Get on the Bus

1. Get on the Bus • How is the movie related to the class? • The diversity within the black community • The divisions within the black community • Spike Lee often looks at both the external and internal problems facing the black community

2. Old-Style Radicalism Chapter 7: Old-Style Radicalism • Socialism • Communism • Nazism why did they fail?

3. New-Style Radicalism • What is it? • Traditional/Mainstream political participation • Unconventional participation (protests) • Reforming the dominant society • Grassroots Social Movements

4. Political Participation • Political participation refers to political activity by individual citizens. • Unconventional participation — includes activities such as demonstrations and boycotts • Conventional participation — includes activities such as voting, writing letters, contacting officials, giving money

5. Conventional Participation May Not Always Be Effective For Minorities • Each requires that one of the two political parties embrace (include) the minority group. • Money givers, activists, and leaders of organized groups have more influence than do ordinary citizens. • If the minority is small in size then their impact on the process is severely limited

6. Social Movements • Social movements are loosely organized collections of people and groups who act over time, outside established institutions, to promote or resist social change. • Social movements: • focus on broad, society-wide issues • tend to act outside of normal channels of government, using unconventional, often disruptive, tactics • are generally the political instruments of political outsiders • are generally mass grassroots phenomena • are populated by individuals with a shared sense of grievance • are very difficult to organize and sustain

7. Major Social Movements • Abolitionist movement • Populist movement • Women’s suffrage • Labor movement • Peace movement • conscientious objection • Civil rights movement • Anti-Vietnam War movement

8. Women’s movement • Equal Rights Amendment • Environmental movement • Gay and lesbian movement • Religious fundamentalist movements • Pro-life (anti-abortion) movement • Anti- (corporate) globalization movement • Anti-Iraq war movement • Tea Party movement

9. Social Movements and Democracy? • They encourage popular involvement and interest in politics. • Broadening the “scope of conflict” • They often allow those without substantial resources to enter the game of politics. • Mass mobilization • They often are crucial in overcoming gridlock or the status quo. • Civil Rights movement • Women’s suffrage movement

10. Protest is Not Enough • Protest communicates needs/demands, but only temporarily • Protest is not always considered legitimate • For real and long term policy change you need political representation in local, state and federal bodies • Browning, Marshall, Tabb (1984) • How did the dominant society respond? Arrests, beatings, fire bombings, assassinations

11. Protest is Not Enough • Movie: “Eyes on the Prize” • http://model.inventivetec.com/tight_url.cfm/URLID/11095 • http://model.inventivetec.com/tight_url.cfm/URLID/11098 • Albany closed its parks instead of integrating them, got rid of all library chairs. • Not easy to do: Civil Rights movement started in the North (Chicago 1943) • Splits in the leadership on age/generation/philosophy • As Malcolm X says - the threat of the militant faction (Black Panthers, etc.) made it easy for the nonviolent movement to obtain concessions

12. Other Social Movement • Brown Power • Similarities to Black civil rights movement? • Native Americans • Building on civil rights movement, legislative and court tactics • Disabled • Again war an important catalyst: moral obligation, than an issue of rights • Gays and Lesbians • Build on civil rights movement • AIDS epidemic hurt movement • Important court cases (Lawrence v. Texas 2003) • How did the dominant society respond?

13. Asian American Social Movements • Shared fate/history • Racialization, discrimination, immigration • Political Action • Redress for Japanese interment • Most South Asian Americans have not entered political process in large numbers • Filipino farm workers organize/anti-Marcos movement • Ethnic campaigns to preserve ethnic enclaves • Developers, gentrification, affordable housing