Ethnic Newswatch article, “White Male’s Case for Affirmative Action” by Paul Rockwell

This article, found in the online database Ethnic Newswatch, talks about how affirmative action is not only for blacks, but it is available for everyone; they just might not realize it.
The article begins by talking about how reverse discrimination is just like discriminating against the blacks, but instead you are discriminating against whites. Affirmative action was not just created to compensate blacks for past wrong doings; it was created way before that idea. During the Vietnam War, minorities were drafted to fight overseas, while through college draft deferment whites males were going to college to make a life for themselves. The author then goes on to list several other affirmative action programs that many may overlook; “Tax breaks for corporations, subsides for middle-class home buyers, mass transit subsidies for white suburbs, bank bailouts for desperate bank executives, selective allotments for immigrants and refugees, price supports for corporate farmers, are all shot through-with considerations of need and preference” (Rockwell). In England after WWII, the Marshall Plan gave GI’s billions of dollars to help train and provide new jobs for them, another form of affirmative action. Our world we live in consists of many different kinds of affirmative action programs for all racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Is affirmative action beneficial? I think certain types of affirmative action are beneficial, but that they should be openly available to everyone no matter what their racial background is. But affirmative action programs that apply towards college admittance or job hiring should not be allowed. People should be admitted or hired based on their own talents and skills, not because in past times their race was discriminated against.
I think this article gave me a new insight on all the different kinds of affirmative action. When I thought of affirmative action, I thought only of letting more African Americans into colleges and universities, or hiring more blacks over whites because of past wrongs committed against them. I did not realize all of the programs, and such, mentioned in this article would be thought of as affirmative action, but now I see there are many other kinds of affirmative action plans.

Knoxville News Sentinel Cover Image

This media image comes from the Knoxville News Sentinel. It is supposed to be about the football game between number one ranked Tennessee Volunteers and the number two ranked Florida State Seminoles.
This image depicts a train, being driven by a white Tennessee Volunteer, plowing over a Native American Florida State Seminole. The Seminole is drawn with very exaggerated features, looking almost dumb with its tongue hanging out of his mouth. What the Seminole says is just poking fun of how Native Americans were thought to have talked. The English came to their country and just expected Native Americans to conform and speak perfect English, when they had their own language. The white man driving the train says they are going to paint the desert orange, meaning that they were going to take over the desert, which was the Native Americans land. On the bottom of the image, there is a cog driving a car, the car is smashing through a fence, and through a sign that says “new and improved Trail of Tears.” I took this to mean that the thoughts of what happened to Native Americans around the time of the Trail of Tears is not out of people’s heads, that these racial thoughts are still thought about. Another sentence on the image says, “O, give me land, lots o’ land, full of starry skies above…” This quote shows exactly the feelings of white Americans during this period of time. Whites wanted land, lots of land, and they would do whatever it took to get land, no matter if it meant killing or displacing others, whose land it was to begin with. As Zinn talked about in the chapter, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress,” Native Americans were displaced and put through inhuman treatment since Columbus arrived in the New World.
Why would this image be drawn, when it many think that this racism is a thing of the past? By Florida State having the name the Seminoles, only adds to the racial slurs and thoughts that come to people’s minds. The Seminoles are an actual Native American tribe, and when this image was published, it outraged their people. There is another statement in the image, “Don’t worry, folks…he’s not a full-blooded Indian…he’s just a SEMI-nole.” This is another very derogatory and racist statement that outraged the Seminole and Native American population. This image is a bold statement about those historical events, and show that these racist thoughts are still around.
I could not believe that this image was actually published in a circulated news source. Even though at first glance it is supposed to be poking fun at the upcoming football game between the number one and number two ranked schools, one can see that it goes a lot deeper than just a football game.

Chief Illiniwek

Since 1926, Chief Illiniwek has been the mascot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne. In 2005 Chief Illiniwek was legally banned from university events, and in 2007 Chief Illiniwek’s logo, name, and mascot were retried from use, permanently (Wikipedia).
Chief Illiniwek has been a part of the university since 1926. He performed at sporting events, mainly, as well as other university events. But his image started bringing up controversy in the Native American community. Many natives view Chief Illiniwek and his various performing dances as a mockery of their heritage. As in the movie, “Ethnic Notions,” various characteristics were given to people of different races. The African American image that was portrayed in the media was one that was inaccurate and degrading towards the race. African Americans did not and do not like what this media image portrayed them as, and neither to the Native Americans in the case of Chief Illiniwek. The Chief’s mascot is seen dancing around, imitating Native American sacred dances at sporting events. This along with just how the image of Chief Illiniwek is portrayed is offensive to the Native American population.
But why ban a mascot that has been around for many decades, and has represented a university for so long? There are so many names, logos, mascots, and things out in this country, publicly on display, that could be offensive to every different race in this country. So should all things to could be offensive to someone be removed and legally banned from use? I do not think this is fair to do, because if you ban or change one, then you will have to ban or change them all.
I think Chief Illiniwek is a good example of how our country is all wrapped up in making past wrongs right. Yes, what our country did to Native Americans, along with other races, was not right in any means it happened hundreds of years ago. Whites could say that certain things are discriminatory and racist towards them, but change is not done towards things like the restaurant chain of Cracker Barrels. I think that people are focusing on the wrong thing here, and should be focused on making change elsewhere in regards to racial tensions.

Beaner's Coffee

This media image that I chose is an icon that thousands of people see everyday. Beaner’s Coffee is a nationwide chain of coffee shops. Recently, Beaner’s Coffee has changed its name to Biggby Coffee because of the derogatory nature of the name Beaner.
The name “beaner” has been a derogatory slang word for Mexicans for a long time; it would be like calling a white person a “cracker.” On Toledo’s KISS FM 92.5 radio station a few days ago, the morning show did a little report about the recent name change of this favorite coffee stop. The morning show hosts had callers call in to discuss what they thought of this name change, and also had one of the hosts out on the street asking Mexican Americans if they felt offended by the name Beaner’s Coffee. Granted the morning show was also trying to poke fun about the subject, but this coffee shop changing its name does bring up an interesting topic. In the past several years, different team names have been under intense scrutiny for there seemingly derogatory names, some have even been forced to change their names, such as the Miami of Ohio University Redskins, changed their name to the Miami Redhawks. There is also the University of Illinois Fighting Illini, which have had a lot of news time for their name and especially the mascot, and also the NFL’s Washington Redskins, NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, along with several others.
So should all public names that could have some aspect of being derogatory towards a certain race or ethnicity be banned from used or changed? I do not think that these names should be changed, because if you change one and make a big deal of one then people are going to start making a big deal about every little thing. According to a few Mexican Americans who were interviewed on the KISS FM radio station, until this made the news, they never thought that Beaner’s Coffee was derogatory towards their race. Also according to the broadcast, “…we might as well change Cracker Barrel’s name because people could take it as being derogatory towards whites…”
This topic relates to several readings from class about how people have the power to influence how other people think about racial topics. If no one had mentioned that Beaner’s Coffee could be taken the wrong way by a Mexican, then Biggby Coffee would still be known as Beaner’s Coffee, which the public grew to love.

The 1936 Olympic Games

This picture is one of the many pictures from the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany. This was a time of intense racial prejudice against blacks. Hitler’s Aryan race was said to be the perfect race, with the features of blonde hair, fair skin, and blue eyes. Hitler wanted his Aryan race to dominate the world, and the unveiling of their athletic dominance was supposed to happen in 1938 in Berlin, Germany at the Olympic Games.
At first there was fear for the safety of the 18 African American athletes that would be traveling to compete in Nazi Germany, but after the African American community encouraged their participation, they could not let down their people. The African Americans dominated the Olympic Games, often crushing Hitler’s Aryans. African Americans took home 14 gold medals, and numerous others. The star that arose from the games would be Jesse Owens, who participated in track and field events. This media image pictures Jesse Owens winning one of his four gold medals of the Games. To the right is an Aryan athlete, and the left another athlete. This is a powerful image showing that the African Americans can indeed beat the dominant white races that Africans have been oppressed by for so long. African Americans went into the Olympics knowing that they were the underdogs, and that no one thought they would win or succeed at anything, but African Americans proved the world wrong, and more so they proved that the Aryan race was not perfect.
Why were the African American’s still not given the rights of the whites more than 60 years after Lincoln declared their emancipation? According to Zinn’s chapter 9, “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom,” on page 142 he discusses Lincoln’s 1962 Emancipation Proclamation, which gave slaves their freedom. But even when you just look at part of the title of the chapter, “Emancipation Without Freedom,” that is a perfect description of what the African Americans faced after emancipation. They were discriminated, segregated, and killed and beaten for what they looked like. But the African Americans did not give up fighting for their rights, and even 60 years after slaves were emancipated they were facing some of the most powerful effects of racism, but they proved the world wrong with their strength, endurance, and courage. To this day racism still exists, and African Americans still do not give up fighting for what is supposed to be equal rights for all mankind.
(http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007088)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens)

"Legend of the Falls" movie

A movie that I just watched the other day was “Legends of the Fall,” about three brothers and their father living in the Rocky Mountains in Montana. How this movie ties into our class is not through the main characters, but through the Native Americans who lived with the four men as their help.
Colonel Ludlow lives on a huge plot of land in Montana, where he is raising his three sons: Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. The boys grow up and enlist in the army to fight in World War I, against their father’s wishes. Samuel, the youngest, ends up getting killed and Tristan and Alfred grow apart. Samuel’s fiancé was staying in Montana with their father until they returned, but when Samuel did not come back, his fiancé Susanna moves onto be with Tristan. Tristan struggles with the loss of his brother and ends up leaving for several years and journeys around America to find himself. He later returns to find Susanna has gone off to marry the other brother Alfred. The main narrator is One Stab, a Native American who lives on the farm with the Ludlows. One Stab is like family to the Ludlows and helps with the work on the farm. Then there are Decker and Pet. Decker is American and Pet is Native American, they are married and have one daughter, Isabel. Decker and One Stab both help on the farm with the Ludlows, while Pet and Isabel help around the house and cook. Tristan ends up falling in love with Isabel and the two marry and have two children together before Isabel is tragically killed by a crooked cop who is trying to scare Tristan away from the bootlegging business.
This movie showed that the Native Americans and the white Americans can co-exist and live in harmony together, and even end up having families with one another. There was also a scene in the movie where all the men were out at a local bar, and the bartender would not serve One Stab a beer. Tristan, being the crazy impulsive guy that he was, hopped over the bar and beat up the bartender who was a lot bigger than him. Tristan then forced the bartender to pour One Stab a beer. These two different races in this movie proved that they could live happy lives together and help one another, so why was this not the case everywhere else? Most people of this time refused to co-exist with other races. The Anglo Americans viewed themselves as the superior race and that all others should be treated less humanly than them.
I thought this was a really good movie and ties into Zinn’s chapter one, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress. Since Columbus came to America, the Native Americans of the land have been displaced and slaughtered. But this was their land first; Anglo Americans just took over because they believed in manifest destiny, that they were more qualified and better at being in charge of the country, that things should be done their way. This movie showed that both races could live with, start a family with, and work with each other peacefully.

"Grey's Anatomy"

One of my favorite shows on TV today is Grey’s Anatomy. The cast and plot keep me coming back each week, and waiting in anticipation for new seasons to begin. The show has a variety of actors, coming from very different backgrounds, racially and ethnically. The chief of all the doctors there is played by an African American actor, James Pickens, Jr. who attended Bowling Green State University. He has the highest position with the most authority on the show. The head resident doctor is played by an African American woman actress, Chandra Wilson. She is portrayed as an angry black woman, always yelling and bossing people around the hospital. Another doctor is played by a black man, actor Isaiah Washington. These three obviously have brains because they are in top positions at a prestigious hospital, unlike in the old days when black people were depicted as being uneducated and unable to live a comfortable life.
In Hollywood throughout the years, there were very few African American actors and actresses. As shown in the movie, “Ethnic Notions,” black people were played by white actors in black face. Once black actors made it through to Hollywood, they too had to paint themselves in blackface to look even blacker than their normal skin color. As time went on, there were next to no Hollywood productions that starred an African American actor. Eventually, African Americans had minor roles in shows and movies. Usually these roles were stereotypical of African Americans, showing them as underprivileged, uneducated, or the bad guy after the innocent white girl. But not until recent decades did African Americans have leading roles in a movie or TV show, or even star in their own movies. Also, not until recently were African Americans toping Hollywood income charts, and topping the Hollywood box offices with their starring movies. Today, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, and Halle Berry are just some of the actors and actresses who top Forbes Magazines top paid actors lists (forbes.com).
Even though this is a fictional show, it is realistic and show that today African Americans have not only climbed up the ladder when is comes to high paying jobs, but also in the film industry and well-known and high paid actors.