ETHN 100 KEY CONCEPTS: POWeR

1. ETHN 100KEY CONCEPTS: POWeR Wednesday, September 29th

2. Last Session’s Goals and Activities • Build community by developing reading groups. • Discuss the role of Personal Reflections in the course by discussing the Munoz piece and debate clips in small groups. • Situate the emergence of ethnic studies in the United States within an historical context by listening to a brief lecture and viewing a video clip on the SFSU Third World Liberation strike. • Introduce key themes and concepts in ethnic studies and the course by analyzing James Baldwin’s debate remarks at Cambridge University in 1965.

3. Historical Events and Social Movements that Influenced the Student Strikes in California

4. Key Concepts in Ethnic Studies Experience

5. Today’s Goals and Activities • Introduce key themes and concepts in ethnic studies and the course by analyzing James Baldwin’s debate remarks at Cambridge University in 1965. • Examining the centrality of experience, context, and perspective to the study of race, ethnicity, and other markers of identity by interpreting key debate phrases and planning for Assignment 1a. • Consider various conceptualizations of power by distinguishing between Lukes’ different dimensions and discussing discussing Zinn’s view of history.

6. Selected phrases and paraphrases from James Baldwin’s Debate Remarks What do you think he meant by: • How one answers the question on the American Dream and African Americans depends on one’s sense or system of reality. • Gary Cooper: The Indians are you. • “I picked the cotton. I carried to market. And I built the railroads. Under someone else’s whip. For nothing.” • At least they are not black. What has happened to white southerners is in some ways worse than what has happened to Southern Negroes. • Espouses the notion of the freedom of the world. • Establish dialogue… we will be in terrible trouble.

7. Key Concepts in Ethnic Studies Experience

8. Luke’s Three Dimensions of Power • 1-dimensional power: We can see power in action. We can observe conflict between interests. • 2-dimensional power: When conflict is not obvious and remains unresolved. Less powerful group’s issues don’t reach the agenda. • 3-dimensional power: When less powerful people have internalized the idea that they are less worthy or important.

9. Notes on the Third Dimension • Our focus: Who gets to define what is accepted truth? What vehicles are used to exclude groups from structures of knowledge? • This third dimension focuses on the power to shape the dominant ideology, or a set of beliefs. • Zinn argues that historians need to use their understanding of the past to advocate for a better future. • History as a vehicle not just documentation of the past • Emphasizes the relationship between power and the telling of history. • Growing focus on the the notion that power as discursive. • A couple of key scholars • Antonio Gramsci: Cultural hegemony – focus on how power is embedded in what becomes “common sense,” accepted truth, and unquestioned knowledge. • Michel Foucault: knowledge/power – focus on how knowledge shapes power. Power is discursive. That is, it is transmitted through the various knowledge structures in society.

10. Key Focus in Ethnic Studies • Where there is power, there is resistance. • Sometimes resistance to power is deliberate and organized • Sometimes resistance isn’t conscious • Sometimes the resistance isn’t directed against those who are in power. • We are concerned with understanding the agency of people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. • How they are actively engaged in their own sense of reality as shaped by differing power relations among groups.

11. Revisiting phrases James Baldwin’s Debate Remarks What do you think he meant by: • How one answers the question on the American Dream and African Americans depends on one’s sense or system of reality. • Gary Cooper: The Indians are you. • “I picked the cotton. I carried to market. And I built the railroads. Under someone else’s whip. For nothing.” • At least they are not black. What has happened to white southerners is in some ways worse than what has happened to Southern Negroes. • Espouses the notion of the freedom of the world. • Establish dialogue… we will be in terrible trouble.

12. Key Concepts in Ethnic Studies Experience

13. Next Session • Social Structure Due: • Personal Reflection on Kozol, Ch. 2, 3 • Online Reflection on US Commission on Civil Rights • Assignment 1a: “The High School Me”

14. Assignment 1a: The High School Me Due Monday - Assignment Prompt will be posted online later this evening under “Writing Assignments” Task • Write a reflective essay about who you were at that time in your life. How were you similar to or different from other groups of students? How have you changed? What about you has not changed? Some ideas to think about: peer groups, relationships with adult figures, activities you in which you participated, and performance in classes. Purpose • The goal of this essay is to develop a thick description of how your sense of self was shaped by (and shaped) the social setting. We are particularly interested in exploring the ideas of context and experience. Parameters • Your essay should no fewer than 1000 words (four double-spaced pages).