by police to collect revenue for city -> RACIAL CAPITALISM)
3. St. Louis County had established organizing institutions / "indigenous organizations" that provided resources to create long lasting demonstrations
4. black activists w extensive social justice non profits experience mobilized from all over country to provide advice, support, etc

My President was Black (Ta-Nahesi Coates, 2017)

Obama presidency was miracle and contradiction:
- showed black achievement and possibility
- showed power of whiteness and nations refusal to come to terms with racial history

Obama's optimism and belief in USA allowed him to be successful politically but he needed to compromise for some things which left systemic racial issues untouched

Fear of a Black President (Ta-Nahesi Coates, 2012)

-argue obama holds most power through race
- irony of Obama as hes most successful black politician bc he avoids talking about race but his race made everything he did racialized
- When Obama spoke about Trayvon Martin he wasn't protesting, he was using federal power
- To be accepted as black president you don;t just have to be "twice as good" but also "half as black"
- obama presidency opposite of radical, barely discussed race

The Idea of America (Jones)

Black ppl foundational to idea of american freedom
- america founded on ideal and lie -> "all men are equal" and "endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights" doesnt apply to black ppl

democracy has been fostered on backs of black resistance

The Abolition of White Democracy (Olson)

Race isn't just identity and ancestry its active ongoing political project and system designed to distribute power, resources, and status UNEQUALLY

Reconstruction (Du Bois)

cross class alliance: after civil war there was potential for poor white workers and free black workers to team up against power structure
- ruling class needed smth stronger than shared economic hardship to prevent this: RACE
- wages of whiteness
- bipolar structure of black and white world demonstrates how main part of power system is whiteness

BLM and the Paradoxes of US Black Politics (Hooker)

Political theory exploring paradoxes of black politics in USA -> tension between democratic sacrifice and need for democratic repair
- black ppl have carried burden from losses disproportionately
-democratic sacrifice should be shared equally but it isnt
- Little Rock Arendt vs Ellison argument
- idea of black suffering being noble democratic sacrifice creates political trap that demands more pain from those already carrying burden

We need to stop expecting black citizens to be political heroes -> democratic repair should come from everyone, especially those who benefit the most