Difference between revisions of "426--Week 6 Questions/Comments--Thursday"
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I, like Kelly, was surprised that there were so many ways to categorize the color of African Americans. Also, I had never really questioned why ancestry was the means of determining a persons racial classification. Having read Rothman's work, I now wonder why that was used as the definitive means of determining if a person was black, white or mulatto. If society truly wanted to not have a large population of whites with black heritage, I would have thought they would have established a more limiting system then that. --Sarah Gardner | I, like Kelly, was surprised that there were so many ways to categorize the color of African Americans. Also, I had never really questioned why ancestry was the means of determining a persons racial classification. Having read Rothman's work, I now wonder why that was used as the definitive means of determining if a person was black, white or mulatto. If society truly wanted to not have a large population of whites with black heritage, I would have thought they would have established a more limiting system then that. --Sarah Gardner | ||
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| + | Although Rothman notes the complications that Native American’s make, he does not fully discuss this. I think that a study of attitudes regarding Native Americans and interracial sex would be interesting. I wonder how they compared to Blacks? –Andrew B | ||
== Epilogue == | == Epilogue == | ||
In the Epilogue, Rothman discusses a valuable point of view that most Americans today tend to default their way in to (for lack of a better phrase) and that is the "slavery was bad but everyone is equal now" approach to life. Although rather cheesey, Rothman lays it all on the line as he says "Finally, they seem to feel we can move on. Tom and Sally were really in love, after all, and slavery was a long time ago." He argues that interracial sex and the amount of time and energy whites spent hating blacks and both sides of the color line spent feuding is often overlooked in history classes today in a "slavery ended hundreds of years ago and we're not like that anymore" sort of way. So I have a question - do you think that's true? Do Americans today kind of, "romanticize" the era, so to speak? -Kelly | In the Epilogue, Rothman discusses a valuable point of view that most Americans today tend to default their way in to (for lack of a better phrase) and that is the "slavery was bad but everyone is equal now" approach to life. Although rather cheesey, Rothman lays it all on the line as he says "Finally, they seem to feel we can move on. Tom and Sally were really in love, after all, and slavery was a long time ago." He argues that interracial sex and the amount of time and energy whites spent hating blacks and both sides of the color line spent feuding is often overlooked in history classes today in a "slavery ended hundreds of years ago and we're not like that anymore" sort of way. So I have a question - do you think that's true? Do Americans today kind of, "romanticize" the era, so to speak? -Kelly | ||
