AMST 201 Class Notes

AMST: Week 9 The Atomic Age

Technology influences Concern on Future

  • Lack of technology leads to anxieties (Jamestown) fishing with pan
  • Printing press; John Locke
  • Technology ushered a new era of anxiety

Worldwide Great Depression

  • 1920s - interconnectedness, colonial trade was interconnected with mass communication
  • Causes a ripple effect in the world
    • Great recession of 2010, employment rate was 10% and Americans were unable to find work causing panic
    • US government ensured this doesn’t happen again (money is safe even if bank collapses) because it is ensure by government
  • Economic collapse Responses
    • leads to changes in government
    • Austerity - cutting back your expenses; move in place with cheaper rent
  • con: unhappiness
    • Stimulus - spend money during economic depression by getting loans
  • United States does this

World War II

  • US enters World War
  • Split into two different types of nations
    • One side - free world (democratic world)
    • Other side - willing to pursue idealism, fascism
  • Nazi Germany needs access to resources for his people; wants to control all of Eastern Europe
  • Italy wants to recreate the Roman Empire and most of Africa
  • Japan needs resources
  • US is protected by “distance” of oceans
  • Main threat to Japan is the United States
    • Pearl Harbor, united states loses many ships, leads to declaration of war against Japan

European War Over 1945

  • Strong Ally the Soviet Union
  • Soviet are surprised attacked by Germany, so war is started
  • Japanese told Americans they would never surrender
  • Pursues plan called “Island Hopping”: jump island to island until reading Japan to conquer it
    • problem: slow, tiring, costly of Americans plan
  • The Manhattan Project 1930s-1940s
    • Einstein offers team of scientists work on this project
    • Build world's first atomic bomb
    • 100,000 people secret project
    • 1945 - Americans completed the project of how to split an atom for the atomic bomb

Atomic Bomb Debate

  • Should America drop the Bomb?
    • Kill many people
    • Stop island hopping, save American lives, end war quickly
  • Truman agrees to drop the bomb to end war - Hiroshima
  • Reiko Watanabe, 12 years old was at a field trip
  • Second atomic bomb in Nagasaki, Japan, sign surrender documents, war ends
  • Aftermath
    • Caused 30 million russian lives
    • 400,000 Americans died in war
    • Felix Morley: pulitzer winning journalist; gives a speech August 29, 1945 after atomic bombs were dropped
  • Atomic bomb was seem as an eminently laudable achievement of American inventiveness and scientific skill
  • Americans are terrified
    • Louis Stolin: los alamos scientist
  • Victims of atomic bomb die of radiation that affects the blood forming tissues in the bone marrow; Infection prospect and the patient dies
  • Doesn’t want eradication of his species
    • The US Public: 1947 polls in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
  • It should be kept by the United States
  • Americans worry other nations would use atomic bomb on them
  • Soviets get atomic bomb after 4 years
    • William Faulker: win 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature
  • Question: When will i be blown up?
  • World is afraid

Anxiety

  • Antidemocratic nation is the main enemy in Europe
  • USSR gets atomic weapons 4 years after in 1949
    • United States then creates hydrogen bomb
    • fusion bomb - taking two atoms and smashing them together creating bigger reaction; Soviet steal this idea one year later
    • “MAD” - will not drop the bomb because they know Soviet have bomb also
  • 1950s - anxieties about use of nuclear weapons in Hollywood movies (Godzilla, On the Beach)
  • Fail-Safe The First Strike Argument: Sends message to pilot telling pilot to drop bomb on Moscow (mistake) yet Soviets blocked the message saying it is a mistake
  • Solution to Americans’s anxiety
    • Tell people they can survive (defend one’s home) by building fallout houses or underground shelter
  • Government policy, however not funded by the government
  • Tied to citizenship and family: extension of “home”
  • People living in suburbs would survive (whites)
  • Does not work, government already knows this but want them to feel sense of security
    • Add the awesomeness of the atom to pop culture
  • Find out what it can bring to civilization
  • People create “odd” culture when anxious
  • Symbol: putting name on everything
  • April 22,1952: Atomic Craze begins
  • Las Vegas - nuclear bomb testings every 2 weeks
    • Ensure americans won’t be killed because they time when it will be dropped
    • Impacts St.George, Utah: blisters on skin, scalp and skin on fire, killed by disease (leukemic, bone cancer)
    • Radiation Compensation Act; 50,000 for every people in family that passed away

AMST: Week 9 The Red Threat

United States becomes obsessed with fighting communism in the 1940s - 1950s

  • communism
  • Communism isn’t capitalists: capitalism is a system of privately owned goods (trade)
    • believed capitalism was unfair to the mass majority of people (only few have lots of money, and other people at the bottom who have few money)
  • Karl Marx and Federick Engels: wrote of new system of government and society, communism
    • Hope that communism will encourage people to eliminate capitalism, private property
    • Communism = no private property
    • Property is owned by government and more equality between community
    • Socialism: private property still exists; idea you’re going to create a fair society and fair economy; no huge gap between poor and rich
  • Joseph Stalin: communist
  • Different types of communism
  • Soviet Union is communist economy and US doesn’t want to go to war with them
  • facism: capitalist economy still run by central political party
    • Fascists and communists hate each other
    • See communists being led by Jews (Adolf Hitler), make sure communism doesn’t spread so he promises Soviet Union to evade France, UK
  • Adolf Hitler couldn’t invade England, so he turns and invades Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa)

End of Second World War

  • Europe is in crisis
  • Fall of totalitarian governments in Italy and Germany
  • Everyone wants peace after second world war
  • buffer countries: turn into communist
  • Marshall Plan: gives democratic governments in Europe after the Second World War money to help rebuild their economies, bridges, roads, etc.
  • NATO (UK, France, Italy): alliance says that if any country is attacked by any other state, all countries have to go to war with the country that attacked
  • Warsaw Pact (Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Poland)
  • China even before the Second World War was having civil war in itself, between communist and capitalist
    • 1949: China falls to the communists and becomes people’s republic of China
  • 1950s: North Korea invaded South Korea; take over Korean Peninsula (fought for no reason)
  • Capitalist: pro democracy, pro United States
  • Communist: one party totalitarian control under the Soviet Union

American Public embraced anti communism in 1950s

  • At a time, communism seem to be attracted to lots and lots of Americans as opposed to capitalism
    • Great Depression: worst failings of American capitalism
    • Stock market crashes: people out of work
  • People are in a midst of lots of media that is telling them to be afraid of the Soviet Union and communist living
    • FBI starts funding TV programs and movies that are explicitly anti-communist, trying to convince Americans that communism is bad
  • the red menace
    • Democracy: ruled by all people
    • Only truth is communist party: want to overthrow by force and violence
    • Communist party in USA demand arrest of murders
    • FBI is funding propaganda film to make public believe that communism is horrible and that the Us should remain capitalist and democratic

Joseph McCarthy

  • 1940s: wasn’t well liked, senator
  • 1950s: republicans had fundraisers big, but he had a small one because he wasn’t well liked
  • Gives political speech
    • Cold War: communist atheism, capitalist that are Christian
    • Losing war because by ourselves, not communism
    • Blame of being in a position of impotency towards people who work in the government (calls them traitors); they are communist which was seen to be bad at the time
    • Accusing Americans working with the federal government of being traitors
  • McCarthyism: Don’t want to be seen as different; image of perfect American life is portrayed
    • Consequences towards those who are different: gay men, lesbian women, women who work outside
  • 1950s: right to investigate anything
    • Political figures suspected of being communist (Henry Truman)
    • Accuses secretary of defense, media (Edward Murrow), US military (was seen was very disrespectful)
    • Majority of Other senators vote him he is using wrongful tactics
  • Ends up becoming an alcoholic because no one believed him
  • Red scare (communist are often associated with the color red); Americans do believe there is a communist conspiracy
    • Both political parties become anti communist parties
    • Anything that seems out of the ordinary, or deviant, these people were considered threats to American way of life; however, it didn’t stop people from challenging the status quo

Changes that occurred

  • Led to many states putting go to place a loyalty oath for anyone who wants to work for the government (still exists today)
  • Country starts publicly showing their religions: “a christian nation”
    • 1956: “In god we trust” declared national motto
    • 1950s: Nation starts thinking of having Judeo Christian heritage
  • Walt Disney didn’t want unions to form, tried hard to not allow workers to raise wages

Anxieties

  • What caused anxieties during the Cold War?:
    • rise of communism (Soviet Union has access to create nuclear weapon)
    • Atomic bomb/nuke killed people, causing people to be killed by radiation, destroyed land
    • anxieties grow because of religion: congress adds “under god” to pledge of allegiance and “in god we trust” on dollar bills; rise of christianity

AMST: Week 10 Deviant Youth

Generation

  • Americans have long viewed other generations as suspect
  • Definition of “Generation” can change
    • Generation a social construction
  • By 1950s, definition of “teenager”
    • Focus on adolescence: post puberty, but don’t know ramifications of adulthood
    • Concept of teenager was developed in 1950: see themselves different as their parents
    • adulthood: depends on what age puberty is hit
  • Were teens acting differently?
    • Do not picture themselves as the same people as their parents
    • Teenagers are consuming things; influenced by: social media, manufacturers, ads target teenagers
    • How did they make money and what did they spend it on?: jobs at fast food joints, women babysit, allowances (covenant between parents and children: get money if behaving well), print
  • If so, why? And were they becoming delinquents?

Teenage Culture

  • Postwar prosperity
    • GI Bill - 1944: serve in the US Army, air forces, loan interest bill, subsidies (award for military service)
    • GI Bill → Affluence society building
  • Postwar baby boom (1945-1960s)
    • 80 million baby boomers
  • Changing ideas of education
    • Some kids didn’t go to school because they needed to work for family
    • Increase in highschool attendance

The New Consumer

  • Teenage males: cars
  • Popular OC spots for teenagers
    • Drive ins, skate ranch, santa ana stadium, food spots
    • 60% regularly date in 1950s, now is 30%
    • Prom in highschool
  • How far is proper (1955) in terms of dating
    • “Only kiss” - 11%, “light becking” - 10%, “petting” - 18%, “anything they want” - 60%
    • Can date on school nights - 53%
  • School consolidation: combine two schools and make them one
    • Said to get Education gets better, however mixing different races for the first time
  • Culprits
    • 1957 FBI figures
  • Tenneragers commit: 54% of all burglaries
  • 67% of all auto thefts
  • 9% of all aggravated assaults
  • 4% of all murders
    • Juvenile delinquency: causing crime in american statistics
  • Public opinion by: juvenile delinquency third greatest concern, after National defense and world peace
  • From 1950 to 1955 crimes committed by teenagers jumped by 45%
    • Rock n roll and movies
    • Comic books

Comic Book America

  • Seduction of the innocent, 1954
    • Says that Media (comic books) are destroying teenage minds
    • Sexualize people: lead them to have sex easier
    • Says comic books are violent
  • Old concerns
    • Sex
    • Including homosexuality
  • New ones
    • Violence (crime + horror)
  • Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to investigate juvenile delinquency
    • 80 million comic books are being sold every week: huge comic book industry
    • Wertham testimony
    • Comics code authority, 1954
  • ex. Policemen, judges, government officials and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way to create disrespect for established authority
  • Ex. no comic magazine shall not use the words horror or terror in the title
  • ex. All characters should be dressed reasonably acceptable to society
  • Comic books were allowed to be sold if it had this code
    • Self regulation

So What?

  • Postwar Americans focused on youth, too
    • Belief that media could influence and harm
    • Bigger families did not equal family control
  • In this era, all sorts of Americans seek power
    • Not just based on race, or gender, or sexuality
    • Power is based on generation

AMST: Week 12 The Mystique - The Beginnings of Second Wave Feminism

Betty for Dan Book

  • Background: talks about life in 1950s, she is a wife with children and background in journalism, went to great schools
  • Speaks about how many women who are housewives in america feel kind of lacking fulfillment in their daily lives
    • Says that popular culture and societal culture in the 1950s is telling woman that they can only find fulfillment by being a wife to their husbands and mothers to their children
    • Only find satisfaction by child rearing, and home wife
    • Says how this causes a lot of anxiety among women themselves
  • Says women themselves are victims of a false belief system that require them to find identity and meaning in their life based on men
    • Purpose in life: be wife and have children

Why the 1950s?

  • Betty Friedan in 1957 goes to an event
  • Encourages women to pursue other passions that make them filled outside the home; work or find employment

Helen Gurly Brown

  • Write books called sex of the single girl
  • Talks about being dissatisfied with her marriage; first chapter talks about how being married in the late 30s was pretty rare
  • Says that women ought to embrace fulfillment in their work, but also through sex
  • Says it’s possible to be a women and not be married
    • Fight the feminine mystique by getting a college education, career, and not be married
  • Moral code changed: a girl simply is not ruined if she’s had an affair before being married
    • Single girl can only have a rich full life if she has a man; but this is not true
    • Much happier with many men than just one
  • Not encouraged women to be sexual beings, but if they want to it’s not a big deal (1950s: women were seen to be virgins)
  • Book is controversial to Americans
  • Sees herself as a feminist
  • Feminism: bring about equality for both men and women in American society the 1950s and 1960s; both feminist believe feminism is also super important for men

Feminism involves men, too

  • Friedan believes feminism is liberating not just to women, argues that once feminism is accepted by all people, including men, it can be liberating for the other half of the population
  • Women can be coworkers with men, have sexual, romantic, and professional relationships with men
  • Friedman says the feminism can liberate both sexes
    • If you can bring about the end of this kind of war in the sexes, you can bring true human sexual liberation of all humanity (no gender norms, no Barrie’s divining men and women)

Second Wave Feminism

  • There is a wave analogy because they like to talk about the feminist progress that doesn’t come in a straight line
  • First wave feminism: 19th century to mid 1920s
    • Interested in the political rights of women
    • Suffrage for Right to vote - 19th amendment in all states
  • Second wave of feminism: still interested in changing and creating more political rights for women, but it is much more focused on culture and cultural rights for women
    • Breaking down cultural barriers and stop them from becoming full citizens and recognized
    • Challenges American culture and patriarchy
    • Women were excluded
    • Large institutions (college, business, medical) how people come to understand and respect women in these institutions
  • Patriarchy in 1950s
    • 1969: women are admitted to attend colleges like yell, and Princeton and Harvard in 1977
    • 1973: woman can serve on juries and all states
    • 1974: credit card companies must issue cards to women without husbands signature (women were given pink cards)
    • 1976: women are animated into military Academy
    • 1978: pregnancy, discrimination act in the workforce
    • 1993: spousal rape is criminalized in all 50 states
    • 2010: sex discrimination, and health insurance eliminated
  • Demanded access to abortion (1960s), women try to change culture by becoming more interested in larger industries like the press
  • Ms Magazine: feminist used this terminology to show how one’s marriage status did not matter 1960s
    • Showed how woman had many responsibilities, and perhaps more than men
    • Gloria Steinem: Talks about sisterhood or uniting woman
    • Woman talk about the truth of abortion
    • Ms. Wonder woman for president: talks about how women are capable enough to run for president
    • Women do majority of housework and how this should change
    • Women and body hair

Feminism being found Insulting

  • Political ideology, race, class, sexuality
  • Feedback on book by Betty Fierdan Feminist Mystique: felt personally judged
  • Feminist fractures in the feminist movement: woman who don’t consider themselves feminist
    • Conservative women: such as Phyllis Schalfly - most famous for a crusade she launched in the 1970s against ERA (equal rights amendment)
  • Main goal for second wave feminist movement: challenging laws, and regulations and norms of society; but also pass a constitutional amendment that would prohibit discrimination of women and add it to the constitution
    • Very close to being successful of discrimination against women amendment
    • Phyllis Schalfy argued against it - ERA won’t give women anything that they’ve already got: it will take away from women some of the important rights we have (women are exempt of the draft)
    • Says women should not pursue full equality because woman will lose certain privileges and rights that they currently have (the draft)
    • Feminist will argue that it will allow access to women that want to serve in the front lines or other force workforces like academies
  • Women of color: Francis
    • Critiques liberal white feminism
    • Says it overlooks how African American women particularly understand their role in society
    • Says that most black women have had to work to help house feed and clothe their families; black working force; black women were never afforded such phony luxuries
    • Says the Betty complaining about being a housewife is kind of how white people complain of having luxuries in their life
    • African-American jobs are on the lower side of society; want more feminism that is tied to race and sex and gender
    • Main issue: Liberal feminism is ignoring race
  • Lesbian women
    • Once lesbians start joining the feminist movement, there’s a big push towards liberal feminists to make sure that they’re not given a platform or kicked out of the movement
    • Homophobic: Betty - calls lesbians a lavender menace which in du roasted lesbians
    • Women identified women 1970s: Radical lesbians - agree with liberal feminist, but the term of lesbians was given to them by sex roles in society
    • Break down about what type of people they can love

So what?

  • feminism is another anxiety and American life
  • Anxieties like feminism impact communities and when they aren’t fulfilled they lead feminist to rethink if they will be content to live in a world that is made in the way it is
  • Inspired feminist to do something to change their lifestyle
  • First wave of feminism wasn’t enough for many women because it was also about culture not just politics
  • Second wave feminism(s): liberal and conservative, African American, and lesbian feminism have their own ideology

AMST: Week 12 Divided Sisterhoods

Feminism in Three Perspectives

  • Betty Friedman - “liberal feminism”
    • Pass ERA (women to be equal citizens): because it is hard to repeal
  • Helen Gurly Brown - “cultural feminism”, “sex positive feminism”
    • Stay single - less housework, better sex, self-sufficient, women should try to please men (reciprocal arrangement), women should have fulfillment
    • Disadvantage of being single - work a lot more
  • Phyllis Schlafly - “conservative feminism”; controversial
    • doesn’t support ERA (equal rights amendment) because she says women are privileged such as not being drafted

Framing Issue: focuses on one type of women (white middle class women)

Divisisions: race, sexuality

  • Frances Beal - black women always have to work
  • Lesbians - being rejected not only from white male society, but from the feminist movement as well; radicallesbians - stop trying to love men

So What?

  • Cold war anxiety led Americans to question totality of their lives
    • Not just about whether you’re going to die, but the quality of your life
  • Women citizens after 19th amendment (1920)
    • Feminism about more than politics….culture matters
  • Feminisms - division on priorities

AMST: Week 13 American Immigration History

Immigrants

  • English at Jamestown - looking for goods
  • Puritans - fleeing religious persecutions
  • Africans - forced to go to United States

19th Century Immigration

  • Northern and western Europe: Antebellum Nativism
  • Asia: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
  • Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe: Literacy Test, National Quotas, “Asiatic Barred Zone”

NORTHERN and WESTERN EUROPE

  • 1840 - 1860 = Huge Urban Growth
    • NYC 312K → 805K 158% +
    • Philly 220K → 565K 156% +
    • Boston 93K → 177K 90% +
  • Irish
    • 1.5 million Immigrants by 1860: around 40% of all immigrants till 1920
    • Original population: 9 million people
    • After 20 years the population is 4 million people
    • Left for economic reasons, famine, opportunity
    • Lived on small farms, little food to eat
    • Going to the US: want to make money in the city (factories), manual labor jobs
    • Only group whose majority immigrant population are women (60%)
    • Women are able to find stable work in domestic service (nannies, maids)

80% of domestic service are Irish immigrants

    • Irish are catholic living in catholic communities: Americans do not like catholics (dangerous/different religion)
  • German
    • 1 million immigrants by 1860
    • The German Belt - smaller cities
    • Skilled workers who want to live away from people; middle-class
    • Chicago in 1850: 60% are artisans
    • Religion: majority come from Protestant faith (easier integration in life than Irish)

Nativism

  • Complaints of “alien menace”
    • Immigrants racially “inferior” - corrupted politics
    • Stealing jobs
    • Political loyalty: Irish are seen as not politically loyal
    • Religious anxieties
    • More prone to crime: more crime due to immigrants
    • Pauperism (especially Irish): meaning poverty; think they will get welfare from the state, food stamps as well
    • Substance abuse (alcohol)
    • “Know Nothing Party” - Native American or American Party: gained political power
  • Lincoln on Nativism, 1855
    • Not a “Know Nothing”

ASIA

Gold Rush

  • Demographics of Chinese Immigrants
    • By 1880: 105,000 (mostly men; low number compared to other immigrants)
    • Occupations: miners (didn’t end up working well for them), garment factories, railroads, farming, restaurants, laundries
  • Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
    • Suspended Chinese immigration for ten years
    • Declared Chinese immigrants ineligible for naturalization

CENTRAL, EASTERN, and SOUTHERN EUROPE

Italians

  • In 1890s, 600K immigrants
    • By 1920, 4 million
  • Lack of access on working way up of economic ladder
  • Most immigrants are men and decide to leave Italy during the Summer and return back in the Winter
    • want to stay in Italy (stay less than a year)
  • 20 million worth of Italian- American
  • Send money back to home country for family but must remain Italian - remittance
  • Italians who stayed made more money

Jewish Americans

  • 1880-1920, 2 million immigrants come from Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania
  • Closed off, live next to one another
  • Different from italians: Come in family groups, enter the US and want to be a part of the US/politics
  • Especially centered in New York

1917 and 1924 Immigration Act

  • Literacy test
  • National quotas (2%) - only 2% of immigrants from specific destination
  • “Asiatic barred Zone”
    • Excluded Philippines: part of the US empire

Mid 20th Century

  • Preference system: 75% family, 20% employment, 5% refugees
    • But no “line”
  • 1942: Bracero Program - mexican immigrants are allowed to live in farms, in Texas, New Mexico, California
    • Huge labor demand
    • Emma and Ramiro Ramos (South Texas)
  • 1965 Immigration Act
  • 20,000 cap for any 1 country
  • Irony: new caps on western hemisphere
  • Most immigrants come from Mexico starting in 1980s

California Prop 187

  • Governor Pete Wilson’s administration releases a report
    • Claims immigrants will contribute to a $20 billion budget gap in California by 2002
  • Activists from being proposing laws to curb immigrations
    • “Save our state”
  • October 16, 1994 - Activists march on LA City Hall
    • Largest demonstration since Vietnam protest

So What?

  • With 2 major exceptions, the US = an immigrant nation
  • “Nationality”
    • A lens: like race, gender, class, sexuality, social construct

AMST: Week 14 Gun Culture (Week 14 readings on Exam)

Mass Shooting - Douglas High School

American anxieties with gun ownership

Average American Gun Owner

  • Male? - 74%
  • White? - 82%
  • Married? - 60%
  • Has Children? - 40%
  • Lives in the South? - 44%
  • Aged 50-64? - 30%
  • Republican? - 51%
  • Lives in Suburbs? - 45%
  • Has some college education or graduated college? - 55%
  • Owns guns for protection? - 48%
  • Owns guns for hunting? - 32%
  • In favor of background checks for private and gun show sales? - 79%

Why do Americans love their guns?

  • America is one of the heavily armed nations in the world
  • Gun control: limited gun possession
    • Webster definition: regulation of the selling, owning, and use of guns; doesn’t mean stopping access to guns
  • 1521 - Spanish conquest of Aztecs (had two major weapons: disease killed 90%, firearms)
    • Had access to firearms (didn’t colonize with just this because their firearm wasn’t well) - North America

Massachusetts Colony Gun Laws, 1630-1650 (Puritan populations)

  • No shooting guns for the fun of it after the night watch was in place (loud, protection of colony)
  • No loaded weapons allowed openly in populated areas
  • Weapon size and capacity to be regulated (no ownership of canons, or too much ammunition)
  • When publicly procured guns were restored to citizens, an account to be submitted to the Auditor General (gun registry to know how many firearms were sold and know where their guns are)
  • Heavier arms unavailable to citizens for any reason whatsoever
  • No sale of gunpowder to anyone outside Massachusetts (fear of enemy owning guns - Native Americans, Catholics, Enslaved people, servants who are angry at their masters)

Connecticut (1643) + five other colonies

  • Not allowed to have guns in public places → “at least one adult man in every house to carry a gun to church or other public meetings”
    • need for protection

South Carolina (1743)

  • Citizens must own guns to safeguard against “insurrections and other wicked attempts” of Negroes and other Slaves
    • worried about slaves and Negroes owning guns and taking over white masters

The 2nd Amendment (Constitution)

  • A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed
  • James Madison - Federalist 46: states have subordinate power to rise up with militias (national guard)
  • Federalist 29: we have militias that are armed, but all the citizens should assemble once or twice a year; every citizen should be mandatory be part of a military

The Wild West Wasn’t Lawless

  • First law of Dodge City, KS in 1878: there should be no gun ownership; the carrying of firearms if strictly prohibited
  • # of killings by guns each year? - 4 people are murdered
  • have gun control for safety, security, and people (need people to move to the West)
  • banning guns

Slave Codes and later Black Codes

  • 1833 Georgia Law: not be lawful for any free person of color in this state, to own or use or carry firearms of any description
  • Ossian Sweet murder trial, 1925: white people were objecting to Blacks moving into the neighborhood; white citizens surround house and fires two bullets into crowd, where him and his family were taken to trial
  • Central Tenet of the 20th century Civil Rights Movement? Martin Luther King
    • Concealed carry permit application - Sheriff and county judge determination: “unsuitable” for gun ownership
  • Robert F Williams, Liberation 1959: All negroes must learn to fight back, for nowhere in the annals of history does the record show a people delivered from bondage by patience alone.

Gun Advertising Changes (1900s -

  • 1900s-1910s: Promoting safe gun (can be around child due to safety lock)
  • 1920s-1930s: to kill something for hunting
  • 1940s: shoot for freedom, defend yourself, train youngsters
  • 1950s: men should learn to use rifle
  • Other anxieties: people should be armed because of the people beside you

Early Anti-Rape Organzing (1979)

  • Nikki Craft: in order for men to respect women, they must arm themselves
  • Best way to defend yourselves is with guns; women armed for self-protection

SO What?

  • American gun culture, developed not because the gun was exception, but because it was not
  • Long perceived as unexceptional commodity
  • Could, and long believed, face regulation
    • Some of the regulation wasn’t all traditional “gun control”
  • Gun culture: gun cultures, gun controls too

AMST: Week 14 Harassment & Consent

The 1990s

Liberal Feminist: middle class white women fell disconnect of being in the house; want more opportunities they can pursue on their own; equal society

Generation conflicts

  • Do we need feminism anymore
  • Felic Schwartz's (1989 article) - Management Women and the New facts of life
    • Women feel pressured to “climb” economic ladder
    • Career primary - climb ladder at corporation you're at, get paid and promoted
    • career family → mommy track
    • Argues that Woman's place is to be in the home

“Mommy track”: primary caregivers of their children

Childhood support and welfare “queens”

  • Stay at home mother the ideal
  • Linda Taylor - “Welfare Queen”: accused of draining welfare
  • 1996 - President Clinton changes federal welfare: 5 year time limit, work requirements (paycheck deduction for social security fund), penalties
  • 1971 - Comprehensive Child Development Act: poorest Americans do not have to pay in childcare; created childcare after school programs with dental, medical covered
    • Passed by Senate and House
    • Nixon Vetoes - says it is “the most radical piece of legislation to have crossed my desk”
  • Society is raising children

Abortion

  • 1970s - Supreme Court rules abortion is a constitutional right for women
  • Roe v. Wade solves nothing
    • You can never ban women on abortion in the 1st trimester of pregnancy
    • Restrictions on abortion on second three months
    • Third trimester - ban abortion
  • 1992 - planned parenthood vs Casey (undue burden)
    • Pennsylvania law restrictions: 24 hour wait, if under 18 you need parental consent, informed consent, spousal consent if married (no longer legal)
    • Dob - no planned parenthood; states can have different laws on abortion

Military - VMI 1997, 8-1 decision

  • Golf war is monumental for women roles in 1990s

Lesbian Chic - concerns about their children

  • Sharon Bottoms 1996: has son (Tyler) out of wedlock at the age of 18
    • Husband was no help
    • Tyler partially raised by grandma
    • Sharon decides she is no longer interested in men; accused of being a criminal because she is living in an “active homosexual relationship” (she is supported from child for being lesbian)
  • Can only visit 2 days a week
  • Tyler is forbidden from Sharon’s home
  • Tyler is forbidden from Sharon’s current or future romantic female partners
    • Grandma sues

Harassment

  • A New Justice
    • June 1991: Thurgood Marshall retires: historic justice, “diversity” pressure
    • Clarence Thomas: qualified by ABA, liberal groups upset over stance on AA and abortion, given a hearing
  • Anita Hill
    • Works for government Department of Education (for Clarence Thomas) - sexual harassment begins
    • All white men judges - senate didn’t understand issue of sexual harassment
    • Clarence Thomas: talks about pornography, repeatedly asks for Anita to go out; when it his time to speak he says he didn’t do anything and denies everything
  • Christine Blasey Ford
    • A new justice, but different
    • Like Thomas, first set of hearings complete without major controversy
    • Sept 16, 2018: Ford’s allegations become public
  • High school party: Judge Brett Kavanaugh accused of sexual assault

So What?

  • By 1990s, a new culture develops around feminism and womanhood (visability, acceptance)
  • Communication is Key
    • Women stay silent because they are afraid of being pushed back and are scared
    • 2 professors accuse future SCOTUS justices of sexual harassment and assault
    • Hush of secrecy about alleged sexual violence
  • More women are elected in Congress for federal positions from 1990s - today
  • Continued stereotypes and political issues
    • Welfare queens, abortion politics, sexual harassment

AMST: Week 15 Artificial Intelligence

AI is a tool.

  • Definition: “AI is a piece of human intelligence, placed in the physical world”

AI History

  • “Real” AI is coming in the next 5-10 years, since about 1950
  • Tangible advances in “intelligent” digital tools have been made
  • This usually depends on three things:
    • New algorithmic techniques developed
    • Greater compute power
    • Clever use cases identified
  • Gartner Hype Cycle
    • Technology trigger → peak of inflated expectations → trough of disillusionment → slope of enlightenment → plateau of productivity
  • “AI is whatever hasn’t been done yet”
  • AI effect: something that is found to be used a lot more and common isn’t seen to be AI anymore (google search)

AI is always biased

  • False myths: AI is neutral, AI is fair, AI is smart
  • How does it work?
    • In most forms today, AI systems are statistical models (based on probabilities) so they aren’t super exact
    • So complex that: the humans building them are building around the,, tuning system parameters and inputs rather than formulas
    • AI explainability isn’t understood

Cat AI - How does it work?

  1. Photo of cat
  2. Analyze the parts of the photo.
  3. Randomly guess yes/no for “cat” (50/50)
  4. Get told by operatory “that was/wasn’t a cat”
  5. Do that 100x
  6. Try to figure out what about those parts of the photo matter for “is it a cat”
  7. Do that 100x,,,1000x..100000x
  8. AI gets close to 99% right.
  • Cat AI limitations: we need a lot of images of cats, images need “labeled data”
  • Is Cat AI “thinking”? : it looks at pixels, recognizes pattern in differences between each pixel and the pixel immediately around it
    • Doesn’t think like a human
  • Importance of training data
    • As humans, we can be told what a cat is once or twice, and we know it for life.
    • Biased biased on training data
    • AI systems aren;t just extending gender and racial biases in facial recognition

AI accelerates inequality

  • AI and Capitalism
    • AI is a tool, but a very expensive one
    • To try to reap the massive rewards of an AI advancement, you need massive amounts of capital to start
    • AI is a tool, that replaces other tools
    • AI is a tool, to replace human jobs: like other productivity improvements

AI and labor

  • AI’s biggest labor cost is the training data
  • AI is also being trained on workers’ data in all fields, without compensation

AI consumes the Environment

  • Raw materials removed
  • Often unregulated
  • “Scorched earth” approaches
  • Manufacturing: Hardware needs to be made, factories build and run, transportation of materials, building of waste
  • Energy: up to 20% of global energy use at the end of the decade could be for computers, often not renewable sources


So, why do we need to do these things?

  • China’s Rise: China has massive state-directed investment in AI and Quantum Computing
  • China’s advantages - a command and control single party state
  • Loose privacy laws + massive amounts of data = unprecedented training sets
  • State sponsored AI systems not available in the US
  • Fear: great asymmetrical advantage could lead to
    • Military ineffectiveness (autonomous weapons, compromised communications, advanced strategies)
    • Economic chaos
    • Social instability

The Singularity

  • Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): think generally about things
  • Explosion of AGI (superintelligence)

AMST: Week 15

Jamestown: Thomas(ine) Hall

  • Born Thomasine in England around 1600
  • Brother drafted around 1624, returns as Thomasine
  • 1627: Becomes indentured servant
  • Accused of fornication
    • Leads to numerous strip searches
    • Quarter court of virginia
    • Punishment - wearing both sex clothing in Jamestown

Reconstruction: Frances Thompson

  • 1866 Memphis Riots
  • 50 + black citizens killed
  • 8 black churches and schools burned
  • Thompasn raped. Called to testify in front of Congress
  • 1876: arrested for “crossdressing” (wearing the clothes of a women despite being a man)
  • Punishment: forced to dress as a man, death year after punishment

Cristine Jorgenson

  • Born in 1926
  • Enlists in Army in 1945
  • Surgery in Denmark to become a women in 1952
  • queer, has a desire to like men as a different sex (believes himself to be a women)

Greater Trans “visibility” beginning in the 1970s

  • Tracey Norman - kept her identity hidden
  • Understood by others with their “new” gender, not as transgender

Following Stonewall, division among supposed allies

  • 1970: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson found Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)
    • Rent out a small house to let “gay” people sleep over night, then rent cheap hotel rooms giving them access to necessary resources
  • Gender non conforming, trans folk, drag queens
    • Call to end all cross dressing bans and forced institutionalization for trans folk
  • Especially geared toward homeless trans youth
  • Speech at 1973 NY Gay Pride
  • Pre 1980: no mention of gender identity
  • Trans people is called a “disorder” - gender identity disorder (1980)
  • 2013 - gender dysphoria (gender does not match the identity)

Paul Grossman → Paula Grossman

  • 1972: New jersey music teacher fired
  • Identifies as lesbian after transition

Modern Discrimination

  • 22 states outlaw discrimination against trans people
  • General transphobia
  • Employment (pre 2020)
  • Medical Discrimination
    • 28% of trans folk forgo medical treatment: denial of care
  • Harassment, bullying, lost jobs, taken step to avoid harassment (delaying transitions)
  • Current 2023 Bullying rate: Middle school (28%), high school (20%)
  • Tyra Hunter
    • Had an 86% chance of surviving the crash with proper care
    • Transphobic discrimination
  • Bathrooms - “bathroom bills” early 2010s
  • HB 2 - if you have to go to the bathroom you were assigned to the bathroom you were assigned at birth
    • Banned cities from passed pro LGBT rights laws

Current Trans Debate centers on two Main issues

  • Sports
    • In 2023, 23 states ban trangender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity
    • Patchwork solutions (as of 2022)
    • Other states: review panels, committees
  • Youth - when to allow transitions to occur
    • When is it too young to transition?
  • Job discrimination
    • Federally - civil rights act: unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or reduce to hire or discharge any individual on race, religion, sex
    • Violation of sexual difference

So What?

  • Gender and sex and sexuality has caused and causes huge anxieties among Americans
    • Belief that it disrupts family and work life
    • Gays and lesbians
    • Harms children (bathrooms, sports, “grooming”)
  • Yearning to literally control bodies