Why was psychological wage important in the creation of race in America?

本文解答在美国关于国家、民族、政治、历史等相关问题

Part 1   Concepts

1.Nation
A nation is a group of people and they have common language, ethnicity, descent, culture and history. It may also be a people, tribe or a race. Now we define nation as two meanings. One is a group of people consisted of one or more nationalities with its own territory and government, and the other is a tribe or a federation of tribes, just as American Indians. The meaning of nation is changing continuously with time going and new characteristics may join in its meaning.
2.Nationalism
Nationalism has different meanings in different perspectives. In general, nationalism is a creed, belief or political ideology. An individual may be attached to and identified with his nation by his nationalism. From the perspective of psychology, nationalism is one’s attachment to a religion or a certain thing/person. From a sociological perspective, nationalism is a reflection of the perceived and ancient evolutionary tendency of humans to live in groups or a recent phenomenon requiring modern society’s structural conditions. There are other definitions of nationalism.
4.New nationalism
New nationalism is Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Political philosophy during the 1912 election. He made New Nationalism in a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas on August 30, 1910. He focused on the issue of government protection of property rights and human welfare, and he also covered the issue that human welfare was more important than property rights. The other ideas are that the federal government should be utilized to protect laboring men, women and children from exploitation. The concentration in industry was the economy’s natural part.
5.Illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is people’s migration across national borders or foreign nationals’ residence in another country. Their migration violates the immigration laws of the destination country. People often try to live in a richer country and improve their quality of life by migration. When potential immigrants think that the chances of successfully migrating are greater than the risks, they choose illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants often have to pay for their illegal immigration and live with restrictions, try to adjust to new life styles and so on.
6.Privilege
From the perspective of political ethics, a privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. Privilege is different from right which is inherent and unchangeable entitlement held by all human beings from their birth. A privilege is conditional and granted only after birth in modern democratic countries. People with privilege can be immune to some restrictions.
7.White privilege
White privilege is the privilege held mainly by white people and it gives white people special rights in social, political or economic circumstances. This privilege is not shared by people of other colors. White people can get cultural affirmations of their won worth, presumed greater social status and freedom to move, work, buy and speak. This privilege makes white people different from others.
11.Aversive racism
Samuel L. Gaertner and John F. Dovidio proposed aversive racism theory in 1986. When racial/ethnic groups are discriminated for a long time and other groups hate to interact with them, this group becomes a racial/ethnic minority. These people have to suffer from discrimination and little interaction with other groups. It is characterized with ambivalent, complex expressions and attitudes.
Part 2 Questions
1.How is white privilege connected to Theodore Roosevelt’s beliefs about who is and is not an American?
Theodore Roosevelt agrees white privilege in some way about the true Americans. As he said, it is not only necessary to Americanize the immigrants of foreign birth who settle in American. But it is even more necessary for those who are by birth and descent already American not to throw away their birthright and with incredible and contemptible folly, wander back to bow down before the alien gods. Roosevelt holds the belief that the white should insist on their privileges. He holds the belief that the white people worked most independently that their accomplishments and they have produced the greatest men. In Theodore Roosevelt’s opinion, a true American should be a person who achieved something by themselves. White people are this kind of people. They made their laws and executed them and made soldiers, statesmen, orators, explorers and so on. The white people have accomplished good work in America. In this way, white privilege is in some way reasonable in Roosevelt’s opinion.

3.What are some problems with the understanding of race in America and how does it affect Asian Americans?
In America, race is a definite social category. It refers to a certain group with certain physiological and cultural features. Americans divide people into several classes, including superiors and inferiors. In the 1940s, Asian Americans agree to America to a large extent. But in 1960s, most Asian Americans tried to give up the mainstream culture in America and establish their own Asian American culture. The reason is that they realized that they had to make some changes after reviewing their status in America. Such changes have milestone meaning to Asian Americans. White people are regarded as true Americans. Racial problems may include people’s conflicts in daily life. These have influences on Asian Americans. In America, they are not true Americans and be regarded as second-level Americans. Nowadays, even though Asian Americans sometimes have to face awkward situations, they have made their unique characteristics.

4.What does the average person believe about immigration? Is this belief true or not? Explain using Sassen.
Sassen explained such questions in his America’s Immigration “Problem”. The prevailing assumption is that the principal causes of emigration are overpopulation, poverty and economic stagnation. But Sassen find it not true for new immigration. The main features of new immigration, in particular, the growing prominence of certain Asian and Caribbean Basin countries and the proportion of female immigrants, cannot be fully explained under the prevailing assumption. And a cursory review of emigration patterns reveals a new finding. There is no systematic relationship between emigration and traditional causes of emigration. A country with rapid population increase may have little emigration. Poverty in itself seems not to be a very reliable explanatory variable. The presumed relationship between economic stagnation and emigration is similarly problematic. Therefore the prevailing belief about immigration is not true.
5.Why was psychological wage important in the creation of race in America?
W. E. B. Du Bois introduced the concept of “psychological wage” for white laborers in 1935. He holds the opinion that white people have superior status than black people. Psychological wage were introduced to make low-wage workers feel superior to low-wage black workers. White people are given public deference and titles of courtesy in every area. The psychological wage has great influence on the creation of race in America. White people not only enjoyed privilege of best school and public parks, but also the police were drawn from them instead of people of other colors. Since white people had already such privileges, the psychological wage gave them a big encouragement to feel superior to black people. It confirmed that white people were true Americans. White people were treated with leniency and they were the core of news while black people were ignored except in crime and ridicule. With psychological wage , black people’s status were lower and white people’s status were higher, which contributed to white people’s superiority in the creation of race in America.
6.How has racism in America changed since the idea of race was created in 1691?
During the colony period in North America, interracial marriages were very few. The reason is that white people wanted to retain their pure blood. After 1691, many American states prohibited interracial marriage. Even in President Lincoln’s statement, he stated that many times that white and black people shared equal rights in birth, freedom and pursuit of happiness, but without interracial marriage. After the idea of race was created in 1691, racism has changed in some aspects. That is, black people enjoy more rights than before and their social status has improved a lot. Black people can enjoy almost all the rights white people have though they may have some difficulties in doing so. For example, only 48% of black people have their own houses while 75% of white people have their own houses. In 2005, black people’s unemployment rate is 10.8% while that for white people is 4.7%. White children get better education and enjoy better educational equipments. But in general, racism has faded in some way and black people’s status has improved a lot since 1691.