A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

I have been completely unaware about micro-aggressions and their commonality. For example when I’m sitting in a restaurant, I can watch and notice who is being waited on first while other customers are forced to wait. These kinds of micro-aggressions were apparent in Karen Roth’s story about Malik in “Retail Racism.” Malik was a young black gentleman who was specifically being watched by the security guard in the bookstore while he shopped. At first he brushed off his concern that he was being targeted because he was black. Malik reasoned that everyone is watched equally. But then when he went to the cash register, he was asked for two forms of verification rather than one and he yet again felt targeted. When people are unaware of micro-aggressions are, such as when I was oblivious to them before taking this class, they do not notice them. But after taking this class, even I have noticed who gets helped first at a clothing store, who gets waited on first at a restaurant, and who gets labeled as a thief and is followed around in the store.

Another example from the reader that struck me was the poem by Pat Mora titled, “Legal Alien.” In this poem, Pat Mora expresses how he feels when he is targeted with prejudice by other racial groups. He feels that he is, “an American to Mexicans, a Mexican to Americans,” He expresses how he feels unaccepted by both groups because of micro-aggressions. For example, “their eyes say, ‘You speak Spanish but you’re not like me,’” is a micro-aggression because it is a form of non-physical aggression used to make another human being feel inferior. But how should we correct the mistakes of others? How do we inform others that what they are doing is prejudiced? Other people are not always aware of what they are doing so we must be their allies. We must inform them that their actions are hurting our fellow brothers and sisters. They are suppressing the victim’s race/gender/sexuality/disability/etc. When we are the ones being waited while a person of another race is made to hang around, we need to inform the waiter or the waitress that the other person arrived before us and that he or she should be helped first.

"Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions," (Zinn 151). This was used to justify the American push for Westward expansion. They believed that it was their destiny to expand across the United States and that the land out west was given by god for Americans to occupy. This however was not the actual cause for the westward push into California but rather because James Polk used manifest destiny to justify the Mexican-American war. The actual case however was that the war was very unpopular with the public but the newspapers greatly misrepresented this. They would support James Polk’s agenda for expansionism despite the rates of desertion. “The total number of deserters during the war was 9,207: 5,331 regulars, 3,876 volunteers,” (Zinn, 168). It is amazing to see that even 150 years ago that the media was distorting the truth for the “good of the country.” They would push aside the truth in order to promote their own private agendas.

This was not the only time when the government pushed for their own agendas at the expense of other human lives. The government also supported slavery because it was profitable. In 1790, a thousand tons of cotton were being produced every year in the South. By 1860, it was a million tons. In the same period, 500,000 slaves grew to 4 million,” (Zinn, 171). Zinn goes on to talk about how save revolts were always suppressed and it wasn’t until Abraham Lincoln’s large scale efforts of violence and war that slavery could finally be abolished. But even after it was abolished, slaves weren’t entitled to the same freedoms as other men. They were still looked down upon in society. Eventually violence would grow with the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. They would attack and lynch innocent colored people without reason. These types of micro-aggressions and overt prejudiced acts are still seen in small pockets across the United States. Racism did not end with the election of a black president and we all need to learn from our mistakes in order to better ourselves.

In chapter 18, we once again see the United States fighting an unpopular war. “By early 1968, the cruelty of the war began touching the conscience of many Americans. For many others, the problem was that the United States was unable to win the war, while 40,000 American soldiers were dead by this time, 250,000 wounded, with no end in sight.” (Zinn, 483) This time however we would see that the public’s opposition to the war would actually end the war. Millions of people would gather and protest the atrocities occurring abroad. Even the low morale of the troops would contribute to the end of the Vietnam War. This would show that the people of the United States did have a voice and after crying out to the government for such a long time, they helped to contribute to the end of the war. We see protests and rallies everyday today, for example, the occupy movement which is directed towards socio-economic inequality. We know that if we all come together as allies we can be heard and create change in government policy.

Chapter 19 especially deals with these sorts of movements for example the National Organization for Women, Indians of All Tribes, and prison reform movements. Throughout these movements we saw a “general revolt against oppressive, artificial, previously unquestioned ways of living. It touched every aspect of personal life: childbirth, childhood, love, sex, marriage, dress, music, art, sports, language, food, housing, religion, literature, death, schools,” (Zinn, 536). Revolts and movements lead to social, economic, and political change across the board. The people of this country really did have the power, but they were only just gaining their voice.

Sometimes however we are taking away the voice of another individual by labeling them as a group. We say that a community is poor, rather than economically disadvantaged, or when we label a black person as a minority when in fact he or she may be part of the majority of the community (Lippin, 80). By doing so we are committing micro-aggressions. We as an individual do not want to be labeled a certain way so we should watch out language so we do not label other people in an incorrect way. We should let other speak for themselves and give them their own voice and let them say what they have to say rather than objectively labeling them a certain way.

Unfortunately however we take away the voices of by characterizing a person of a certain race a certain way. For example in the media we always see the stereotypical black criminal. By perpetuating that black people are criminals through the use of the media, we are essentially creating fear of black people. An excellent example of this was on an episode of the Simpsons I saw most recently. In the episode, the family is driving back home but they get lost in an unknown neighborhood. They see many different ethnic restaurants and people of color on the street and the mother instantly locks the doors of the cars. After their car gets a flat tire, she verbalizes to the children not to get out of the car until the mechanic arrives. By portraying this on a TV show watched by millions of viewers, the media is teaching the public to be afraid of ethnic people. Fortunately however the hungry children disobey their mother and run into a restaurant where they learn their love of Ethiopian food.

Fear does not only come from the media however. It can come from all different sources especially from family. My father for example has always taught me never to trust anyone who is not Indian. He always believed that white people, black people, Mexicans, etc. were criminals or wanted me to do drugs. As I grew older I began to separate from his beliefs and created friends of various different backgrounds. I learned that all the stereotypes that my dad had for other people were wrong. But unfortunately it left me to feel defensive about bringing up racism or even making errors by accidently being racist. It very easy to offend someone which makes it twice as difficult to watch what you’re saying. I believe that white people and non-white people both have to overcome the same struggles in order to overcome racism and white privilege. Everyone needs to be able to speak openly and freely about race and white privilege in order to conquer our fears about race.

I don’t feel any specific guilt that I carry from my history or my ancestors because I do not know enough about my people’s history to feel that guilt. I’m not saying that Sikh people have not discriminated against other races or gender or sexuality, I just do not know enough. I am guilty of being ignorant. I can however say that I have not stood up in the defense of another race when it was necessary to do so. Referring back to my original example of micro-aggressions in restaurants, I did not verbalize that the African American group that had been waiting longer than I had needed to be helped first. In this way I was perpetuating the cycle of micro-aggressions and prejudice by not being an ally. Small everyday gestures such as letting the person who was there before you to be helped first can be an excellent example of reducing the burden of irrational guilt. We can acknowledge certain privileges and work towards eradicating them. One of the more difficult tasks we can do is to take responsibility in learning about other cultures and heritages, in some cases even our own cultures, in order to avoid ignorance. These are all actions that we can all commit to in order to better understand ourselves and others. In this way we can understand what white privilege means and finally unravel racism.

In Howard Zinn’s afterword he states that we must take action in order to create change. We cannot stand idly by while others rally in opposition to atrocious wars and policies. This relates to the events on the quad because many of us are equally outraged by the pepper spray incident, and the social and economic inequality within the American economic system, and the insanely high tuition fee hikes but many of us choose to sit back and let others protest for us. In order to be heard we must “Rise like lions after slumber in unvanquishable number!”

Bibliography

· CRD 02- Ethnicity and American Communities Reader; University of California, Davis - Spring 2011

· Helfand, Judy, and Laurie B. Lippin. Understanding Whiteness, Unraveling Racism: Tools for the Journey. Mason, OH: Thomson Custom Pub., 2002. Print.

· Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. Originally Published: New York. Print.

· "A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn." Libcom.org. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. <http://libcom.org/library/peoples-history-of-united-states-howard-zinn>.