How Has Race Determined Inclusion, Exclusion, and Segregation in U.S. Society?

Unfounded Practices

America has historically participated in discriminatory practices based on perceived race. European Americans have always considered a privileged group, and they have been excluded from discriminatory practices perpetrated against others. Mexicans, Filipinos, African Americans, and Native Americans have been excluded from first-class citizenship. This was apparent in separatist activities that still exist today. Americans of European descent fought to keep their status quo through eugenics, racial discrimination and unfair laws and practices. Therefore, whites put many obstacles in place to disenfranchise minorities through strategically bigoted activities and politically orchestrated legislation. Some of these things included inequality in economics, living conditions, immigration repression, and demeaning treatment supported by white European Americans. These unjustified practices were thrust upon people simply because of external features or perceived ethnic backgrounds.

In Racial Formation in United States, Michael Omi and Howard Winant examine models of racial theory in America: ethnicity-, class-, and nation-based. 1 The ethnicity-based theory explains that all races will be considered as immigrants and in time will be accepted by society as equal citizens. The class-based theory associates race with socioeconomic standing. The appearance of a person does not matter; his or her wealth is. Finally, the nation-based theory emphasizes cultural identification to include discrimination based on specific nationalities. These theories are valid explanations of how race is viewed in the United States. These paradigms of racial formation work in concert and are not all-inclusive in its attempt to explain race relations in this country.

Omi and Winant explain that the “ideology of natural inequality” rose since the time of colonization where slavery was being practiced. The race ideology creates to form a social order and inequality among different social groups. and it has been used by the people with power/wealth to justify “social and economic inequalities”. US Supremacy Anglo-European Americans (whites) were considered to be superior race and the people of color inferior. Racial theories that are mostly based on biological differences (physical appearance in people) deeply affected many peoples’ lives because this powerful tool could change how people think and act towards one another. Consequently, some groups benefited from it if belonged to the privileged group and others suffered from it by being stereotyped harshly.

Eugenics and its Influence on Immigration Repression

Eugenics is probably not anything America is proud of, at least not admitting to. However, it is a harsh reality of what happened to Filipino people. In this current melting pot of ethnicities, the journey to American citizenship and acceptance has been neither easy nor simple. Tyler suggests that eugenics was orchestrated by “encouraging the reproduction of 'fit' individuals while denying any reproduction—biological or social—to ‘unfit’ individuals” (Stepan 1991,¹). 2 The use of sterilization and euthanasia to control the population has long been abandoned. Unfortunately, these methods have been replaced by more subtle practices such as restricted ability to obtain quality health care, the proper nutrition for pregnant immigrant mothers, and denying children of immigrants that are undocumented the ability to enroll in school. 3 Therefore the foundational attitude of eugenics remains in society.

The essence of the idea that America is justified in promoting its form of eugenics, Tyner quotes Peter Brimelow. In 1995 he said, “the American nation has always had a specific ethnic core…and that core has been white" (quoted in Kanstroom 1997, 301). 4 The protection of the core was played out when America sought to suppress Filipino immigration. This idea of the core identification as white or European is ingrained in America’s sociological imprint. The theory of eugenics is played out in the suppression of Filipino entry into the United States as immigration laws were put in place to support this.

The Filipino race was viewed by white America in the same way as Blacks and Native Americans. Their class designation was the same as women; they were considered naïve and somewhat mentally handicapped because of their perceived inability to make decisions and run their own government. This made it easier for white Americans to be biased against them. 5 As Filipinos moved to the West Coast, they were the subjects of racial bias. California enacted laws against white-Filipino intermarriages, similar to anti-black-white intermarriages. 6 However, they were able to assimilate into the California landscape better than their Chinese brothers.

Unequally Yoked

One of the realities of being a minority in America is to be considered as a less-than. No one, unless they were in the category that was considered white, was equal. The mixing of whites with any race, Filipino, Black, or Chicano, was considered abhorrent. In 1918, with Popenoe and Johnson saying that the result of such a mixture would be a mongrel: they are equating these human beings with dogs. 7 This attitude that a human race could be considered an animal was the pervasive feelings of white supremacist toward Black people during and post-slavery.

America used other measures to keep the white race pure and some of this was implemented through separatist measures, by keeping the races in separate social arenas. The mixing of races was discouraged through laws against interracial relationships, sterilization of minorities, and the implementation of onerous segregation laws, and especially those known as Jim Crow laws, put in place to control the internal minority element already residing in the country. In 1918 “Popenoe and Johnson declared, ‘If America is to be strong eugenically…it [must] slow down the flood of immigrants who are not easily assimilable.’” 8 The ideology of eugenics has long since been a part of the racist landscape of America.

Music’s Influences on Race

Instead of allowing music to do what music does, heal, liberate, and soften hardened hearts, Los Angeles, California wanted no part of this. A concert in 1940 at the Shrine Auditorium attracted Mexicans, Blacks, Filipinos, and Whites who danced to swing music. It was so crowded that it had to be broken up by the police. Some citizens against race-mixing said that the crowd became unruly because of racial tension, but in this case, there was just not enough room. However, this mixing of the races made some uncomfortable, so the police department denied a Mexican American group a permit to bring the Benny Goodman Orchestra to Los Angeles. They were afraid that the races might mix as they did at the Shrine Auditorium. 9 This terror of race-mixing only intimidated white racists.

However, what frequently happens with music appreciation, respect for the gift overrode racial stereotyping and prejudice. Music tends to advocate a sense of respect and tolerance not only for the music but for each other’s differences. In the 1930s this idea of mutual value and open-mindedness was facilitated through music.10The new swing music and the introduction of rhythm and blues music opened the door for personal expression in the way people dressed and gave them a sense of entitlement as people of all races danced together in public. 11 However, the two major minority groups in Los Angeles did not unify even though they wore zoot suits as well. The conservatives of Los Angeles associated the new music and fashion with negative behavior and felt that both the Mexicans and Blacks were problematic. This resulted in the “zoot suit riots” in which the animosity felt manifested itself through citizens who were supported by the Los Angeles Police Department. 12 There should have been a collective collaboration and unity of two minority cultures, but it never happened between the Mexicans and Blacks in Los Angeles.

Separate and Unequal

In a continued vision toward the idea of separatism, California school districts disenfranchised Chicano youths. In 1968 forty-five percent of Chicano children attended Anglo schools; in 1984 this number dropped to twenty-three percent. The decline of desegregation was followed by a decline in education standards for Chicano children, which were reflected in standardized test scores. 13 This was an organized goal aimed at Chicanos to deter them from going to school with white students and undermined the educational goals of the Chicano community. The separatist practices engaged by California school districts had a direct impact on the educational development of Chicano students. 14 Education is a road out of poverty. When that is denied it has long-reaching effects.

The evidence of the belief in white supremacy was seen in many ways. Menchaca and Valencia’s study of educational disparities between minorities and whites revealed that whites believed they should have power and authority over others. 15 The idea of the white people feeling superior over other races started in the early nineteenth century. One factor for this may have been because of the slave-ownership dynamic. This may have affected other minorities as they entered the Americas. Anyone who was perceived as non-white was initially a target. “Ideologies claiming the biological and social superiority of Anglo-Saxons dominated racial debates of the 19th century and promoted superiority and inferiority beliefs.” 16 Therefore, not only did Anglos feel superior, but they successfully pushed their systems of belief on the minorities they degraded causing them to erroneously adopt an illogical mindset.

The civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s was the response to hundreds of years of unrelenting hate and oppression of African Americans. As Sugrue noted, the Civil Rights movement encompassed two fights: “the black struggle for equal access and opportunity and the white struggle to maintain the racial status quo.” 17 This duel was fought aggressively over the next few years. The Civil Rights movement was a fight across America. 18

One of those northern states was Detroit, Michigan, which bustled with the influx of Blacks due to those migrating from the south to north in search of new jobs and opportunities larger cities like this provided. Often the areas for Blacks were restricted small communities and the need for additional housing became a necessity. Housing was one of the major problems that encouraged the need to act out against formerly accepted norms. 19 However, Detroit was not the only city experiencing an invasion of Black migrants. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s millions of Blacks moved north. 20 This migration changed the landscape of urban cities. Chicago was the leader in racist politics and was known for having well defined geographic locations for the black and white communities. Sugrue concludes that the matters of race and policy are unresolved.

Conclusion

Racial dynamics are irrational products of individual pathologies (abnormal conditions). The racial condition in America is the result of continued systemic oppression for social status, political, and financial gain. The matter of race continues to be so because of ingrained illogical theories of entitlement. The fact that racism and injustice have been and are perpetrated against people of color is a tragedy. Over the years, there have been many remedies against racism influences such as music, cultural inter-relations, and social intervention. The conversation continues.

Notes

1. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, “Racial Formation,” in Race Critical Theories (2002): 123-149.

2. James A. Tyner, “The Geopolitics of Eugenics and the Exclusion of Filipino Immigrants from the United States,” The Geographical Review 89, no. 1 (1999): 54.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., 55.

5. Ibid., 57.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., 59.

9. Anthony F. Macias, “Bringing Music to the People: Race, Urban Culture, and Municipal Politics in Postwar Los Angeles,” American Quarterly 56, no. 3 (1999): 693.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., 694.

12. Ibid., 696.

13. Martha Menchaca and Richard R. Valencia, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s: The Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 21, no. 3 (1990): 222.

14. Ibid., 223.

15. Ibid., 224.

16. Ibid.

17. Thomas J. Sugrue, “Crabgrass-Roots Politics: Race, Rights, and the Reaction against Liberalism in the Urban North, 1940-1964,” The Civil Rights Movement (2001): 63.

18. Ibid., 64.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., 66.