Racism and Race Relations

1. Racism and Race Relations

2. Racist theory • In the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century, it was theorized that races were, essentially, genetically distinct subspecies • Further, it was held that some races were, by nature, inferior to others • White people, particularly those who traced their descent from Northern Europe, were held to be the most intelligent and civilized • This theory was used as an excuse to oppress minority groups in the US This was not a fringe theory, but was the generally accepted idea among political and academic leaders. Example: "negroid peoples, the so-called "hamitic," and bastard semitic, races of eastern middle Africa were ‘not fit’ to compete with whites and it would take ‘many thousands years” before the Black became even “as intellectual as the [ancient] Athenian.” – President Theodore Roosevelt

3. Research • You will be researching one of the following four topics • Segregated schools for children of Mexican descent • Mexican-American Debt Peonage • Toleration and discrimination in San Francisco • Chinese response to the anti-Chinese movement • First, you need to log on to jstor • You need to find an article about your topic and record the following on your paper • The title of the article • The name of the author • 3-5 sentences (in your own words) summarizing what your article says about your topic