American Culture and Society: Class, Race and Gender

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American Culture and Society Class, Race and
Gender

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Class

• America is basically a classless society.
• 
  ----George Bush, Jr.

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Class (1) USA vs Europe

• In Europe
• 1. the class division line was and still is
  difficult to cross, and oftentimes fixed.
• 2. the social barrier is too high to climb
  over.
• 3. nobility is still held in great respect.
• 4. family connection and royal blood are still
  very much cherished.
• 5. hierarchy is still very much in place.

• In the US
• 1. the class division line is blurred, vague
  and crossable.
• 2. the social ladder is not very steep and
  relatively easy to climb.
• 3. natural aristocracy is preferred to
  hereditary aristocracy.
• 4. meritocracy is practiced
• 5. equality is viewed as a sacred principle.

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Class (2)Mobility

• America enjoys the highest mobility in the world.
• Three M-factors in American Society
• Mobility horizontal vs vertical mobility
• geographical vs social
  mobility
• physical vs
  intellectual mobility
• Movement on the move
• on the go
• on the run
• on the road/hit the
  road
• Motivation better opportunity and better life
• Tomorrow will be
  better than today
• Your Children will
  better than you.
• Things will turn
  around if you push harder.
• Hope, confidence,
  expectation, dream, optimism, will

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Class (3)Belief/Values Equalitarianism and
egalitarianism

• Fundamental belief All men are created
  equal.
• Religious belief Everyone is equal
  before God.
• Constitutional belief Everyone is equal before
  the law.
• Social belief Equality for all
  and privileges for none.
• Economic belief Fair play and level
  playing field
• Political belief Your vote is as
  important as everybody elses vote.

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Class

• Conclusion
• America is not class-free, nor classless, but
  class in the US is not the same as that in other
  countries. Instead of having a fixed and
  unalterable class division line that separates
  one group of people from another, America has a
  class line characterized by fluid and mobile
  nature, a blurred line relatively easy to cross
  over. That is why the US has such myths as from
  rags to riches and from a log cabin to the
  White House.

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Race

• The United States is said to be more
  race-conscious than class-conscious.

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Race (1) Not all men are created equal

• In All men are created equal,
• Blacks, Indians and Women were not included.
• A. Black Experience
• Indentured Servants----Slaves-----Subhuman
  Beings----Second-Class Citizens
• Slavery-----Segregation------Desegregation-
  ----Integration
• B. Native American Experience
• Slaughtering-----Removal-------Second-Class
  Citizens----Indian Reservations

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Race (1) Not all men are created equal

• C. Asian American ExperienceChinese Kuli
  (railway construction, laundry, restaurant,
  mining work, domestic maids) ----Chinatown
  (ghettoized)----Exclusion----Intermarriage Banned
• Japanese Domestic Maid, Gardening Workers,
  Intermarriage Banned, Interment Camp during World
  War II)

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Race (1) Not all men are created equal

• D. Jewish American Experience
• Jewish Ghettos-----Excluded from
  Prestigious Society (fraternity, rotary club)
• Anti-Semitism
• E. Latino American Experience
• Discrimination in employment, promotion,
  bank loan, housing
• Hate Crime----racially based
• America is a heavily racialized and indeed
  racist country

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Race (2)White Supremacy

• George Washington-----a big slave-owner
• Thomas Jefferson-----a big slave-owner, had a
  black slave woman as a mistress
• comparing slavery institution as a wolf by
  the ears
• some people are always more equal than others
• Abraham Lincoln Slavery is an evil, but people
  of different races are not likely, if not never,
  to be equal.

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Race (2)White Supremacy

• Colonization Plan----sending blacks to Africa
• Separate but equal principle made by the US
  Supreme Court
• Ku Klux Klan
• Second-class status-----segregated society
• Immigration Policy----quota system in favor of
  Europeans
• Intermarriage first banned, later allowed, but
  now its rate is still quite low

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Race (2)White Supremacy

• Discrimination in every form and in every
  shape----job market, school administration,
  income, housing, loan, promotion, sports,
  suffrage, public accommodations, military
  services, law enforcement (prisoners)

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Race (3)Changes and Continuity

• Busing Program
• Head Start Program
• Food Stamp Program
• Welfare---Workfare
• Affirmative Action
• Racial Profiling
• Politically Correct
• Speech Code
• Multiculturalism

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Race (3)Changes and Continuity

• Open and explicit to subtle and implicit
  discrimination
• Barack Obama case----birth certificate? Muslim?
  rodeo clown
• Henry Louise case----arrest---white policemen,
  the White House Bear Party
• Hate Crime is still committed often
• Police Brutality towards to Blacks, Asians,
  Latinos
• Conclusion The U.S. is not color-blind as yet.

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Gender (1) Theories

• A.Sex and Gender
• Sex is something one is born with.
• Gender is something socially acquired
• B. Anatomy is destiny
• Biological essentialism vs Social
  Construction
• C.Are women human beings who happen to be
  female, or are women female who happen to be
  human beings?
• D.Feminism
• Liberal feminism, radical feminism,
  black feminism, cultural feminism,
• Eco-feminism, socialist feminism,
  Marxist feminism

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Gender (2)American Womens Experience

• A. Colonial American Women the British Common
  Law
• B. Republican American Women Republican
  Motherhood
• C. Industrial Era the Cult of True
  Womanhood---pious, pure, submissive, domestic
• D. Seneca Falls Convention Suffrage Movement
• E. Modern Era New Women----flapper girl vs moral
  guardian

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Gender (2)American Womens Experience

• F. The problem that has no name---Betty Friedan
• G. Post- World War II Sexual Revolution----Equal
  Rights Movement
• H. The Personal is political
• I. Sisterhood is powerful
• J. The person who changes diapers changes the
  world.
• K. The glass ceiling, lean in vs lean on
• Conclusion women are more equal to men now than
  before.

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Thank you!