Abstract
The history of African Americans over the last century is full of silences. Wherever silence appears, its meaning is conditioned by a number of factors: an event; the interpretation made of that event, both by the individual and by the groups with which the individual identifies; and the impact the event has on the interaction of the individual in both the groups to which he belongs and the groups to which he wishes belong. One should also consider the importance of what happens over time: how does the event change the individual? How does interpretation of the event change over time? Lastly, what does silence mean to the individual in his social context? Reflection on all of these facets contributes to one’s understanding of silence.
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Notes
- 1.
“Jim Crow” refers to a practice or policy (official or unofficial) of segregation or discrimination toward Black people. The term comes from the name of a song sung in minstrel shows in the 1830s.
- 2.
University of California Berkeley, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Office Planning and Analysis. Accessed June 16, 2016.
- 3.
See, for example, Joseph Carroll, “Public Overestimates U.S. Black and Hispanic Populations,” Gallop News Service, June 4, 2001. Accessed June 8, 2016.
- 4.
Herb Ruffin II, “Which Came First, Jim or James Crow?: De Jure Racial Discrimination Revisited,” in Sherwood Thompson (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice, ed. Sherwood Thompson (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015), 448–452.
- 5.
Unionization and Mass Marching wer adapted from the European trade union movement of the 1910s.
- 6.
See Herb Ruffin II, “A. Phillip Randolph,” in Icons of Black America, ed. Matthew Whitaker.
- 7.
Actually he had been using Gandhian non-violent tactics since the late 1920s, to intersect mass protest and direct action politics during the Brotherhood’s battle for collective bargaining as an AFL trade. From this, “big bluff politics” was invented. The most famous use of this politics was during the March on Washington movements in the 1940s and 1960s.
- 8.
Ruffin, “A. Phillip Randolph,” 737.
- 9.
See Ruffin, “A. Phillip Randolph” for a fuller understanding of this issue.
- 10.
Mahatma Gandhi, “Silence and Action,” Harijan, November 26, 1938.
- 11.
The term “queer” here is the term which those individuals use to identify themselves, as distinct from binary hetero norming.
- 12.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, cited in Taylor Hawk, “Intersectional Feminism: What It Is and Why We Need It for a Truly Gender Equal World.” https://www.theodysseyonline.com/intersectional-feminism-gender-equal-world (Retrieved 10.7.16).
- 13.
This explanation was provided as background material from a forthcoming article by Herb Ruffin II (see reference list).
- 14.
This institutionalized racism was documented for example in the Kerner Commission report (see reference list). July 1967, US President Lyndon Johnson created the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, headed by Illinois governor Otto Kerner, to explore the background of the urban race riots and to recommend solutions. In signing the order establishing the commission, Johnson said he was seeking answers to three basic questions about the riots: “What happened? Why did it happen? [And] what can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?” Sadly, it would seem that in 2016, a new report is needed.
- 15.
For example, Moody broke with her family to become a member of the nascent civil rights movement, joining the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and spearheading voter registration efforts. She participated in the original Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-ins and the 1963 March on Washington.
- 16.
That being said, however, it is important also to note the sensationalization and corporatization of rap music which has, at times, threatened to transform rap into an updated minstrel show, disconnected from the communities and experiences from which it originated.
- 17.
This account is part of an op-ed piece written by Herb, which no mainstream news outlet accepted for publication. He eventually published the piece on a blog, and it has been submitted for publication in an academic journal (see References).
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Billias, N., Vemuri, S. (2017). Individual, Collective, and Strategic Silences (USA). In: The Ethics of Silence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50382-0_8
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