White Response

Question 1

Why was the myth of Ham hotly contested during imposition of Jim Crow?

Answer 1

understandings and beliefs of origins could confer legitimacy on racist practices and further oppression against AfAms

Question 2

theological scientific theory of races

Answer 2

reveals unstable infrastructure of whiteness as a form of racial, sexual, and intellectual anxiety

Question 3

What did the theory of polygenesis achieve?

Answer 3

1. showed blacks existed before Adam and Eve

2. buttressed hysteria over issue of miscegenation as black man tempted Eve

Question 4

Main argument of Carroll’s “In the Image of God” (1900)

Answer 4

1. Noah’s curse did not make Ham a “Negro”
2. since Noah and his wife were both white and since Adam and Eve were also white, it is impossible blacks are descendants of either
3. thus blacks were created prior to Adam and Eve along with the other animals, and as such have no soul
4. greatest offence man can do against his race, country and God was permitting miscegenation, since this will cause an apocalyptic ending

Question 5

Sylvester Johnson

Answer 5

1. racial origins were a key aspect of status and identity for African Americans, in light of the American self-conception as a “chosen people” and their own break in identity resulting from slavery

Question 6

Bio Theodore Bilbo

Answer 6

1. 1935-47: US Senator from Mississippi
2. maintained support for segregation and white supremacy
3. Democrats assigned him to what was considered the least important Senate Committee in an effort to limit his influence
4. 1938: acted as prominent filibuster in anti-lynching bill proposed before Senate
5. member of KKK

Question 7

Bilbo, “False Concepts on the Christian Religion” (1946)

Answer 7

1. answered arguments for complete segregation in name of democracy and in name of science, now addresses religion
2. segregation and racial purity part of Divine plan
3. racial integrity as sacred: gift from God that man can destroy and which can never be redeemed
4. Apostle Paul’s “one blood” spiritual not literal, quotes biblical verse that condemns Canaan to servitude

Question 8

Jane Dailey

Answer 8

1. religion functioned as vehicle for language of miscegenation
2. religious dynamics of the debate of segregation represented a struggle for orthodoxy, which is historically produced, not divinely

Question 9

1940s: NAACP’s Legal Defence and Education Fund

Answer 9

1. crafted strategy for attacking Jim Crow laws from the outside-in
2. focussed on higher education and discriminatory voting practices rather than restrictive marriage laws

Question 10

1954: Brown vs Board of Education

Context + Significance

Answer 10

1. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional
2. 1954: anti-miscegenation laws present in 27 states
3. fears about integration based on sexual danger

Question 11

Ida B Wells and ideas of miscegenation

Answer 11

1. “The Free Speech” (1892) questioned the assumed connection between interracial rape and lynching
2. asserted sexual relations between white women and black men rarely result of force
3. lynching and anti-miscegenation laws reaction to uneasiness over nature of desires of white women
4. voluntary alliances between white men and white women threatened both the patriarchy and white supremacy

Question 12

Herman Talmadge

Answer 12

1. Governor of Georgia and Senate from Georgia

2. 1964: boycotted Democratic National Convention following LBJ’s signing of Civil Rights Act

Question 13

Talmadge, “You and Segregation” (1955)

Answer 13

1. opposition to NAACP: brainwashed nation and media, Wants Complete Intermingling
2. emphasis on racial integrity
3. God Advocates Segregation: created different races and appointed bounds of habitation
4. (a) religious defence (b) natural science defence (c) historical defence

Question 14

Bio Gunnar Myrdal

Answer 14

1. Swedish economist and sociologist

2. Carnegie Corporation selected Myrdal as non-American to offer supposedly unbiased opinion

Question 15

Myrdal, “An American Dilemma” (1944)

Answer 15

comprehensive study of sociological, economic, anthropological, and legal data on race relations in US

Question 16

What was the “American Dilemma”?

Answer 16

1. coexistence of Am liberal ideas and miserable situation of AfAms

Question 17

What was the “principle of cumulation?

Answer 17

1. whites oppressed blacks, then highlighted their poor performance as evidence for oppression
2. in order to break cycle whites needed to be cure of their racial prejudice or improve circumstances of blacks

Question 18

Myrdal on miscegenation

Answer 18

1. sex was the principle around which the whole structure of segregation was organised
2. presented sexual control as central to ideology and practice of white supremacy