(I’m commenting on some of the reading due last week since we haven’t yet discussed it in class)
It is disheartening to read about continued racial segregation in terms of residential neighborhoods. But I was slightly (though by no means fully) comforted when I read in Crowder’s piece that West Indians do not face as much segregation as African Americans. Though the West Indians may have had to work harder to convince American White society that they were different from their African American counterparts, they have basically proven that skin color is not a barrier to becoming more integrated into nicer, White neighborhoods. Nor is it a barrier to being more accepted by Whites in terms of employment opportunities and socioeconomic statuses (even though there are many middle class African Americans that people seem to forget about).
Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that the relative success of West Indians will have that much success in getting African Americans more integrated and accepted into White neighborhoods, or for ameliorating institutionalized discrimination. After all, most people are aware of the unique status and predicament of African Americans throughout American history and today. They have this almost ingrained stereotype embedded in virtually all Americans (perhaps even amongst themselves?) that may play a factor in their exclusive discrimination throughout American society. But when we talk about a new type of Black ethnicity such as West Indians who have no previous history of discrimination in the United States, there is room for them to be accepted more so than their unfortunate African American counterparts (though not fully because they are still somewhat Black).
We all know that ideally, skin color should not be a criterion for the residential composition of a city or for employment opportunities. This has been proven to a fairly decent degree by the West Indians, and will hopefully at some point begin to extend to those of African American origin as well.
And what’s the deal with calling them West Indians? We’ve already corrected Columbus’s mistake in calling Native Americans “Indians” – let’s correct this gross mistake of calling people of Caribbean origin “West Indian”!
