' Culture, in Buck's point-of-view, and the construction of race, thus had a greater importance upon the creation of modern Kentucky than a logical evaluation of individual's real interests. This is why both whites and blacks have been worked to the bone.
Discrimination against poor whites still abounds in present-day Kentucky in the form of stereotypes. Poor whites are often characterized as supposed 'rednecks' who deserve their economic fate because their days are devoted to "drinking, incest," and "family violence," and living lives of "general backwardness, bare-footedness, improvidence, and red-necked cussedness (7). "The actions of coal mine owners, of corporate tobacco buyers, or of manufacturing executives are irrelevant in explaining Kentucky's bony fingers if they can be explained by the problems in Kentucky's culture instead," not by bad corporate behavior (7).
In defending her thesis, Buck begins with evidence from her own life, as she opens with her struggles opening and operating a plumbing business with her husband. She even uses the metaphor of plumbing to describe class exploitation -- she strives, she writes, to provide a view from 'under the sink' of hard work, and describes upper-class white privilege as never trickling down to poorer whites except in sweat. Like a sink, the privilege system of Kentucky can never 'trickle up' from the bottom, and Jim Crow is a kind of drainage system, where poor white resistance to their fate is systemically diverted into hatred of blacks. Buck combines historical evidence stretching back to the earliest colonial times, as well as books, newspapers, and statistics available from contemporary sources, and her anthropological and anecdotal evidence. Particularly unique is her use of
Still, Buck advances her idea in a unique fashion. Buck argues that there are two 'types' of whiteness, based on class, in Kentucky. Poor whites refuse to see this because it would mean a psychological loss of their status as 'white,' the only cultural privilege many poor whites possess. Buck's thesis, though, does not take into account the fact that although race is a social construction, it is so potent that it still may remain easier for a poor white person to socially advance. If a poor white person in racially stratified Kentucky can assume the manner and appearance of the upper class, surely he or she can more easily assume upper class white privileges through social mobility and education in a way that would be denied to a black person, perhaps even an educated black person from the middle class. Still, Buck's work is an important contribution to literature about racial 'construction' in America, and it is particularly interesting because it is told from the point-of-view of whites, yet condemns white privilege.
Essed notes the profound perceived threat to power experienced by those in the majority feel when even small encroachments are made by other groups into the dominant fabric of society, and how tacit racism against minorities is often allowed even by those who might not consider themselves prejudiced on an interactional and personal level (184). In short, the institutional racism of society inevitably affects interpersonal relations, even amongst people
Furthermore, while acknowledging that there was a consciousness of whiteness and white superiority in other lands, such as England, Roediger points out that part of the Americanization process for European immigrants was to become white, and that this process involved internalizing feelings of racism and hatred towards blacks. Affirmative Action and the Politics of Race by Manning Marable Manning Marable is a pro-affirmative action author, and he begins his essay by
Race, Class, Gender Journal Word Count (excluding title and works cited page): 1048 Race, Class, and Gender is an anthology of articles that express various interpretation and insights of the relationship between race, class, and gender and how these things shape the lives of people and society. The topics and points-of-view offered in the anthology are vast and interesting. They offer a strong historical and sociological perspective on such issues as prison
052 (Barkan & Cohn, p.205). Death Penalty Attitudes of the Offender The same literature that shows blacks are less likely to favor capital punishment shows that black offenders are more likely to support shorter sentencing and less likely to agree with capital punishment (Baker, Lambert & Jenkins, 2005). At least, this trend is evident with regard to violent crimes. When approaching individuals and asking about minor crimes, black and white attitudes were
EDSE 600: History and Philosophy of Education / / 3.0 credits The class entitled, History and Philosophy of Education, focused on the origin of education and the "philosophical influences of modern educational theory and practice. Study of: philosophical developments in the Renaissance, Reformation, and revolutionary periods; social, cultural and ideological forces which have shaped educational policies in the United States; current debates on meeting the wide range of educational and social-emotional
(Eljamal; Stark; Arnold; Sharp, 1999) To conclude, it be said that if we will not be able to master imparting the capability to think in a developed form, our profession, as well as perhaps our world, would be influenced and taken over by someone who would be able to outsmart us to find it out. We would in that case not only remain thinking as to what happened but would
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