Jason Sokol
Autore di There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975
Sull'Autore
Jason Sokol is Arthur K. Whitcomb Associate Professor of History at University of New Hampshire and author of There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975.
Fonte dell'immagine: Historian Jason Sokol at the 2015 Texas Book Festival. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44371522
Opere di Jason Sokol
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Sesso
- male
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Statistiche
- Opere
- 4
- Utenti
- 240
- Popolarità
- #94,569
- Voto
- 3.8
- Recensioni
- 4
- ISBN
- 12
This is not a complete history of racism in the North. Instead Sokol focuses on select periods and incidents in the postwar period, focusing on Boston, New York City, and Connecticut, as representative examples of his thesis. In the South, racism is overt. In the North, it is covert. Northerners are taught to revere a mystique of anti-racism: that the North is different. The sin in the North is to declare one's racism, not to live it.
In order to resolve this paradox, Northern whites have to tell themselves other myths: that school segregation is merely a result of living in different neighborhoods, and that living in different neighborhoods is either by choice or because black families can't afford to buy in white ones. Massachusetts sees itself as the cradle of liberty and home of the abolitionist movement. In New York City, the myth of the melting pot is employed to obscure fault lines. Thus, Jackie Robinson's tenure with the Dodgers is hailed as evidence of New York's progressivism and Brooklyn's diversity--and it is. But it's also true that Jackie and his family were unable to buy a house in the suburbs, and after they were finally able to do so (because they went to the newspapers) their children were treated miserably in their white schools.
Black politicians (Ed Brooke and Shirley Chisholm are featured) get elected through a delicate dance around their race. On the one hand, many white voters wanted to laud their progressivism by voting for a black candidate. On the other, the candidates face backlash for emphasizing it--implying that they are not being voted for on the basis of their qualifications, but their race. This bind of "voting for the most qualified candidate" continues for minority candidates today. As a Republican seeking statewide election in a predominantly white state, Brooke emphasized how his election would really be a color blind choice. As a Democrat in a majority-minority district with substantial minorities of both white and Puerto Rican voters, Chisholm emphasized outreach to all groups, her independence, and a canny ability to play New York's political machines. A later section of the book deals with the perils of black politicians in the 1980s at a time when crime was on the rise and cities were being starved by Reagan. Dinkins' initial promise was deflated by racial violence he was unable to calm.
As time progressed, tensions that had not been spoken about began to bubble to the surface and explode--and chief among them was school busing. The North resisted it. When segregationist senator John C. Stennis called the North out on its hypocrisy, Connecticut Sen. Abraham Ribicoff took on his challenge--and acknowledged it. But while many white Southerners were only interested in Northern hypocrisy as a deflection, Ribicoff meant it, and ultimately backed major plans to reverse segregation. They landed on deaf ears. In Boston, too, fierce opposition arose to the idea of busing. The Northeast would accept equality under the law; it would accept equality at the ballot box; it would not accept change in day to day life.
Because the book is selective, there's much more material that could be mined--for example, federal housing policy was instrumental in white flight, and racial steering as well as discrimination ensured that the suburbs would remain as segregated as the cities. Supreme Court decisions restricting desegregation to within district lines would preserve suburban segregation, where districts were small and black (and later Latino) residents continued to be steered away from white suburbs. However, Sokol does a good job of using his cases as illustrative. As well as Boston and New York City, Springfield and Hartford are studied.
As a native Long Islander, I recognized the racism I had grown up with. It's vital for those of us who grew up and continue to live in the Northeast to understand our own history with racism and its unique flavor.… (altro)