Get on the Bus
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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
Old-Style Radicalism
Chapter 7: Old-Style Radicalism
• Socialism
• Communism
• Nazism
why did they fail?
New-Style Radicalism
• What is it?
• Traditional/Mainstream political
participation
• Unconventional participation (protests)
• Reforming the dominant society
• Grassroots Social Movements
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
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
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
Major Social Movements
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Abolitionist movement
Populist movement
Women’s suffrage
Labor movement
Peace movement
– conscientious objection
• Civil rights movement
• Anti-Vietnam War movement
• 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
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
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
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
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
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Build on civil rights movement
AIDS epidemic hurt movement
Important court cases (Lawrence v. Texas 2003)
How did the dominant society respond?
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