tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/racial-20259/articlesracial – The Conversation2018-10-29T00:03:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1058272018-10-29T00:03:24Z2018-10-29T00:03:24ZWhat history reveals about surges in anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiments<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242644/original/file-20181029-7068-yxwhf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People place flowers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Shooting-Synagogue/f227ec273cfc4a578e8df204fa176c6c/90/0">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/tiroteo-en-pittsburgh-la-historia-de-las-oleadas-antisemitas-y-antimigrantes-en-eeuu-105909">Leer en español</a></em>.</p>
<p>The shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh is believed to be the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/27/us/jewish-hate-crimes-fbi/index.html">deadliest attack on Jews in American history</a>. Eleven people were killed when the gunman burst in on the congregation’s morning worship service carrying an assault rifle and three handguns. </p>
<p>The suspect, Robert Bowers, is reported to be a frequent user of Gab, a social networking site that has becoming increasingly popular among white nationalists and other alt-right groups. He is alleged to have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooter.html?action=click&module=inline&pgtype=Article">regularly reposted anti-Semitic slurs</a>, expressed virulent anti-immigrant sentiments, called immigrants <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooter.html?action=click&module=inline&pgtype=Article">“invaders,” and claimed that Jews are “the enemy of white people</a>.”</p>
<p>The magnitude of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre may be unprecedented, but it is only the latest in the series of hate crimes against Jews. In February 2017, more than 100 gravestones were vandalized at a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/21/us/jewish-cemetery-vandalized/">cemetery outside of St. Louis</a>, Missouri, and at another <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/26/us/jewish-cemetery-vandalism-philadelphia/">Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia</a>. Indeed, hate crimes have been on an increase against minority religions, people of color and immigrants. In the 10 days following the 2016 presidential election, nearly 900 hate-motivated incidents were reported, <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/heres-a-rundown-of-the-latest-campus-climate-incidents-since-trumps-election/115553">many on college campuses</a>. Many of these incidents targeted Muslims, people of color and immigrants, along with Jews.</p>
<p>This outpouring of anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic sentiment is reminiscent in many ways of the political climate during the years between the first and second world wars in the U.S. or the interwar period. </p>
<h2>America as the ‘melting pot’</h2>
<p>In its early years, the United States maintained an “open door policy” that drew millions of immigrants from all religions to enter the country, including Jews. Between 1820 and 1880, <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=20118">over 9 million immigrants entered America</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XseTz_sAAAAJ&hl=en">As a Jewish studies scholar,</a> I am all too aware that by the early 1880s, American nativists – people who believed that the “genetic stock” of Northern Europe was superior to that of Southern and Eastern Europe – began pushing for the exclusion of “foreigners,” whom they “viewed with deep suspicion.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163334/original/image-20170330-4555-m3sfc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163334/original/image-20170330-4555-m3sfc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163334/original/image-20170330-4555-m3sfc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163334/original/image-20170330-4555-m3sfc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163334/original/image-20170330-4555-m3sfc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163334/original/image-20170330-4555-m3sfc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163334/original/image-20170330-4555-m3sfc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fifty German-Jewish refugee children, ranging in age from 5 to 13, salute the American flag, June 5, 1939.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, as scholar <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Barbara_Bailin">Barbara Bailin</a> writes, most of the immigrants, who were from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, “were considered so different in composition, religion, and culture from earlier immigrants as to trigger a xenophobic reaction that served to generate <a href="http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&context=cc_etds_theses">more restrictive immigration laws</a>.” </p>
<p>In August 1882, Congress responded to increasing concerns about America’s “open door” policy and passed the <a href="http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&context=cc_etds_theses">Immigration Act of 1882</a>, which included a provision denying entry to “any convict, lunatic, idiot or any person unable to take care of himself without becoming a public charge.” </p>
<p>However, enforcement was not strict, in part because immigration officers working at the points of entry were expected to implement these restrictions as they saw fit. </p>
<p>In fact, it was during the late 19th century that the American “melting pot” was born: Nearly 22 million immigrants from all over the world entered the U.S. between 1881 and 1914. </p>
<p>They included approximately 1,500,000 million European Jews hoping to escape the longstanding legally enforced <a href="http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&context=cc_etds_theses">anti-Semitism of many parts of the European continent,</a> which limited where Jews could live, what kinds of universities they could attend and what kinds of professions they could hold. </p>
<h2>Fear of Jews and immigrants</h2>
<p>Nativists continued to rail against the demographic shifts and in particular took issue with the high numbers of Jews and Southern Italians entering the country. </p>
<p>These fears were eventually reflected in <a href="http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&context=cc_etds_theses">the makeup of Congress</a>, since the electorate voted increasing numbers of nativist congresspeople into office who vowed to change immigration laws with their constituent’s anti-immigrant sentiments in mind.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163336/original/image-20170330-4555-11a10if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163336/original/image-20170330-4555-11a10if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163336/original/image-20170330-4555-11a10if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163336/original/image-20170330-4555-11a10if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163336/original/image-20170330-4555-11a10if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163336/original/image-20170330-4555-11a10if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163336/original/image-20170330-4555-11a10if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Immigrants on Ellis Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001704437/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nativist and isolationist sentiment in America only increased, as Europe fell headlong into World War I, “the war to end all wars.” On Feb. 4, 1917, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917, which reversed America’s open door policy and denied entry to the majority of immigrants seeking entry. As a result, between <a href="http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&context=cc_etds_theses">1918 and 1921, only 20,019</a> Jews were admitted into the U.S.</p>
<p>The 1924 Immigration Act tightened the borders further. It transferred the decision to admit or deny immigrants from the immigration officers at the port of entry to the Foreign Services Office, which issued visas after the completion of a lengthy <a href="http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&context=cc_etds_theses">application with supporting documentation.</a></p>
<p>The quotas established by the act also set strict limits on the number of new immigrants allowed after 1924. The number of Central and Eastern Europeans allowed to enter the U.S. was dramatically reduced.</p>
<p>The 1924 quotas provided visas to a mere 2 percent of each nationality already in the U.S by 1890. They excluded immigrants from Asia completely, except for immigrants from Japan and the Philippines. The stated fundamental purpose of this immigration act was to <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act">preserve the ideal of U.S. “homogeneity.”</a> </p>
<p>Congress did not revise the act until 1952.</p>
<h2>Why does this history matter?</h2>
<p>The political climate of the interwar period has many similarities with the anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic environment today. </p>
<p>President Trump’s platform is comprised in large part of strongly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/02/21/trumps-first-100-days-on-illegal-immigrants-anti-semitism-and-transgender-students/?utm_term=.1d2c3c189db4">anti-immigrant rhetoric</a>. <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/">A Pew Charitable Trust survey</a> shows that as many as 66 percent of registered voters who supported Trump consider immigration a “very big problem,” while only 17 percent of Hillary Clinton’s supporters said the same. </p>
<p>Moreover, 59 percent of Trump supporters actively associate <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/25/5-facts-about-trump-supporters-views-of-immigration/">“unauthorized immigrants with serious criminal behavior.”</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163338/original/image-20170330-4588-1cn5ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163338/original/image-20170330-4588-1cn5ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163338/original/image-20170330-4588-1cn5ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163338/original/image-20170330-4588-1cn5ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163338/original/image-20170330-4588-1cn5ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163338/original/image-20170330-4588-1cn5ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163338/original/image-20170330-4588-1cn5ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of President Trump during a campaign rally.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/25218962886/in/photolist-EqvM3W-EqvH81-EziHuG-wQY9em-Dv5ErA-F2v8bb-K3nj9y-RsG4rg-jtNHFb-J9pP3u-C6xeV7-P5jt7G-StkK5Z-Jic1MB-Hnaxxk-QetVux-R837XU-HndmbC-Rm587m-QRgTcG-SsLm3g-NDDxSu-JfhLE5-QgR9Yy-Qd7Lwv-NGFgUz-MJEHo6-S9nL2h-Jikh2i-MrVHLj-BFs7WJ-Pj5unk-KJpDj3-KJpFuA-FxrwhF-RZiHJt-Dv6Szm-Nsw3BS-EqvDRw-Dv6ReA-CdHiFA-EzSAXr-CdP4D5-CdNqkh-RpCA2w-EquzPW-EquycN-EsPoqT-Q8bQws-C6u1As">Gage Skidmore</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>President Trump’s claims about the dangers posed by immigrants are not be supported by facts; but they do indicate increased isolationism, nativism and right-wing nationalism within the U.S. All over again, we see anti-immigrant sentiment and anti-Semitism, going hand in hand. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-history-reveals-about-surges-in-anti-semitism-and-anti-immigrant-sentiments-74146">an article</a> originally published on April 2, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ingrid Anderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After the killing of 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, a scholar explains why this hate crime reminds her of the political climate between the two world wars in the US.Ingrid Anderson, Associate Director of Jewish Studies, Lecturer, Arts & Sciences Writing Program, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021592018-08-31T19:25:17Z2018-08-31T19:25:17ZPrisoner strike exposes an age old American reliance on forced labor<p>Prisoners in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-august-27-2018-1.4800048/u-s-prison-strikes-spread-to-canada-as-advocates-call-for-end-to-prison-slavery-1.4800051">17 states and several Canadian provinces</a> are on strike in protest of prison labor conditions.</p>
<p>Their demonstrations are compelling Americans to understand that some everyday foods are produced behind bars, for cents on the hour, in a system many call “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prisoner-speak-out-american-slave-labor-strike">modern slavery</a>.” Prisoners in the U.S. harvest and process <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4faVtMz0UGg">eggs</a>, <a href="https://www.pride-enterprises.org/category.aspx?zcid=115#citrus">orange juice</a>, <a href="https://www.gci-ga.com/index.php?option=com_cart&view=detail&cmp=2&div=1&cls=3&scls=1">ground beef</a> and <a href="https://www.coloradoci.com/serviceproviders/giftShop/index.html?page=p&cid=29">fish</a>. They also staff call centers, fight wildfires and make sugar.</p>
<p>For this work, they receive, on average, <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/">86 cents a day</a>, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group.</p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-bozelko-prison-labor-20171020-story.html">formerly incarcerated people disagree</a> with the comparison of prison work to slavery, saying that prison jobs teach real skills that may reduce recidivism.</p>
<p>But the prisoners’ strike, underway since Aug. 21, shines a light on a troubling American habit of consuming, often thoughtlessly, the products of forced labor. </p>
<h2>Slavery and its consequences</h2>
<p>Until Emancipation in 1865, enslaved Africans and African-Americans furnished many of the everyday items early Americans enjoyed, from cotton and tobacco to flour and sugar. </p>
<p>Between 1776 and 1865, an estimated 7.5 million unpaid black workers toiled out of sight, in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-edward-baptist-20140907-story.html">slave labor camps</a> – also known as plantations – railroads, households and factories across the South. </p>
<p>Slavery was not confined to the South: New York did not outlaw it until 1827. </p>
<p>As my research on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/unrequited-toil/0C80D7F1FE16051A1D3F44388E5DCB7E">forced labor and industry in early America</a> reveals, slave-made goods were everywhere in the early United States: in coffee, swaddling clothes, chewing tobacco, bread and even banknotes.</p>
<p>Take chewing tobacco, for example, the “<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/675/675-h/675-h.htm">filthy custom</a>” that Charles Dickens found ubiquitous during his 1842 visit to the U.S. The English novelist was aghast to see on his tour of a Virginia tobacco factory hundreds of enslaved workers pressing tobacco under the lash of overseers. </p>
<p>Enslaved workers, including women and children, pulled 16-hour shifts in these dusty and dangerous factories. The leaf they processed there was grown, cut and cured by other enslaved people in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Kentucky.</p>
<h2>Forced labor and inequality</h2>
<p>This violent system of keeping black people impoverished and in bondage made tobacco remarkably affordable to free people. In the mid-19th century, the equivalent of a can of smokeless tobacco cost just 50 cents in today’s dollars.</p>
<p>Virginia tobacconists got rich selling their cheap tobacco plugs and twists in the U.S., Europe and Australia – even to the <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/a/secnav-reports/annual-report-secretary-of-the-navy-1845.html">U.S. Navy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234306/original/file-20180830-195298-o6ezks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234306/original/file-20180830-195298-o6ezks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234306/original/file-20180830-195298-o6ezks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234306/original/file-20180830-195298-o6ezks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234306/original/file-20180830-195298-o6ezks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234306/original/file-20180830-195298-o6ezks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234306/original/file-20180830-195298-o6ezks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cheap American cotton was shipped to Great Britain via New York, and imported back to the U.S. as clothing, enriching everyone but the enslaved workers who picked it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3798/13683296255_03d23639be_b.jpg">Fort Sumter Museum Charleston via flickr/denisbin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, slavery fueled inequality in the southern U.S., depressing the wages of white workers and freed blacks while making a small elite very rich.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10670.html">economists Peter Lindert of U.C. Davis and Jeffrey Williamson of Harvard</a>, in the eight decades before the Civil War, the top 1 percent of earners doubled their income, while the bottom 40 percent of earners lost half of theirs.</p>
<p>In 1860, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31847943">Gini coefficient</a> – which measures unequal wealth distribution – was 0.608 in most states below the Mason-Dixon line, which today would make it <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html">one of the world’s least equal places</a>. Average inequality in U.S. at the time was much better – 0.511 on the Gini index, roughly equivalent to modern Colombia.</p>
<p>The northern bankers and dealers of slave-made goods also pulled ahead of other earners. </p>
<p>Cotton picked by enslaved workers was shipped to New York City, where it was sold to English and European factories. By 1860, cotton accounted for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/empire-of-cotton/383660/">61 percent of U.S. exports</a>, and American cotton made up 80 percent of British cotton imports.</p>
<h2>Ethical eating</h2>
<p>Everyday actions seemingly unrelated to slavery actually supported it financially.</p>
<p>Nearly every person in the Atlantic world in the mid-19th century who sweetened their coffee did so using sugar harvested by enslaved people in <a href="https://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-sugar-masters/">Louisiana</a>, the West Indies or Brazil.</p>
<p>Their coffee, much of it from Brazil, was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/slavery-in-brazil/5B32E0A8855D6A0E3111E4CD9B2934C5">grown by enslaved people, too</a>. Since Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888, that would continue to be the case continued for decades after the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery in the U.S.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234305/original/file-20180830-195331-87zg7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234305/original/file-20180830-195331-87zg7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234305/original/file-20180830-195331-87zg7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234305/original/file-20180830-195331-87zg7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234305/original/file-20180830-195331-87zg7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234305/original/file-20180830-195331-87zg7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234305/original/file-20180830-195331-87zg7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">19th-century Americans consumed coffee and sugar produced by enslaved laborers in Brazil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Slavery_in_Brazil%2C_by_Jean-Baptiste_Debret_%281768-1848%29.jpg">J.B. Derbet, 'Overseers Punishing Slaves on a Rural Estate'</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1830s, African-Americans and Quakers in Philadelphia launched a <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100427880">“free produce” movement</a>, to raise consumer awareness about the connection between slave labor and their shopping lists.</p>
<p>The New York abolitionist grocer David Ruggles even <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807872642/david-ruggles/">advertised</a> that his sweeteners were “manufactured by free people, not by slaves.” </p>
<h2>From slave labor to prison labor</h2>
<p>Sugar and forced labor, in particular, were seemingly inseparable. </p>
<p>After Reconstruction, prisoners in the South – nearly all of them black, <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/douglas-blackmon">many convicted on minor or trumped-up charges</a> – were forced to grow sugarcane and other crops. This system, called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/exploiting-black-labor-after-the-abolition-of-slavery-72482">convict leasing</a>,” exploited a loophole in the 13th Amendment’s allowance of slavery “<a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=40&page=transcript">as a punishment for crime</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234294/original/file-20180830-195301-1buhfav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1892 Tennessee campaign ad condemning prison labor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Tennessee-republican-broadside-coal-creek-war.jpg">Calvin M. McClung Digital Collection via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Between 1865 and 1941, more than 1 million prisoners – including children and <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469630007/chained-in-silence/">women</a> – were sentenced to hard labor mining coal, making turpentine or constructing railroads. For big companies like U.S. Steel, the cost savings of “leased” workers gave them a competitive edge. </p>
<p>Even today, most U.S. states use their prison populations to furnish low-priced food and other supplies for <a href="https://www.washingtonci.com/products-services/ci-foods.html">public facilities</a>, including schools. Thirty-seven states <a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A3436C">contract with companies</a> like <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DGJ43cRyhi8C&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=chevron+%22compaq%22+prison+labor&source=bl&ots=gm9RxJmjgZ&sig=pvpZPhAIAvRFM0P22IR8Dh99yT8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOpqr7sZXdAhWQ_lQKHZqEC3AQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=chevron%20%22compaq%22%20prison%20labor&f=false">Chevron, Compaq, Boeing and Victoria’s Secret</a>.</p>
<p>Some of these private companies are legally obligated to pay a prevailing wage. But at Texas’ <a href="https://www.mtctrains.com/">privately run</a> Lockhart Prison, <a href="http://www.tci.tdcj.texas.gov/programs/pie/default.aspx">workers</a> take home $1.96 an hour to make <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289">computer circuit boards</a> after 80 percent of their pay is deducted to pay for their own incarceration. </p>
<p>Workers in state-run facilities in eight southern states are <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/prison-slavery-who-benefits-cheap-inmate-labor-1093729">paid nothing</a> for regular prison work like laundry.</p>
<h2>An economy built on forced labor</h2>
<p>Prisoner advocates acknowledge that working can break up the monotony of incarceration and teach meaningful job skills.</p>
<p>And prisoners <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/commissary.html">need whatever money they earn</a>. Even basic services like phone calls <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/08/remote-video-visitation/535095/">cost much more in prison</a>. </p>
<p>The problem, prisoners say, is that they have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/us/national-prison-strike-2018.html">no control over pay or working conditions</a>. Like <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/scenes-of-subjection-9780195089844?cc=us&lang=en&">enslaved workers</a>, they cannot simply walk off a job that’s dangerous or exploitative. </p>
<p>As a historian, I also hear echoes of prison workers’ protests in more recent campaigns to raise consumer awareness about sweatshop labor. </p>
<p>The foreign factories that manufacture clothing <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-forever-21-factory-workers/">for many U.S. retailers</a> frequently underpay workers, require overtime and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/topic/womens-rights/labor-rights-garment-industry">fire them for getting sick, pregnant or attempting to unionize</a>. </p>
<p>After a Bangladesh factory <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/31/rana-plaza-bangladesh-collapse-fashion-working-conditions">collapsed in 2013</a>, killing 1,138 workers, popular brands like H&M and Forever 21 agreed to enforce better working conditions at their garment suppliers, but progress <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/28/bangladesh-factory-safety-scheme-stalls">has lagged</a>.</p>
<p>From convict leasing to the <a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/03/16/prison-labour-is-a-billion-dollar-industry-with-uncertain-returns-for-inmates">billion-dollar prison industry</a>, forced laborers have served American consumers for centuries. The prison strike is a very necessary reminder that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0628/companies-televerde-hitachi-netapp-cisco-salvation-at-center.html#f340bb621841">they still do</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Calvin Schermerhorn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Enslaved workers used to grow cotton and mill flour. Now prisoners grind beef and crate eggs. Here, a historian explores Americans’ troubling habit of consuming the products of slave labor.Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909512018-02-05T14:20:51Z2018-02-05T14:20:51ZWhy treating water scarcity as a security issue is a bad idea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/204583/original/file-20180202-162077-e1tfhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C118%2C1801%2C1084&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Helen Zille, the Premier of the Western Cape in South Africa, has made two startling claims about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-driving-cape-towns-water-insecurity-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-81845">water crisis</a> in the province. She says there will be anarchy when the taps run dry, and that normal policing will be <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-01-22-from-the-inside-the-countdown-to-day-zero/#.WnLXMq6Wbcs">inadequate</a>. </p>
<p>She stated this as fact. Neither claim has any basis in truth. But they reflect an <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/87/2/993/2235528">“elite panic”</a>: society’s elite’s fear of social disorder. We see this when public officials and the media draw on stereotypes of public panic and disorder, or, in Zille’s words, “anarchy”. </p>
<p>Research <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020808075321.htm">shows</a> that mass hysteria and lawlessness during disasters is actually remarkably rare. Yet elite panic can lead to security taking priority over public safety. Preventing criminal activity is then treated as more important than protecting people from harm.</p>
<p>The more society’s response leans towards security, the closer the situation gets to “securitisation”. In the field of security studies, securitisation is the notion that nothing is a threat until someone <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2011/10/09/does-security-exist-outside-of-the-speech-act/">says</a> it is. This “framing” happens in many ways, including the words politicians choose to describe a situation. A militarised response, for example, can be triggered by an issue being portrayed as a threat so severe that it requires extraordinary measures beyond normal political processes. </p>
<p>Zille’s characterisation of the water crisis is a classic example of this process. A major part of her communication about the preparation for Day Zero has been about securing the province and outlining the police and military strategy <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-01-24-zille-police-army-will-help-secure-day-zero-water-distribution-points">to prevent criminal activity</a>.</p>
<p>This approach gets in the way of more constructive responses to disaster. It can even trigger the very disorder it seeks to avoid. In other words, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs which has serious consequences for a community and the humanitarian response to a disaster.</p>
<h2>False framing</h2>
<p>According to Zille, the day Cape Town runs out of water is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFiPfLGNu3g">“disaster of disasters”</a>. It</p>
<blockquote>
<p>exceeds anything a major City has had to face anywhere in the world since the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-01-22-from-the-inside-the-countdown-to-day-zero/#.WnLXMq6Wbcs">Second World War or 9/11</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The panic in her tone, and her choice of examples, are telling. The Second World War and 9/11 were not natural disasters, they were consequences of war and terrorism. By invoking these national security events she frames the threat as one that needs to be managed using extraordinary means. </p>
<p>Zille imagines</p>
<blockquote>
<p>many other foreseeable crises associated with dry taps, such as conflict over access to water, theft of water, and other criminal acts associated with water, not to mention the outbreak of disease.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She has asked President Jacob Zuma to declare a national state of disaster. It would enable the country’s intelligence agencies, the South African National Defence Force and the South African Police Service to make a shared plan with the province and the private sector</p>
<blockquote>
<p>to distribute water, defend storage facilities, deal with potential outbreaks of disease, and keep the peace.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Military and disaster</h2>
<p>It’s not uncommon for the military to get involved in disaster relief. During the Fukushima/Daichi disaster following the tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, the Japanese military played a critical role in providing aid and relief. But they were not there to <a href="http://fukushimaontheglobe.com/the-earthquake-and-the-nuclear-accident/whats-happened/the-japan-us-military-response">defend or guard</a> people and property.</p>
<p>The South African National Defence Force played a similar role during <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/mozambique/mozambique-natural-disasters-floods">serious floods in Mozambique</a> in 2000, and again during flooding <a href="http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=arti%20cle&id=37789:job-done-in-mozambique-sandf-safely-back-home&catid=111:sa-defence&Itemid=242">in 2015</a>. </p>
<p>But Zille’s intention to involve the military and State Security Agency in Cape Town’s disaster management is different. </p>
<p>They won’t be there in a humanitarian capacity, such as setting up infrastructure or distributing water, but to guard against anarchy. Her aim is to legitimise security measures, or, more bluntly, the use of force. </p>
<p>Her approach should be resisted.</p>
<h2>Lessons from Hurricane Katrina</h2>
<p>Author and humanitarian worker Malka Older, who studied the disaster response in the US to <a href="http://www.revue-rita.com/traitdunion9/securitization-of-disaster-response-in-the-united-states-the-case-of-hurricane-katrina-2005.html">Hurricane Katrina in 2005</a>, found that an obsession with security was legitimised through unsupported claims of widespread violence and looting.</p>
<p>She writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The story of Hurricane Katrina is one of security overtaking and overriding disaster management from preparedness through response.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She concludes that the shift from safety to security – where armed guards were sent to shelters and distribution points – actually reduced the city’s capacity to respond to the disaster. The security emphasis tied up human resources. And the focus turned away from helping those affected by the flooding to controlling them. </p>
<p>On top of this, the securitised response reflected prejudices about race and class. Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine and a political analyst for CBS News, has <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/08/hurricane_katrina_10th_anniversary_how_the_black_lives_matter_movement_was.html">argued that</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Black collective memory of Hurricane Katrina, as much as anything else, informs the present movement against police violence, ‘Black Lives Matter.’</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Thinking differently</h2>
<p>Water scarcity, like any issue, can be thought of in several ways. </p>
<p>It can be imagined as a hardship that many Capetonians in poor, black townships have <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/water-restrictions-its-nothing-new-us-say-residents-informal-settlements/">endured all their lives</a>.</p>
<p>People can consider staying calm and being resilient and resourceful as they make plans to source and store water. They can even imagine a new community spirit as they find ways to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-southern-africa-can-learn-from-other-countries-about-adapting-to-drought-90876">share this scarce resource</a>, help the most vulnerable and receive help from around the country. </p>
<p>Part of this imagining depends on leaders staying level headed. Citizens need public communication, not scaremongering that equates the worst case scenario with objective reality. They don’t need to be paralysed by a mindset of suspicion and dread.</p>
<p>Cape Town’s leaders should remain calm and help the people to act collectively in a democratic spirit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joelien Pretorius does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mass hysteria and lawlessness during disasters are remarkably rare, contrary to Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s prediction of anarchy when Cape Town’s taps run day.Joelien Pretorius, Associate Professor in Political Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/690952017-02-21T01:25:21Z2017-02-21T01:25:21ZDiversity is on the rise in urban and rural communities, and it’s here to stay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157226/original/image-20170216-32685-k4bo9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Schoolchildren play on a New York subway.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mark Lennihan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Racial and ethnic diversity is no longer confined to big cities and the east and west coasts of the United States. </p>
<p>In the 2016 U.S. <a href="http://www.citylab.com/politics/2016/11/how-americas-metro-areas-voted/508355/">presidential election</a>, racially and ethnically diverse metropolitan areas were more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Whiter metro and rural areas supported Donald Trump. This pattern reinforced the stereotype of “white rural” versus “minority urban” areas. </p>
<p>However, our research shows that the populations of communities throughout the nation are being transformed. The share of racial and ethnic minorities is <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/diversity-explosion/">increasing</a> rapidly and irreversibly. These changes will have major impacts on the economy, social cohesion, education and other important <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-013-0197-1">parts of American life</a>. </p>
<h2>Nearly all communities are becoming more diverse</h2>
<p>In everyday language, “diversity” often refers to racial and ethnic variation. But demographers have developed a mathematical definition of this concept: The greater the number of racial-ethnic groups in the community, and the more equal in size the groups are, the greater the diversity. Using this definition, we have <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/sites/all/files/logan/logan_diversity_chapter13.pdf">estimated</a> that diversity has increased in 98 percent of all metropolitan areas, and 97 percent of smaller cities in the U.S. since 1980.</p>
<p>The trend is not limited to urban America. Dramatic increases are evident in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ruso.12141/epdf">rural places</a> as well. Nine out of 10 rural places experienced increases in diversity between 1990 and 2010, and these changes occurred in every region of the country. Even within metropolitan settings, the traditional divide between diverse cities and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042098009346862">white suburbia</a> has been eroded. <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/twenty-first-century-gateways/">Immigrant-rich suburbs</a> are rising around cities like Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., which rival urban enclaves as destinations for Asians and Latinos.</p>
<p>Of course, some communities have changed more than <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2016.00125.x/epdf">others</a>. Despite these differences, a common trend is for a place’s racial-ethnic composition to change from white dominance to a <a href="https://www.sociologicalscience.com/download/volume-2/march/SocSci_v2_125to157.pdf">multigroup mix</a>, with some combination of whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians. This led to an increase in “<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1078087416682320">no-majority” communities</a> – including more than 1,100 cities and towns, 110 counties and four states: California, Texas, New Mexico and Hawaii. In these places, none of the major racial-ethnic groups constitutes as much as 50 percent of all residents. </p>
<h2>Immigration and diversity</h2>
<p>The racial and ethnic diversity we see today stems from the large and sustained wave of immigration that followed the <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/fifty-years-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act-continues-reshape-united-states">Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965</a>. Between 1965 and 2015, the proportion of non-Hispanic whites in the country dropped from 84 to 62 percent, while the shares of Hispanics and Asians rose. The Pew Research Center found that these changes were largely <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/chapter-2-immigrations-impact-on-past-and-future-u-s-population-change/">driven by immigration</a>, not births. Only one-third of Hispanics and one-tenth of Asians would be living in the United States in 2015 had there been no immigration since 1965. Today, Hispanics account for 18 percent and Asians 6 percent of the U.S. population.</p>
<p>Domestic and international <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-016-0479-5">migration</a> during the 1990s and 2000s also contributed to the spread of diversity across American communities. Racial and ethnic minorities tended to move to whiter areas, and white young adults tended to move to more diverse urban areas. Notably, Latino immigrants were first concentrated in just a handful of states such as California, Texas, Florida, Illinois and New York. They started to spread across the country during the 1990s to areas known as “new destinations,” like North Carolina, Georgia and Iowa.</p>
<p>By that time, many Hispanic immigrants had acquired legal status and were free to move to new <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3401474">job opportunities</a> in agriculture, construction and manufacturing in the Southeast and Midwest, as well as service sector jobs in high-amenity vacation <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00045608.2015.1052338?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=raag20">destinations</a>, such as in Colorado. </p>
<h2>Diversity is now self-sustaining</h2>
<p>Despite the initial importance of migration, racial and ethnic diversity is now self-sustaining. Minority groups will soon be maintained by “natural increase,” when births exceed deaths, rather than by new immigration. </p>
<p>This is especially true for Hispanics. According to the Pew Research Center study mentioned earlier, about a quarter of the U.S. population is projected to be Hispanic by 2065, up from 18 percent in 2015. This trend would not change if immigration somehow were halted completely after 2015, the final year in Pew’s study. The sustainability of the Latino population is even evident in rural and urban areas in the Southeast and Midwest, where natural increase in the Latino population, rather than international or domestic migration, is now responsible for <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2008.00222.x/abstract">more than half</a> of Hispanic growth. </p>
<p>But, how can the share of Hispanics continue to grow without new immigration? </p>
<p>A small part of the answer is that Latinos have slightly more children than non-Hispanic whites. On average, Hispanic women have <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_12.pdf">2.1 children</a> compared with 1.8 among non-Hispanic white women. However, fertility among Hispanic women <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1353/dem.0.0023">declines</a> with each new generation in the U.S., so this factor is unlikely to play a major role in the long run.</p>
<p>The main engine of America’s future diversity gains will be “cohort succession,” a process in which older majority-white generations are replaced by younger minority-majority generations. As shown in the charts below, which we created from U.S. Census Bureau population <a href="http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf">projections</a>, children and young adults, many of whom are the children of immigrants, are currently much more diverse than older adults. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153483/original/image-20170119-26539-1th1ymi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153483/original/image-20170119-26539-1th1ymi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153483/original/image-20170119-26539-1th1ymi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153483/original/image-20170119-26539-1th1ymi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153483/original/image-20170119-26539-1th1ymi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153483/original/image-20170119-26539-1th1ymi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153483/original/image-20170119-26539-1th1ymi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fast-forward to 2050. Today’s older generations will have died. The more diverse younger generations will have grown up and had their own diverse children and grandchildren. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153484/original/image-20170119-26539-gbncp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153484/original/image-20170119-26539-gbncp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153484/original/image-20170119-26539-gbncp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153484/original/image-20170119-26539-gbncp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153484/original/image-20170119-26539-gbncp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153484/original/image-20170119-26539-gbncp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153484/original/image-20170119-26539-gbncp3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The seeds for future gains in diversity have already been planted.</p>
<h2>Fear and distrust</h2>
<p>Many Americans respond to these changes with <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/specials/the-whitelash-against-diversity/">fear</a> and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x/full">distrust</a>. Some whites have an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/89.4.1385">aversion</a> to living near people of color. A small number of no-majority places and other highly diverse municipalities and <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/649498.pdf">neighborhoods</a> like the Chicago suburb of Calumet Park and the Los
Angeles suburbs of Lynwood and Monterey Park have already become more <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11113-014-9343-8">homogeneous</a>, as one minority group has grown and whites have moved away. These places are exceptions to the trend of growing diversity, but other communities may follow suit. Some people want to “turn back the clock” by limiting immigration, a sentiment <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/nov/09/politifact-sheet-donald-trumps-immigration-plan/">Donald Trump</a> tapped into during his presidential campaign. </p>
<p>Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/22/donald-trump-to-african-american-and-hispanic-voters-what-do-you-have-to-lose/?utm_term=.5b8485be6137">described</a> black and Hispanic communities as impoverished, dangerous inner-city neighborhoods. This was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/24/the-problem-with-trumps-question-to-black-voters-what-the-hell-do-you-have-to-lose/?utm_term=.5998eba676e7">an exaggeration</a>, but it may have stoked rural white voters’ <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/11/rural_americans_just_chose_a_president_who_won_t_help_them.html">fears</a> of racial-ethnic diversity. </p>
<p>Although all-minority communities are often disadvantaged, communities with <a href="http://www.russellsage.org/research/reports/racial-ethnic-diversity">high levels</a> of diversity with a mixture of racial and ethnic groups do not fit Trump’s image. Highly diverse communities are more common in <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40980-016-0030-8">coastal states</a> and across the South. They have larger populations and a critical mass of foreign-born inhabitants, both of which contribute to their reputation as comfort zones for minorities and immigrants. </p>
<p>Diverse communities also tend to offer attractive housing and labor market opportunities, including an abundant rental stock, higher median income and a job opportunities in a variety of occupations. Some are also hubs for <a href="https://s4.ad.brown.edu/Projects/Diversity/Data/Report/report08292012.pdf">government or military jobs</a>. Overall, the evidence suggests that highly diverse communities are good places to live, and often support industries that employ immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities.</p>
<p>Throughout history, notions of who belongs in American society have <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018136">expanded</a> again and again to incorporate new groups. History could repeat itself for today’s immigrants if they are given a fair chance. Many people fear immigrants and the social burdens they seem to bring with them, including poverty, limited education and low English proficiency. But this overlooks the many contributions immigrants make, and the fact that immigrants’ socioeconomic disadvantages will almost certainly <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/parents-without-papers">diminish</a> if they are given equal opportunities in U.S. schools and workplaces.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Van Hook received funding for her research from the National Institutes of Health. She is affiliated with the Population Research Institute at the Pennsylvania State University and is a non-resident fellow of the Migration Policy Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barrett Lee receives funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD), an agency within the U.S. National Institutes of Health. A grant from NICHHD has funded much of the diversity research referred to in the Conversation article. </span></em></p>Nine out of 10 rural places experienced increases in diversity from 1990 to 2010. Data show a more diverse future is guaranteed across all of America, and there’s no going back.Jennifer Van Hook, Liberal Arts Research Professor of Sociology and Demography, Penn StateBarrett Lee, Professor of Sociology and Demography, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/462492015-09-11T10:11:39Z2015-09-11T10:11:39ZInside academia: black professors are expected to ‘entertain’ while presenting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94298/original/image-20150909-18649-1poygi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Entertainers or performers?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shawncalhoun/15975346543/in/photolist-qkFPXn-8xcycM-r6BGEk-8x9N7P-daKPj5-k3LcMa-cdEexE-qiDRid-r4Pdg1-rmnEhV-qpoea7-r34eWX-rj5M4Y-rmnExe-r4NjEy-rmhveb-r34eUT-r34eR6-r4PcYh-rj5LMA-rj5Mc3-rmhuLC-qpoe4q-rmfk9p-r4Pd2U-rmhuN1-r4Pd5j-r4Nk7A-qpAx2V-rmnEKt-rmnEkF-83W47A-rhsn6K-r12RWa-qZVQSj-rhp8ro-qkFQwi-rhmht6-rhp7HQ-qZVQF7-qktCLE-r12RXn-rhmiag-rhmhwx-6qe5iD-4x3JPS-q29MjG-qgrk19-q29YZL-iifErQ">Shawn</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine this scenario: after going through the frustrations of being a high school mathematics teacher, you went back to school for a PhD and landed your dream job. </p>
<p>Today, you are an assistant professor at one of the top education departments within a university system that is poised for amazing growth. You have had a very successful first three years – publishing in journals considered top tier by your department colleagues and serving as a consultant on a couple of large-scale grants. </p>
<p>But as far as your university social life goes, you go out for a few lunches with your departmental colleagues. You feel a bit disconnected. So, you invite a few colleagues over to your house for dinner. You and your partner cook an incredible meal. </p>
<p>Conversation and wine flow, and all seems well. </p>
<p>While you are grabbing dessert, your wife tells your colleagues about your undergraduate days, including being in a hip-hop and dance group. They seem way too interested, asking an exorbitant amount of questions, and laughing wildly. After several minutes you decide to politely change the subject. </p>
<p>Overall, you and your wife call the dinner a success. </p>
<p>A few days later, at the request of your department chair, you give a dynamic presentation about your research during the faculty meeting. The effort in preparing this presentation paid off with lively dialogue afterward. </p>
<p>As you finish up and return to your seat, your two colleagues from dinner announce to the faculty that besides being a stellar researcher, you are a rapper and dancer. </p>
<p>They apparently took a picture of a picture from your house with you and your hip-hop group. It is now on the large projector, the same projector where you finished your presentation. </p>
<p>The rest of the faculty is entertained, fueled by your colleagues’ request to you to “bust a move.”</p>
<p>The truth is that for many black academics, this is not an imaginary scenario. This is one of the many narratives of presenting while black. </p>
<p>I am a researcher of black students and faculty in STEM fields, and this narrative is part of my experience. Before presentations at conferences, I hear statements from colleagues, such as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All right, it’s time to go perform, Let me get ready to shuck and jive, Gotta go put on my Blackface…" </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I also know how at these presentation venues, comments and criticism bestowed on black presenters lean more toward their entertainment value than their intellectual value. So, I embarked on <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13613324.2015.1069263#.Veme8M7BzaY">this study</a> to see if other black academics were feeling or responding to this same pressure. My study provides a window into the experience of black faculty members, who are expected to be “entertaining” when presenting academic research to mostly white peers.</p>
<h2>Presenting while black</h2>
<p>From 2013 to 2014, my colleague, Lasana Kazembe, adjunct professor at DePaul University and I interviewed 33 African-American faculty members from institutions across the country. The results were disappointing, but not particularly surprising. </p>
<p>Their personal experiences provide a unique perspective on “presenting while black.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13613324.2015.1069263#.Veme8M7BzaY">My interviews revealed</a> that an overwhelming majority of the participants were advised regularly by white peers to be “more entertaining” when making research presentations, as well as to “lighten up,” and “tell more jokes.” </p>
<p>Alternatively, some presenters’ research was met with shock and awe, as the audience was taken back by the high quality of the research and made their low expectations known with statement such as “I’m pleasantly surprised,” “I had no idea you were that bright,” and “you must be a genius.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94393/original/image-20150910-27313-1ickhwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94393/original/image-20150910-27313-1ickhwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94393/original/image-20150910-27313-1ickhwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94393/original/image-20150910-27313-1ickhwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94393/original/image-20150910-27313-1ickhwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94393/original/image-20150910-27313-1ickhwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94393/original/image-20150910-27313-1ickhwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black academics are expected to be entertainers while presenting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonpreneur/5932580803/in/photolist-a3f2zV-Q7cGC-8GuZ5p-iNpH9k-7APkye-wynRiE-7dwXak-7dABRJ-7dwMCV-cL6KV5-57bPxb-9kXhNb-7dwXbk-7dABRq-7dwMCc-7dwMCz-7dABRN-7dABS5-rffEgS-7dABQW-7dABSm-cL6Le5-cGxFh9-7AT8kj-6WAghv-o5LDeH-o5X5Gu-o5LCJe-o5X5Cm-o5LDf4-o5LCWi-o659wk-o5X5zA-o5LCU4-o5X5t3-o5X5mQ-o659wR-o659wv-o659AZ-o5LCJ4-8h9QJ8-5ZzjfN-9N2Aby-4A9j8X-38FPNk-6WAgiB-4TiPMR-piwxe6-Pd1sp-byTCHs">Philip McMaster</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These black professors were interviewed about their participation in a number of presentation contexts, including national conferences, symposia and campus job talks. Study participants <a href="http://africaworldpressbooks.com/integrated-but-unequalblack-faculty-in-predominately-white-spaceedited-by-mark-christian/">discussed</a> encountering multiple layers of racial stereotyping and bias. </p>
<p>For instance, black faculty were penalized for doing the following: taking a sip of water during the middle of her sentence, not pausing before answering questions from the audience (“she didn’t even reflect on the question”) and were openly accused of not citing enough by mostly white male researchers. </p>
<p>Accusations were also made of black faculty’s presentation styles and behaviors, such as “constantly waving her arms and being wildly animated during her presentation. It was just too much attitude,” and being critiqued because “his laugh was too boisterous, too domineering.” </p>
<p>Black females additionally noted being subject to their colleagues’ preoccupation with their clothing choices and hairstyle, and reported being admonished to play down their “passion” and “smile more.” </p>
<h2>Impact on health</h2>
<p>These experiences seem to have an impact not only on their faculty career trajectories (some faculty are considering leaving or have left academia since the interviews), but also on their emotional and physical health. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/people/profile/35/Arline_T_Geronimus">Arline T Geronimus</a>, researcher at University of Michigan, along with her colleagues, has documented the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CY-jAQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA163&dq=%22Geronimus%22+weathering&ots=iW8x7fI636&sig=FjalqjMGgN2BUoef0rpVJbFq5bk#v=onepage&q=%22Geronimus%22%20weathering&f=false">long-term</a> physical, mental, emotional and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-010-9078-0#page-1">psychological effects</a> of racism and of living in a society characterized by white dominance and privilege, a phenomenon she calls <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2004.060749">“weathering.”</a> </p>
<p>Weathering severely challenges and threatens a person’s health and ability to make healthy responses to their environment. This can cause wear and tear, both physical and mental, and lead to a host of psychological and physical ailments, including heart disease, diabetes and accelerated aging. </p>
<h2>Hurdles for black faculty</h2>
<p>For an academic, presenting research to peers can open doors to departmental collaborations, research funding opportunities and job offers. Faculty members must present effectively and persuasively to stand out from the crowd. </p>
<p>Scholars of color <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=12BtWmnQkOYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA171&dq=racial+battle+fatigue&ots=rc83OGOg1T&sig=edlteccWiLxR-xOuUrXesSXcQJs#v=onepage&q=racial%20battle%20fatigue&f=false">face additional hurdles</a> for acceptance that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41341106?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">range</a> from <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7709/jnegroeducation.81.1.0082?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents#pdf_only_tab_contents">micro-aggressions</a>, subtle and stunning racial slights, to outright racism. Faced with racial battle fatigue, many try to change who they are in order to fit in, or simply give up and change careers. During my interviews, black faculty said it was the micro-aggressions, subtle and stunning racial slights, that caused them the most anguish.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-008-0113-y#page-1%20;%20http://aer.sagepub.com/content/43/4/701.short">persistent racialized</a> <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jhe/summary/v080/80.5.jayakumar.html">stigmatization</a> of black faculty is particularly troubling given the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_315.20.asp">low number</a> (just about 6%, according to 2013 data culled from the National Center for Education Statistics) of black faculty working in higher education. </p>
<p>The stunning <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/rhe/summary/v035/35.4.griffin.html">lack of diversity</a> among <a href="http://aer.sagepub.com/content/52/1/40.short">higher education</a> faculty presents serious challenges to efforts to level and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-011-0182-1">democratize the educational playing field</a>. </p>
<p>Researchers too need to pay more attention to this issue. Future research needs to center on how to reduce the impact of such racialized experiences so as to improve faculty retention and improve the quality of black academics’ well-being. </p>
<p>Blacks have a long history of being objectified for entertainment value, going all the way back to the blackface minstrels, a form of entertainment beginning in the 1810s in which performers used make up to represent a black person. In these performances African Americans were depicted as comical, lazy or dim-witted.</p>
<p>Today the racialized objectification of African Americans may not always be as overt as it was a century ago, but the “black as entertainment” ideology remains alive and well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ebony O. McGee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Academia suffers from a stunning lack of diversity. Only 6% of academics in higher education are black. What are some of the experiences of black faculty?Ebony O. McGee, Assistant Professor of Education, Diversity and Urban Schooling, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.