Racial Tension And Civil Unrest

The Detroit race riot of 1967 was one the most destructive and violent riots of the 159 race riots that occurred during the “Long Hot Summer.” For five straight days civilians fought the police, resulting in 43 deaths, 1,189 injuries, 7,200 arrests, and over 2,500 lootings. Fifty years later there are still visible results of the riot, and the event remains a source of reflection for Detroit citizens. Asides from the building damage and violence, the riots affected various aspects of Detroit's culture, including the Motown enterprise, which was producing chart-topping music that influenced listeners across the globe. As a genre of music that was known as “The Sound of Young America” in the 1960s, studying the Motown sound before and after the riots can provide insight into Detroit citizens’ mindset.

The World War 2 era provided many changes in California. With the people coming off The Great Depression during the 30’s they saw California’s economic standing, social moral, and overall mentality transform completely. Not only did the country go through something as devastating as The Depression, they are now entering into the War. With the wartime, expansion came racial discrimination for minorities, especially Japanese Americans, which resulted in one of the worst cases of mass incarceration in America’s history. While America was restarting the country’s economic growth it was sending their own citizens into internment camps, an event that would affect hundreds of thousands of Japanese American citizens for decades to come.

White sailors invaded Mexican American communities and attacked Zoot Suitors. The city police did nothing to restrain the sailors, who grabbed the Hispanic teenagers, tore off and burned their clothes, cut off their hair, and beat them. However, when Hispanics tried to fight back, the police moved in and arrested them. After the Zoot Suit riots, LA passed a law prohibiting the wearing Zoot Suits” (www.stufflikethat.org, 2010)

The history of Mexicans in Los Angeles is a long one. The city itself was founded in 1781, by Spaniards and mixed race Latinos. As time went on, Latinos faced more and more discrimination. Certain events stand out in California’s Latino history. In the forties, Caucasian sailors would beat up Latinos who wore “Zoot Suits”, or baggy clothes, and the police let the Caucasians do it with no consequences.

During World War II, Latinos in American neighborhoods were subject to inequality, prejudice, and exploitation even though they sacrificed so much for the country. During World War II, East Los Angeles was going through the racial tensions between Anglo sailors, marines and resident Latinos called the Zoot Suit Riots. In document N, it shows a set of photos taken during these Zoot Suit Riots and it shows several teenage boys being stripped of their clothes by the police. It also shows many Anglo sailors with bats and sticks in which they used to attack anyone who was wearing a zoot suit. The tension was all caused because Many sailors and marines would pass through Latino communities where confrontations between them and Latinos wearing Zoot

Racial tensions began heightening in the city of Los Angeles on June of 1943. It’s what came to be known as the Zoot Suit Riots. Racial tension between Mexican Americans who were called both pachucos and zoot suiters. They were known for their fashion which had a symbolic meaning towards them, it was a way in expressing themselves which white sailors and servicemen disliked. They saw Mexican Americans as thugs, gang members, and delinquents. White servicemen and sailors were unfamiliar with hispanics, but it was so easy for them to discriminate by appearance. Several Mexican Americans served in white units. Tension was rising between them, especially when marines and sailors assaulted both Mexican and African Americans in their own neighborhood. Also, for a false rumor towards Mexican Americans which stated that they had attacked and stabbed a sailor. Both races were being discriminated and were treated unjustly. The day came on June 3, 1943 where these conflicts led to the Zoot Suit Riots. This incident of violence lasted a whole week. Zoot suiters were beaten and arrested for no reason at all. The issues that led to the Zoot Suits in 1943 was Jose Diaz, the Sleepy Lagoon Case, and racial attacks between whites and people of color. This filled the atmosphere with a lot of hatred and discrimination that had erupted in the summer of 1943. The riot led to a compromise of all military personnel being banned from the city limits with in Los Angeles

Throughout the 1900s, the United States of America has struggled with a national struggle for civil rights. The book Bridges of Reform by Shana Bernstein focuses on one of the most influential areas of civil rights activism: the West Coast. California, in particular, has had a long era of civil rights struggles, spanning from the labor wars all the way to the 1970s. This is largely due to the fact that Los Angeles became to be an increasingly multiethnic population throughout its history; however, Los Angeles learned to deal with this through forming multiracial coalitions seeking to challenge discrimination in the city. Her work places multiracial communities of the United States West at the center of U.S. civil rights history. Shana Bernstein

America’s recent ban on immigration and the President’s proposed Muslim registry are reminiscent of the way in which Americans treated Japanese-Americans in the early 20th century, particularly with the internment camps. In light of such recent events, it is necessary to analyze history while considering current-day events to avoid the repetition of America’s shameful past. The public backlash against the Japanese-American forced evacuation and internment was limited at best, often due to differing priorities for segments of the population or a lack of willingness to take action. While most whites did not speak out, some with decent public influence did but refrained from taking action; other minority groups, in acts of self-preservation,

Mexican immigration has impacted many important components here in the United States of America (U.S.) and in its major institutions of society. In the following paper I will be focusing on the nature of social policies (or the lack thereof) that Americans had developed with respect to Mexican immigration by 1960. Specifically this paper will be detailing six different areas: the Mexican American War, Anti-Mexican American violence, Texas, the Great Depression, the Bracero program, and documented versus undocumented status. Each of these areas will be explaining the mistreatment that Mexicans encountered because of the nature of policy enactments by

Picture young Mexican American boys stripped of their flamboyant suits, their bodies bruised, and their colourful outfits reduced into ashes. Imagine them desperately waiting for the police to save them, but getting arrested instead. Sounds awful, doesn't it? But this was precisely what happened on May 31st of 1943 in Los Angeles. All this distraction because of a suit.

The Civil War helped to make black men free, but it did not cause black men to be seen as equals. Racial equality has been fought over in our country for centuries, and not even African Americans have always agreed on how it should be achieved. At the end of the 19th century two strong ideas about racial equality came to the surface. One was led by W.E.B. DuBois and the other by Booker T. Washington. DuBois believed that in order to gain racial equality, African Americans had to stand up and fight for what was rightfully theirs. DuBois also believed blacks should become educated in the arts and higher learning. Washington believed that if black people gained worthwhile skills they would gradually earn their place, and then become equal in the

As the country was embroiled in an unremitting civil war, New York City was afflicted by riots that would become the city’s most devastating instance of racially motivated violence. Between July 13th and July 16th, 1863, ten days after 46,000 Americans were slain at Gettysburg, riots broke out over a new law passed by Congress. This law, the Enrollment Act, was established to bring new recruits into the Union Army that was being diminished by the increasing amount of high-casualty battles. What initially began as a protest against the draft and the commutation fee that allowed wealthier citizens to buy their way out of the draft, soon turned into a race-riot, led primarily by Irish-American immigrants against New York’s African-American community. The riots led to a mass exodus of New York’s African-American population and resulted in the deaths of 119 men, many of whom were African-American, who were lynched and beaten by the white mobs. Behind the scenes of violence and disorder was Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that controlled City Hall from 1854 to 1932. This corrupt and venal organization, whose crimes normally consisted of doling out city contracts to supporters and precipitating Irish immigrants’ entrance to the voter rolls, now included murder. Rather than seek to have the draft declared unconstitutional, as many of the Irish working-class rioters wanted, Tammany inflamed already burgeoning racial tensions. Tammany did this by

The Los Angeles Police department developed under the policing of Mexican origin people in Los Angeles in a racially-driven manner where the perception is that Mexicans, “…and other minority groups are criminally inclined.” (Escobar, p. 3). Alongside this was the prompt timing of police professionalization of the LAPD and anti-Mexican sentiment. The LAPD developed primarily in a militaristic response to the growing Mexican demographic of the city.

From the stereotypes people hold about those of other cultures other than their own, to police brutality, racism is evident in our society on a daily basis. Recent examples of racism in our society include the cases of Ferguson, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner. An even more recent example of racial tension in the United States can be found in the heated debates about Beyoncé’s performance at the Super Bowl. Many feel that it was not an appropriate platform for her and her dancers to relay their message about police brutality. (1) Additionally, racism varies greatly across different cultures. In India, for example, there is a group of roughly 160 million people deemed “untouchable”

Racial tension was a common topic in this week’s discussion. Many types of discrimination were discussed, such as the obvious tension between pure-blood wizards and the muggle-born, but people noticed that one type of discrimination was not often addressed in the series. The ethnicity of the characters is not specified, and there seemed to be two responses to this. Some thought that this subdued Rowling’s fight against racism because the issue was not addressed in the way we encounter it in the real world. Others believed this strengthened her fight because it provided a medium through which racial tension could be discussed. Both sides agreed that leaving out the cultural groups of the characters was intentional. This leads me to believe that