Intolerance
Watch As History Constantly Repeats Itself...
What is Intolerance?
What is Racism?
Racism:
Ideologies, actions, and policies that create and maintain a system of social inequality based on race ("Racism").
In other words, races can be labeled as inferior because of traits that they have been passed down from family member to family member, whether physical, intellectual, cultural, or moral ("Racism").
There Are Two Kind of "Racisms" That Existed in the 1930's and Still Today
Institutional Racism
Direct Institutional Racism
A Famous Example of Institutional Racism: The Scottsboro Boys
An Example of Direct Institutional Racism: Ben Chapman
So What Could Have Lead Up to Racism Against African-Americans in the 1930's?
After Slavery Was Abolished and the South Lost the Civil War...
- Infamous white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) were born. (1865)
- Local & state governments in the southern states of the United States started passing laws that restricted African-Americans from everyday things ("Jim Crow Segregation"). (1880's)
- Plessy v. Ferguson, a law made by the Supreme Court (a.k.a. Jim Crow laws) after Boston allowed schools to be segregated, made segregation between African-Americans and Caucasians in public places, like restaurants, movie theaters, restrooms, even water fountains, legal around the country. The rule was that these places had to be "separate, but equal", but Jim Crow laws were really made to further ensure that whites were superior to blacks-that idea set coming back from slavery (1896) ("Jim Crow Segregation").
Afro-Americans
African-Americans made up seventy-eight percent in the south of the U.S. and ten percent of the total United States population in the 1930's, and despite the Great Depression taking a toll on everyone living in the U.S.-black or white, African-Americans had it worse, facing legal and illegal discrimination all though out America ("African Americans"). Thanks to Jim Crow laws, blacks weren't allowed to vote, causing more racist presidents to come in and make matters worse-but at that point, nothing could get any worse.
- In Oklahoma, in 1939, nonregistered voters had to register within a twelve day period to vote or never be able to vote again ("African Americans").
- Schools and education overall were very poorly funded for black children, some southern states spending as little as twenty dollars on each black student in elementary and high schools. Black teachers had more students in their classes, worse school buildings, and not a lot of transportation for students, whereas it was the complete opposite for white children and teachers. White teachers were paid twice as much money for teaching their students than blacks, fifty dollars was spent on each white student, classrooms were in better conditions, less kids per teacher, ect. ("African Americans").
- Programs set up by the federal government were made to ensure equal working opportunities for blacks, but governments inside of individual states made sure that that didn't happen. They had unfair pay and hiring policies that gave a huge disadvantage to blacks ("African Americans").
- Blacks were lynched, shot, and tortured brutally in various ways by white supremacy groups, more notably the KKK, for little things, i.e. Emmitt Till being brutally murdered just for hitting on a white woman and his murderers being able to get off after there was evidence that they killed him, black men being accused of raping white women when it wasn't true, the KKK set off a bomb in a church, killing four African-American girls for no reason, a white man could kill a black man just for looking at him the wrong way, or a black man could just be killed for no reason at all by a KKK member-just because they felt like it ("African Americans").
- An antilynching bill was passed through the U.S. House of Representatives, but not the Senate because so many (innocent) blacks were being hanged. The 1930's contained one of the highest numbers of African-Americans lynched ("African Americans").
More So...
- Throughout the Great Depression, a lot of blacks worked on farms and earned about $278, compared to white workers that earned approximately $452 ("African Americans").
- The common jobs that blacks had during the 1930's were farmers, drivers, janitors/maintenance men, domestic servants, and iron and steel laborers. The most common, though were as teachers and/or preachers ("African Americans").
- Organizations known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, known more as the NAACP and the Black Panthers were made up of blacks (sometimes there would be a few Caucasians there, too) fought for equal rights for African Americans, sometimes winning and coming out successful. These groups led peaceful protests that demanded that the American government actually show how everyone was created equal. Some people from these black organizations lost their lives fighting for equality ("African Americans").
- People like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X fought for equality for blacks, despite death threats and violence from whites.
- The NAACP were successful in getting black teachers equal salaries as white teachers in some states, as an example of what they were capable of ("African Americans").
- In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after the act was passed through the Senate, officially ending the cruelness of Jim Crow and gave equal rights to African-Americans all around the United States.
Intolerance Will Never End
- Making fun of other's religious beliefs
- Making fun of the clothes that someone wears
- Making fun of sexual preference
- Making fun of one's physical experience not someone's color of skin, necessarily, but off of what their body looks like, for example, calling someone fat, or telling someone that their hair is too greasy, "your eyes are too big", "you're too tall" ect...
- Making fun of someone's weaknesses or intellectual abilities, like saying that a kid is an idiot because they're not as good in math as you are.
- Making fun of someone's physical appearance
The more the world changes, the more we're reminded that it's really just the same.
Ku Klux Klan
Amanda Todd
Matthew Shepard
Intolerance In My Life
- Last year in eighth grade a girl kept picking on me because of my hair. She kept making mean jokes about my hair and continually called it "greasy."
- A boy I didn't even know walked up to me and told me that he wasn't attracted to black girls
- I've been made fun of by both whites and blacks for apparently "acting white."
- A kid told me that he was surprised because I was black and was smart.
- A girl asked me "Why do black girls wear weaves?" even though I have never worn one in my life, she kept calling my hair a weave.
- Kids would make black jokes knowing I was around them then would turn around to look at me and say "sorry."
- Though it didn't happen to me, I have a close friend who's dark-skinned and a boy told her to "go back to Africa."
- A boy would make fun of my nose and lips, saying they were "too big."