Neoliberalism and Civil Rights

Different Stances on Why the Civil Rights Movement Occurred When it Did?

• It had already been occurring over the long term• WWII: ethnicity did not matter when work needed

to be done to support the war effort• A part of global decolonization• 1940s: Union movement as launching point • 1950s: Black church emerges as the primary

institution to push for racial justice• Corporeal Appropriation• A part of the Cold War Containment Strategy

Quote from Betty Friedan

• “The feminist revolution had to be fought because women quite simply were stopped at a state of evolution far short of their human capacity”

Peters World MapOxford Cartographers, UK

A map drawn to scale(Not the Mercator Projection)

• Economic and social advantage is often based on human competition– 1300-1800: English vs. Irish

• Today: a more difficult economy– Lack of control– Lack of predictability

Civil Rights Timeline

• 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson• 1929: League of United Latin American Citizens

(LULAC)• 1930s: George Sanchez criticizes IQ tests as good

for measuring only social and linguistic assimilation to the English speaking, Anglo-Protestant milieu

• 1936: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling

Civil Rights Timeline

• 1947: Mendez v. Westminster: segregation violated California law

• 1948: Founding of the GI Forum• 1948: President Truman supported efforts to

end lynchings and desegregate the military

Civil Rights Timeline

• 1954: Brown vs. Board of Education– State mandated segregation of public schools

violated the constitutional right of African American students to equal protection of the law• 14th amendment

• 1955: Rosa Parks does not give up her bus seat• 1955-1956: Montgomery Bus Boycott

Civil Rights Timeline

• 1959: Death of Ritchie Valens (“La Bamba”)• 1960: Lunch Counter Sit-In, Greensboro, NC• 1961-1964: SNCC led a voting registration

campaign in Selma, Alabama• 1963: Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique• 1964: Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin

Resolution -- it allowed President Johnson to “repel armed attack”

Civil Rights Timeline

• 1965: Bloody Sunday• 1965: MLK led a march from Selma, Alabama to

Montgomery, Alabama• 1965: President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act – Outlawed educational requirements– Allowed for federal registrars to enroll voters– Justice Department had authority to monitor voting in

areas where there was a history of discrimination– Harper v. Board of Elections: Eliminated the poll tax in 1966

Civil Rights Timeline• 1960s and 1970s: Mexican-Americans claim a new identity as

“Chicanos”• 1963: John F. Kennedy Assassinated• 1964: Civil Rights Act• 1966: Black Panthers founded in Oakland, CA• 1968: Martin Luther King Assassinated• 1968: Tet Offensive in Vietnam turns Americans public opinion

against the war– More than 80,000 communist troops mounted a coordinated assault

on five cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals / 4,000 Americans died• 1970: Ladies Home Journal Sit-In

Neoliberalism• After WWII, there were social, democratic, egalitarian and

distributive measures – Civil Rights legislation as one example

• The “Neoliberal” turn after 1980: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher– Class power and wealth restored to the richest strata

• Tax reductions on the wealthy (“trickle down” theory)– 1982: the International Monetary Fund allowed debt

restructuring to those countries that adopted economic policies promoting western style, free-trade; legitimately elected socialist leaning leaders were ousted politically or economically by the U.S.

NAFTA as Neoliberalism

• 1986: NAFTA has a permeable border for capital and companies can declare no profits, leaving Mexico without revenues – but, immigration into the U.S. became tighter

NAFTA as Neoliberalism

• NAFTA allowed:– American factory owners gained access to cheap

Mexican labor– Silence on issues related to labor or environmental

effects – Investors gained access to Mexican property and

financial assets• By 1988: U.S. investments controlled 2/3 of

the Mexican economy

NAFTA as Neoliberalism

• In other words, NAFTA did not serve average Americans or Mexicans

• The border hardened for the poor and was made more permeable for the powerful

Characteristics of the Civil Rights Era

• Nonviolent resistance / Civil Disobedience• Desegregation / Integration• Centrality of the black church• High profile activities carried out in the South• The term “black” replaced “negro”• Black nationalism (Catholics and Jews participated)• Northern / Western focused in the 1960s• Defense oriented (protecting oneself)

• 1920: 10,000 blacks with college degrees• Today: 4.6 million blacks with college degrees

Irwin JacobsFounder of Qualcomm, Inc.In San Diego; La Jolla

Irwin Jacobs

• Founder of Qualcomm• Born into a Jewish family in Massachusetts• PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science• UCSD professor• “The US is not producing enough math and

engineering graduates”– “It is behind, relative to other nations”

• “I must hire immigrants from abroad to fill my labor needs”

1924 Immigration Quotas

• Restricted Asians and those of Southern or Eastern European ancestry

1943: Magnuson Act

• Repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act– To counter Japanese propaganda about American

racism– Created a quota of 105 Chinese immigrants– Chinese still not allowed to own property

1952: Mc-Carron Walter Act • Ended racial restriction of the 1790

Naturalization Act: For the first time, allowed non-whites to naturalize as citizens– Kept in place the national quota system of 1924– Allowed immigrants from Asia to enter,

overturning the 1917 “Asiatic Barred Zone”– Called for the deportation of anyone labeled as

subversive, with known communist leanings, or with “moral turpitude” (gays, lesbians, psychopathic personality disorder)

1965 Hart-Cellar Act

• Under President Johnson, immigration quotas set by place of origin rather than the quotas of 1924

• 170,000 immigrants per year allowed from the Eastern Hemisphere

• 120,000 immigrants per year allowed from the Western Hemisphere

• I960: 75% of new immigrants from Europe• 1999: 51% of new immigrants from Latin America,

27% from Asia, 16% from Europe

Emergence of “Yellow Power” - 1969

• Rejected the stereotype of the “passive oriental” in place of one who will recognize and deal with injustice

• Challenged 2 assumptions:– That they have already obtained economic equality

• They did not earn as much, though they work hard and have education

– That they were powerless in the U.S.• Especially in heavily populated areas such as L.A. and San

Francisco, they can form a solid voting bloc

Emergence of “Yellow Power” - 1968

• 1968: the first pan-Asian political organization was formed at UC Berkeley– Spread to SFSU, UCLA, CSLB, Columbia, Yale…

• Asian-American Studies Departments were formed at UCB and SFSU

• Pan-Asian periodicals came out of the movement and forged a pan-Asian consciousness

• The first time the term, “Asian-American” was used nationally to mobilize people

• MeCHA founded in 1960 at UC Santa Barbara– 25 Resolutions were drafted calling for Chicano

Studies Programs at at UC campuses• Staffed and led by Chicanos

Bloody Sunday

• After this, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

• Formed in Oakland in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale

• Combined Marxist-Leninist philosophy with Black Nationalism

• Believed the education system did not promote black pride

• Had a 10-point platform• FBI under J. Edgar Hoover infiltrated them to

bring it down

1965 Voting Rights Act

• African Americans were given the right to vote in the 15th amendment in 1870

• They could exercise that right until 1965• 1964: Number of African Americans who

voted in Missssippi – 28,500• 1968: Number of African Americans who

voted in Mississippi – 251,000

Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique (1963)

• Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW)

The GI Forum

• Began when a funeral parlor in Texas refused to bury the remains of a Mexican-American WWII veteran– A group of veterans organized on his behalf– President John helped arrange a proper burial for him

• The GI Forum became one of the leading civil rights organizations for Mexican-Americans– In 13 states by the 1950s– Shaped by their military service and claim to equal identity– Did not fight the Nazi system to return to the U.S. and

suffer the ill treatment of ourselves and children

Civil Rights Movements

• Different racial or ethnic groups sought:– Equal citizenship– National belonging – Economic Opportunity– 1968: Emergency of Chicano Nationalism

Ritchie ValensBlended Mexican folk music with country music and black folk music.Learned from an African member player. There were black and Japanese members of his original garage band.