6.2: Realizing Responsibility Through Class Participation
Module Introduction
Class attendance is a normal part of every college course. In the past, attendance was left up to the individual student. Now universities, adopting the responsibility of being local parents, require that teachers monitor class attendance closely by taking attendance each class and reporting students who are chronically absent. This makes use of what are termed "compliance systems": minimum standards of acceptable attendance are established and communicated to students, behavior is regularly monitored, and non-compliance is punished. In compliance approaches, the focus is placed on maintaining the minimum level of behavior necessary to avoid punishment. But this leaves unmentioned higher levels and standards of conduct. Students who miss more than X number of classes are punished by having points subtracted from their overall grade. But what constitutes outstanding attendance or, more positively, excellent participation? This module uses class attendance as an occasion to teach the different concepts of moral responsibility. After outlining blame responsibility and excuse-making, it explores responsibility as a virtue or excellence. Being absent creates its own responsibilities (1) to the teacher (you are responsible for finding out the material covered and learning it on your own), (2) to your classmates (what did your class group do in your absence and how will you reintegrate yourself into the group as an equal participant), and (3) to yourself (what habits will you change to improve your participation in class).
Where excuses come from
Understanding Morally Legitimate Excuses:
- The table below lists characteristics of what ethicists call "capacity responsibility." These conditions--presented by F.H. Bradley--describe when we can associate an agent with an action for the purposes of moral evaluation. They consist of (1) self-sameness, (2) moral sense, and (3) ownership.
- Self-sameness bases responsibility on the ability to maintain an identity over time; you must be the same person at the moment of accountability that you were when you performed the action. You cannot be blamed for actions performed by somebody else. So Jorge cannot be blamed for classes missed by Jose. Your professor should be held responsible for taking accurate attendance and not marking you absent when you are actually in class.
- The moral sense condition requires that you have the capacity to appreciate and comply with moral directives. This includes certain perceptual sensitivities (the ability to recognize elements of a situation that are morally relevant), emotional responses (that you respond to moral elements with the appropriate emotion), and the ability to shape action in accordance with moral standards. Those who lack moral sense, whether temporarily as with children or because of psychological limitations as with psychopaths are non-responsible rather than guilty or innocent. They simply lack the general capacity to be held accountable.
- Ownership gets down to the specifics of a given situation. Did factors in the situation compel you to miss class? Did you miss class because you lacked certain crucial bits of knowledge? Why were you unable to attend class and can this "why" be translated into a morally legitimate excuse. In excusing an action, you "disown" it. There are three ways to do this: a) by showing unavoidable and conflicting obligations, b) by pointing to compelling circumstances, or c) by citing excusable ignorance.
- Formally defined, compulsion is the production in an individual of a state of mind or body against the actual will. Sickness is a state of mind and body that could compel you to stay at home even though you want to come to class and take the test. Having a flat tire on the way to school could also produce a state of body (being stuck at the side of the road) against actual will (driving to class in order to take the test). With compulsion, the key test is whether the compelling circumstances were under your control. Did your tire go flat because you postponed getting a new set of tires, even when it was clear that you needed them? Are you sick and in bed now because you overdid it at the party last night? If the compelling circumstances resulted from actions that you performed voluntarily in the past, then you are still responsible.
- You also need to have the knowledge necessary to act responsibly in a given situation. Imagine that your class was being taught by a professor who claimed to be a CIA agent. He would repeatedly change the times and locations of class meetings at the last minute to keep from being discovered by enemy spies. Not knowing where (or when) the next class would be held would make it impossible to attend. Here you would get off the hook for missing class because of excusable ignorance. But suppose changes in the class schedule were announced during class by the professor, but you were absent on that day. You are now responsible for your ignorance because you should have found out what was covered while you were absent in the past. In other words, your ignorance in the present was caused by your neglecting to find things out in the past. You are responsible because voluntary actions in the past (and inaction) caused the state of ignorance in the present.
- The table below provides sample excuses given by students for absences. These are correlated with conditions of capacity responsibility such as ignorance and compulsion. Correlating excuses with conditions of imputability is one thing. Validating them is something else, and none of these excuses have been validated.
- Here are some more typical excuses offered by students for missing class. Try correlating them with the conditions of imputability to which they tacitly appeal: (1) I missed your class because I needed the time for studying for a test in another class. (2) I missed class because the electricity went out during the night and my electric alarm clock didn't go off on time. (3) I planned on going to class but got called into work at the last minute by my boss. In all these cases, you have missed class and have a reason. Can your reason be correlated with ignorance or compulsion? Were you negligent, careless, or reckless in allowing these conditions of ignorance and compulsion to develop?
- Excuses (and blame) emerge out of a nuanced process of negotiation. Much depends on trust. Your professor might excuse you for missing a class at the end of the semester if your attendance up to that point had been exemplary. He could, on this basis, treat the absence as an exception to an otherwise exemplary pattern of attendance and participation.
- But you may have trouble getting off the hook this time, if there have been several previous absences, because the new absence falls into a pattern of poor participation accompanied by lame excuses. Excuse negotiation (and blame responsibility) occur over the background of other values such as trust and honesty.
| Retroactive Responsibility | Excuse | Excuse Statement (Some Examples) |
| 1. Conflicts within a role responsibility and between different role responsibilities. | I have a special project due in another class and finishing it conflicts with attending your class. | |
| 2. Overly determining situational constraints: conflicting interests. | I am interviewing for a position after I graduate, and I must be off the island for a few days. | |
| 3. Overly determining situational constraints: resource constraints | My car had a flat tire. My babysitter couldn't come so I had to stay home with my child. My alarm clock didn't go off because of a power outage. | |
| 4. Knowledge limitations | The class was rescheduled, and I was unaware of the change. | |
| 5. Knowledge limitations | I didn't know the assignment for class so I came unprepared. (Not an excuse for missing class) |
Exercise 1: Provide a Morally Justifiable Excuse for Missing Class
- Offer an honest and responsible ethical assessment of the reason you were unable to carry out your role responsibility for coming to class. Note that the default here is attending class and any departure from the default (i.e., missing class) requires a moral justification
- Begin by examining whether your action can be classified as an excuse arising out of compulsion or ignorance
- Your absence may not be morally excusable. In this case, you cannot excuse your absence but still must explain it
- Remember that, following Aristotle, you must show that your action was done under and because of compulsion or under and because of ignorance. In other words, you must show that it did not arise from past negligence or recklessness
Proactive/Prospective Responsibility
Principle of Responsive Adjustment:
- Responsibility for both good and bad things often emerges as a pattern exhibited by a series of actions. If you miss one class after establishing a pattern of good attendance and active participation, then your teacher will look for something exceptional that prevented you from doing what you habitually do. But if one absence falls into a series with other absences, then this reveals a pattern and your teacher begins to classify you as someone who is chronically absent.
- So, it is not enough to offer a moral excuse to get "off the hook" for your absence. Expressing remorse, guilt, and regret does not substitute for taking active measures to avoid repeating the wrongful act. These changes or responsive adjustments clue others into whether you have learned from your past mistakes. What happened in the past was bad and you regret it; but are you willing to make the necessary changes in your future conduct to avoid repetition of the bad act?
- This is expressed by the "Principle of Responsive Adjustment" (or PRA). Stated negatively, failure to take measures to prevent past excusable wrongs from reoccurring in the future leads to a reevaluation of these past actions. Failure to responsively adjust shows that the past action belongs to context of similar bad actions indicating a bad habit or bad character. This, in turn, leads to a reevaluation of the past act; what when taken in isolation was not blameworthy becomes blameworthy when inserted into this broader context. Showing an unwillingness to learn from the past betrays entrenched attitudes of negligence, carelessness, or recklessness. (See Peter A. French, Corporate and Collective Responsibility)
Responsibility as a Virtue:
- Responsibility can be reconfigured as a virtue or excellence
- The table below describes the characteristics of a preventive stance where we begin by identifying potential wrongs and harms. Once we identify these then we take serious measures to prevent them from occurring
- Finally, responsibility as a virtue opens up the horizon of the exemplary. Pursuing excellence requires our identifying opportunities to go beyond preventing harm to realizing value
- In this context, class attendance becomes class participation. As was said in the introduction, missing a class creates a series of new tasks that arise out of your commitment to excellence in participation. These include the following:
- What was covered while you were absent? Or better, if you know in advance that you are going to miss a class, what will be covered? How can you cover this material on your own? What can you do, proactively, to stay with the class during your absence?
- How will your absence impact the rest of the class (especially those in your class group), and what can you do to minimize any harmful effects? Here you should notify your team members that you are going to miss class and develop plans for maintaining your equal participation in the group and class during and after your absence
- In accordance with the Principle of Responsive Adjustment, what changes are you making to avoid absences in the future or--putting it as positively as possible--to achieve a level of excellence in class participation?
- Note how all these items focus on improvement or betterment rather than "making up." As Dewey recognizes, the real function of moral responsibility is to take the lessons we learn from the past and use them to improve ourselves
| Responsibility as a Virtue or Proactive Responsibility |
|
Guidelines for Avoiding Absences:
- Build redundancy into your schedule. Many students develop schedules that are "tightly-coupled." This means that failures or breakdowns cannot be isolated; they tend to flow over into other areas producing a cascading disaster. A co-worker calls in sick, and your boss calls you in during the time you have a class. You miss one class and fail to study for another. (The time you set aside for study has been taken up by this unexpected job demand.) You have been working so hard to catch up that you catch a cold. Now everything becomes that much harder because you are not working to full capacity. The lesson here is to set up your schedule from the beginning with a certain amount of flexibility built-in. This could be as simple as taking four instead of five classes or working 10 instead of 20 hours per week.
- Look for incentives or motives to come to class. One important incentive is that you may get a better grade. Teachers tend to know students who come to class better; they consider them more responsible and more committed.
- Get proactive when you return. Instead of asking the professor, "Did we do anything important while I was absent?" consult the syllabus and a classmate to find out what you missed. Then check your understanding with the professor. "My understanding is that you discussed moral responsibility with the class and applied the framework to a case. Is this correct?" Instead of asking the professor, "What should I do to make up for what I missed?" come with your own plan. Show that you have taken responsibility for your absence by getting proactive and planning the future around realizing value.
- Absences have an impact on your fellow students as much as on you or your instructor. If you are working in groups, find out from your peers what was covered. If your group is depending on your completing a task for the class you are missing, try to develop a "work-around." ("I won't be in class tomorrow but I am sending you my part of the group assignment via email attachment.") Let your team know what is happening with you and make sure that you keep up on all your commitment and responsibilities to the group.
Exercise 2: Getting Proactive about your absence
- Develop a plan for "getting back into the loop." What are you going to do to cover the material and activities you have missed?
- Get Preventive. Describe what you are going to do now to avoid absences in the future
- Shoot for the ideal. What can you do--above and beyond class attendance--to realize exemplary participation in your ethics class
Conclusion
Exercise #3: Getting and Staying Honest
- Below is a template that you need to duplicate, fill out, and place in the class attendance file that will be on the desk in front of the class
- Duplicate and sign the honesty pledge at the end of this module
- Students often wish to provide evidence documenting their claims regarding their absences. You may do this, but remember that this is neither required nor in the spirit of prospective responsibility
- Furthermore, be aware that you are not to provide confidential information such as personal health information or student ID numbers or social security numbers. Health issues are to be referred to generically by saying something like, “I was unable to come to class Tuesday because of health reasons”
1. Class missed (day of week and date):
2. The material covered during class:
3. Reason for missing class (please do not provide confidential information):
4. Action plan for absence: how you intend to take responsibility for the material covered while you were absent; how you intend to make reparations to your group for not participating in group learning activities for the class you missed:
5. How you plan to avoid absences in the future:
Honesty Pledge
- To realize the value of honesty, you will make the following affirmation:
- The information I have provided above is truthful, the excuses I have enumerated rigorously examined from a moral point of view, and the responsive commitments I have made above are serious, and I will take active and realistic efforts to carry them out.
Signature:_____________________________________________
Bibliography
- Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics, Book 3, Chapters 1-3.
- Bradley, F. H. (1927/1963). Essay I: The vulgar notion of responsibility in connexion with theories of free-will and necessity. Ethical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3-4.
- Davis, M. (1998) Thinking Like an Engineer: Studies in the Ethics of a Profession. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press: 119-156.
- Fingarette, H. (1971) Criminal Insanity. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA: 171.
- French, P.A. (1984) Collective and Corporate Responsibility. Columbia University Press: New York, NY.
- Jackall, R. (1988) Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- Ladd, J. (1991) Bhopal: An essay on moral responsibility and civic virtue. Journal of Social Philosophy, 32(1).
- May, L. (1987) The Morality of Groups: Collective Responsibility, Group-Based Harm, and Corporate Rights. University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, IN.
- May, L. (1994) The Socially Responsive Self: Social Theory and Professional Ethics. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL.
- Pritchard, M. (1996) Reasonable Children: Moral Education and Moral Learning. University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS.
- Pritchard, M. (1998) "Professional responsibility: focusing on the exemplary", Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol 4, pp 215-234.
- Pritchard, M. (2006) Professional Integrity: Thinking Ethically. University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS.
- Stone, C. D. (1975) Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior. Prospector Heights, IL: Waveland Press, INC.


10.4.7: “Hot People Are White-Looking and Good, Ugly People Are Evil”
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
- Robin DeRosa, Abby Goode et al.
- Plymouth State University/
Remember when you’d watch cartoons as a little kid and you’d always be able to tell who the bad guy was because they were painstakingly ugly? Prime example: In Aladdin, our handsome protagonist is a strapping tall glass of water whereas his malicious rival looks like an ironed-out malnourished piece of leather. This unfortunate narrative we get fed as children has more adverse effects then simply implying that you can distinguish the nature of someone’s character by giving them a visual once-over. When race gets tied into the mix, what can happen is that good characters (of a different race) usually have a) lighter skin and b) whiter features. Just take a look at Aladdin vs Jafar… You tell me which one has more Middle Eastern physical features and which one looks like a white boy from Greenwich, Connecticut who just got a tan from an afternoon of sailing.
How does this apply to Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Not only are the bad characters described as ugly–shout out to Haley who was described as “a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplace features”–but the black people in this story (who Stowe wants us to sympathize with and see as the good characters) are hot and white looking.
Let’s look at Harry first. He’s described as “remarkably beautiful and engaging. His black hair, fine as floss silk, hung in glossy curls about his round, dimpled face, while a pair of large dark eyes, full of fire and softness, looked out from beneath the rich, long lashes, as he peered curiously into the apartment.” His mother is treated with the same type of description. Stowe writes that she has “rich, full, dark eye[s], with long lashes; the same ripples of silky black hair. The brown of her complexion gave way on the cheek to a perceptible flush, which deepened as she saw the gaze of the strange man fixed upon her in bold and undisguised admiration. Her dress was of the neatest possible fit, and set off to advantage her finely moulded shape.”
First of all, I’d like to point out that most black hair isn’t silky. Most black women you see on TV are wearing wigs if their hair looks soft and smooth. Yes, Beyonce is wearing a wig.  Which is just one of the white features that is assigned to Eliza and Harry. Later on, the mother-son pairing is also said to be “so white as not to be known as of colored lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.”
So are our good characters hot? Check. Do they have white features? Check. The problem with this is that not all black people look white and not every single one of them is heart wrenchingly beautiful. Most people aren’t. To focus so hard on the beauty of the the main black characters wouldn’t be as bad if they didn’t look so white.  That’s been the point of both this story and The Heroic Slave. Look at how similar to white people these slaves are! They’re good Christians! They speak perfect English! I think that’s why people have issues with Babo from Benito Cereno. He’s not an acclimated slave. He’s pissed. Frankly, all slaves have the right to be pissed! They shouldn’t be expected to morph into a culture that they were forcibly placed into and only be granted the approval stamp of “human being” once they do it.


19.11: Monitoring the Person in Labor for Complications Developing During the Process of Labor and Birth
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the clinical manifestations, treatment, and nursing actions in the event of an undetected vaginal, cervical, or perineal laceration
- Explain the clinical manifestations, treatment, and nursing actions in the event of altered perfusion and oxygenation of the person during labor and birth
- Explain the clinical manifestations, treatment, and nursing actions in the event of altered neurologic function of the person during labor and birth
- Explain the clinical manifestations, treatment, and nursing actions in the event of psychosocial dysfunction of the person during labor and birth
Certain complications develop during the process of labor and birth. These complications include undetected lacerations, alteration in oxygenation, altered neurologic status, and psychosocial dysfunction. The nurse monitors for and attempts to prevent these complications.
Undetected Lacerations
The nurse assesses lochia every 15 minutes during the first hour after birth. Normal lochia is dark red with small clots. Bright red, brisk bleeding is not normal. If the uterus remains firm, undetected lacerations can be the cause of the vaginal bleeding. Risk factors for perineal trauma include older age, higher BMI, primiparity, gestational diabetes , hospital birth, longer second stage labor, and higher fetal weight and larger head circumference (Bączek et al., 2022). Lacerations can lead to symptoms of hemorrhage (hypotension, tachycardia, and decreased oxygen saturation) prior to the laceration being detected. The nurse examines the vagina and perineum to discover any undetected lacerations. Once a laceration is detected, the health-care provider is notified, and the laceration is repaired. The nurse will monitor for continued signs of bleeding. The hemoglobin and hematocrit will also be monitored. The health-care team will use lab results, vital signs, and the postpartum person’s ability to ambulate and perform activities to determine the need for a blood transfusion.
Alterations in Perfusion
Alterations in perfusion can occur during the birthing process. Pregnant persons with preeclampsia can have kidney damage due to vasoconstriction secondary to hypertension . They can also have a seizure ( eclampsia ) causing alteration in perfusion to the placenta and central nervous system. Preeclampsia with HELLP syndrome can lead to DIC, causing hemorrhage. Uterine atony can also lead to postpartum hemorrhage . Hemorrhage causes hypovolemia, which produces vasoconstriction in the peripheral vessels and shunting of blood to the vital organs. This causes alteration in perfusion of the extremities. Diabetes can decrease perfusion to the placenta because of abnormal aging of the placenta caused by elevated blood glucose. Other alterations in perfusion occurring during the postpartum period (hematoma, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolus) are discussed in Chapter 21 Postpartum Complications.
Signs of alteration in perfusion can be diminished peripheral pulses, decreased capillary refill, delay in milk production, and clammy, pale skin. Changes in vital signs can be seen, such as hypotension and tachycardia. Alteration in mental status can also occur. Kidney damage can result from hypertension, hypotension, or hypovolemia.
Nursing interventions include monitoring and increasing perfusion in the laboring and birthing person and notifying the health-care provider. The nurse will evaluate vital signs, oxygen saturation, nail beds, gums, and mucosa for color and temperature. Lowering the head of the bed and elevating the legs perfuses the heart and brain. Oxygen is administered if needed (Obermeyer et al., 2022).
Laboratory results should be monitored when altered perfusion is present. Proteinuria is present when kidneys are not being perfused. The 24-hour urinary output should be assessed. Hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelets are monitored after postpartum hemorrhage. In massive hemorrhage or disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) , clotting studies and plasma fibrinogen should be monitored.
Alterations in Oxygenation
Alterations in oxygenation can occur during labor and birth. The most common cause of oxygenation complications is hemorrhage. Complications can also be caused by eclampsia, pulmonary edema , and pulmonary embolus. Signs of alteration in oxygenation include restlessness, cyanosis , nasal flaring, orthopnea, and use of accessory muscles. The nurse will assess respiratory rate, use of accessory muscles, nasal flaring, and abnormal breathing patterns. Auscultation for decreased ventilation should be performed. The person with altered oxygenation may have altered mental status or confusion that should be monitored. Nail beds and skin should be assessed for cyanosis. A pulse oximeter should be used to monitor pulse and oxygen saturation. Arterial blood gas tests might be ordered, and results should be monitored. Nursing interventions are elevating the head of the bed; administering oxygen; encouraging slow, deep breathing; and splinting for those post–cesarean birth persons who are coughing. The most important intervention is treating the cause of the alteration in oxygenation.
Alterations in Neurologic Function
During pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period, alterations in neurologic function can occur. The most common causes of these alterations are seizure, stroke , and ruptured brain aneurysm. These complications are most likely due to preeclampsia and eclampsia. Seizures, sudden abnormal electrical activity in the brain, can occur any time before, during, or after birth. The cause of progression from preeclampsia to eclampsia is unknown. Eclamptic seizures lead to hypoxia and neurologic dysfunction. Stroke can be attributed to severe hypertension. A stroke, or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), is a sudden loss of brain function due to lack of blood supply to the brain. Peripartum migraines, infection, and coagulation disorders have been associated with stroke (Zambrano & Miller, 2019). Treatment of stroke requires rapid response from a multidisciplinary team. If the seizure or stroke is associated with hypertension, treatment should focus on reducing hypertension.  Aneurysms can rupture due to severe hypertension or preeclampsia. It is not within the scope of this text to discuss these disorders in detail. Refer to a medical-surgical text for in-depth discussion.
Nursing assessment of these persons includes monitoring for level of consciousness, voluntary/involuntary movements of extremities, blood pressure, ability to speak, cognition, and oxygenation. The nurse will support the person by giving positive feedback, decreasing their anxiety, and involving the family in care. The nurse will monitor for aspiration, thought processes, skin integrity, and improved mobility. The nurse will communicate with the health-care provider if vital signs become abnormal or if the person is unusually confused or cannot communicate, loses consciousness, or has another seizure.
Alterations in Psychosocial Function
Pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period can be an exciting time for many people; however, others have alterations in psychosocial functioning. Postpartum depression is a common change. Some persons have difficulty in bonding with the newborn immediately after birth.  Birth trauma can occur from difficult births or from feelings of lack of autonomy or control. Alterations in psychosocial functioning can also occur due to substance use. Pregnant persons are usually screened for substance use during the prenatal period.  When in labor, some persons are under the influence of substances. The nurse should be aware of the symptoms of certain substances. Cocaine and methamphetamine use causes higher risk for migraines, seizures, prelabor rupture of membranes, and placental abruption (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2022). Infants born to persons using stimulants have symptoms of irritability, hyperactivity, tremors, high-pitched cry, and excessive sucking. Heroin use in pregnancy causes neonatal abstinence syndrome ( NAS ) in newborns; infants with NAS have symptoms similar to those of stimulant-dependent newborns, with the addition of gastrointestinal problems (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2022). Alcohol use can result in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder , which affects fetal brain development and can cause birth defects. These defects can cause emotional and cognitive problems for the life of the offspring. If the nurse suspects the pregnant person is using an illegal substance, a drug screen can be obtained during pregnancy and at delivery. The nurse should also notify the nursery or NICU if the results are positive.


1.2.1: Relations as Sets
In section 1.3 , we mentioned some important sets: \(\Nat\) , \(\Int\) , \(\Rat\) , \(\Real\) . You will no doubt remember some interesting relations between the elements of some of these sets. For instance, each of these sets has a completely standard order relation on it. There is also the relation is identical with that every object bears to itself and to no other thing. There are many more interesting relations that we’ll encounter, and even more possible relations. Before we review them, though, we will start by pointing out that we can look at relations as a special sort of set.
For this, recall two things from section 1.5 . First, recall the notion of a ordered pair : given \(a\) and \(b\) , we can form \(\tuple{a, b}\) . Importantly, the order of elements does matter here. So if \(a \neq b\) then \(\tuple{a, b} \neq \tuple{b, a}\) . (Contrast this with unordered pairs, i.e., \(2\) -element sets, where \(\{a, b\}=\{b, a\}\) .) Second, recall the notion of a Cartesian product : if \(A\) and \(B\) are sets, then we can form \(A \times B\) , the set of all pairs \(\tuple{x, y}\) with \(x \in A\) and \(y \in B\) . In particular, \(A^{2}= A \times A\) is the set of all ordered pairs from \(A\) .
Now we will consider a particular relation on a set: the \(<\) -relation on the set \(\Nat\) of natural numbers. Consider the set of all pairs of numbers \(\tuple{n, m}\) where \(n<m\) , i.e., \[R=\Setabs{\tuple{n, m}}{n, m \in \Nat \text{ and } n<m}.\nonumber\] There is a close connection between \(n\) being less than \(m\) , and the pair \(\tuple{n, m}\) being a member of \(R\) , namely: \[n<m\text{ iff }\tuple{n, m} \in R.\nonumber\] Indeed, without any loss of information, we can consider the set \(R\) to be the \(<\) -relation on \(\Nat\) .
In the same way we can construct a subset of \(\Nat^{2}\) for any relation between numbers. Conversely, given any set of pairs of numbers \(S \subseteq \Nat^{2}\) , there is a corresponding relation between numbers, namely, the relationship \(n\) bears to \(m\) if and only if \(\tuple{n, m} \in S\) . This justifies the following definition:
A binary relation on a set \(A\) is a subset of \(A^{2}\) . If \(R \subseteq A^{2}\) is a binary relation on \(A\) and \(x, y \in A\) , we sometimes write \(Rxy\) (or \(xRy\) ) for \(\tuple{x, y} \in R\) .
The set \(\Nat^{2}\) of pairs of natural numbers can be listed in a 2-dimensional matrix like this: \[\begin{array}{ccccc} \mathbf{\tuple{ 0,0 }} & \tuple{ 0,1 } & \tuple{ 0,2 } & \tuple{ 0,3 } & \ldots\\ \tuple{ 1,0 } & \mathbf{\tuple{ 1,1 }} & \tuple{ 1,2 } & \tuple{ 1,3 } & \ldots\\ \tuple{ 2,0 } & \tuple{ 2,1 } & \mathbf{\tuple{ 2,2 }} & \tuple{ 2,3 } & \ldots\\ \tuple{ 3,0 } & \tuple{ 3,1 } & \tuple{ 3,2 } & \mathbf{\tuple{ 3,3 }} & \ldots\\ \vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \mathbf{\ddots} \end{array}\nonumber\] We have put the diagonal, here, in bold, since the subset of \(\Nat^2\) consisting of the pairs lying on the diagonal, i.e., \[\{\tuple{0,0 }, \tuple{ 1,1 }, \tuple{ 2,2 }, \dots\},\nonumber\] is the identity relation on \(\Nat\) . (Since the identity relation is popular, let’s define \(\Id{A}=\Setabs{\tuple{ x,x }}{x \in X}\) for any set \(A\) .) The subset of all pairs lying above the diagonal, i.e., \[L = \{\tuple{ 0,1 },\tuple{ 0,2 },\ldots,\tuple{ 1,2 }, \tuple{ 1,3 }, \dots, \tuple{ 2,3 }, \tuple{ 2,4 },\ldots\},\nonumber\] is the less than relation, i.e., \(Lnm\) iff \(n<m\) . The subset of pairs below the diagonal, i.e., \[G=\{ \tuple{ 1,0 },\tuple{ 2,0 },\tuple{ 2,1 }, \tuple{ 3,0 },\tuple{ 3,1 },\tuple{ 3,2 }, \dots\},\nonumber\] is the greater than relation, i.e., \(Gnm\) iff \(n>m\) . The union of \(L\) with \(I\) , which we might call \(K=L\cup I\) , is the less than or equal to relation: \(Knm\) iff \(n \le m\) . Similarly, \(H=G \cup I\) is the greater than or equal to relation. These relations \(L\) , \(G\) , \(K\) , and \(H\) are special kinds of relations called orders . \(L\) and \(G\) have the property that no number bears \(L\) or \(G\) to itself (i.e., for all \(n\) , neither \(Lnn\) nor \(Gnn\) ). Relations with this property are called irreflexive , and, if they also happen to be orders, they are called strict orders.
Although orders and identity are important and natural relations, it should be emphasized that according to our definition any subset of \(A^{2}\) is a relation on \(A\) , regardless of how unnatural or contrived it seems. In particular, \(\emptyset\) is a relation on any set (the empty relation , which no pair of elements bears), and \(A^{2}\) itself is a relation on \(A\) as well (one which every pair bears), called the universal relation . But also something like \(E=\Setabs{\tuple{n, m}}{n>5 \text{ or } m \times n \ge 34}\) counts as a relation.
List the elements of the relation \(\subseteq\) on the set \(\Pow{\{a, b, c\}}\) .


7.7: Hate Kills - The Consequences of Bigotry
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
Minority Studies: A Brief Text: Part VI—Hate Kills!
Consequences of Bigotry
As with many aspects of society, there are consequences of racism. One consequence is expulsion which is the removal of a minority group from inside national boundaries to outside national boundaries. Some examples of expulsion are the “Trail of Tears” and the pogroms carried out against the Jews by Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish Cossacks, and the “alien” relocation of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans during WW II.
The Trail of Tears
In 1838 and 1839 the native American people called the Cherokee were forcibly removed by military force from their traditional lands east of the Mississippi River and along the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. By the time of their expulsion from the United States and resettlement in Indian Territory in Oklahoma the Cherokee were a highly assimiliated/Europeanized group. They had stable agricultural settlements, bilingual schools where children learned both Cherokee and English, and their own written language and newspaper.
According to the New Georgia Encylopedia 1 :
In the 1820s and 1830s Georgia conducted a relentless campaign to remove the Cherokees. Between 1827 and 1831 the Georgia legislature extended the state's jurisdiction over Cherokee territory and set in motion a process to seize the Cherokee land, divide it into parcels, and offer the parcels in a lottery to white Georgians. The discovery of gold on Cherokee territory in 1829 further fueled the desire of Georgians to possess their land. The following year Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized U.S. president Andrew Jackson to negotiate removal treaties with Native American tribes. Ross and other leaders fought government efforts to separate the Cherokees from their land and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832) the Court held that the Cherokee Indians constituted a nation holding distinct sovereign powers, but the decision would not protect the Cherokees from removal.
The Cherokee called this illegal, forcible removal The Trail of Tears because they were force-marched in the winter without sufficient clothing, shelter, or food. More than 4,000 people died along the way. 2
Japanese Exclusion and Expulsion
From the 15 th century through the 19 th century, Japan was a xenophobic, feudal society, ostensibly governed by a God-Emperor, but in reality ruled by ruthless, powerful Shoguns. Japan’s society changed little during the four centuries of samurai culture, and it was cut off from the rest of the world in self-imposed isolation, trading only with the Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Chinese, and then not with all of them at once, often using one group as middlemen to another group. In the mid-19 th century, (1854), the United States government became interested in trading directly with Japan in order to open up new export markets and to import Japanese goods at low prices uninflated by middleman add-ons. Commodore Matthew Perry was assigned to open trade between the United States and Japan. With a flotilla of war ships, Perry crossed the Pacific and berthed his ships off the coast of the Japanese capital. Perry sent letters to the emperor that were diplomatic but insistent. Perry had been ordered not to take no for an answer, and when the emperor sent Perry a negative response to the letters, Perry maneuvered his warships into positions that would allow them to fire upon the major cities of Japan. The Japanese had no armaments or ships that could compete with the Americans, and so, capitulated to Perry. Within thirty years, Japan was almost as modernized as its European counterparts. They went from feudalism to industrialism almost over night.
Within a few years of the trade treaty between the United States and Japan, a small but steady trickle of Japanese immigrants flowed across the Pacific Ocean. This migration to the West Coast of the United States meant that Japanese immigrants were in economic competition with the resident population, most of whom were white. Fears of economic loss led the whites to petition Congress to stop the flow of immigrants from Japan, and in 1911 Congress expanded the Asian Exclusionary Act to include Japanese thereby stopping all migration from Japan into the United States. In 1914, Congress passed the National Origins Act which cut off all migration from East Asia. 3
On December 7, 1941, at 7:55 A.M. local time the Japanese fleet in the South Pacific launched 600 hundred aircraft in a surprise attack against U.S. Naval forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Within four hours, 2, 400 people, mostly military personnel had been killed, including the 1,100 men who will be entombed forever in the wreckage of the U.S.S. Arizona when it capsized during the attack. Although this was a military target, the United States was not at war when the attack occurred. In less than six months after the attack, Congress passed the Japanese Relocation Act. Below, is reproduced the order that was posted in San Francisco.
THE JAPANESE AMERICAN RELOCATION ORDER
THE JAPANESE AMERICAN RELOCATION ORDER
WESTERN DEFENSE COMMAND AND FOURTH ARMY
WARTIME CIVIL CONTROL ADMINISTRATION
Presidio of San Francisco, California
May 3, 1942
INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY
Living in the Following Area:
All of that portion of the City of Los Angeles, State of California, within that boundary beginning at the point at which North Figueroa Street meets a line following the middle of the Los Angeles River; thence southerly and following the said line to East First Street; thence westerly on East First Street to Alameda Street; thence southerly on Alameda Street to East Third Street; thence northwesterly on East Third Street to Main Street; thence northerly on Main Street to First Street; thence north-westerly on First Street to Figueroa Street; thence northeasterly on Figueroa Street to the point of beginning.
Pursuant to the provisions of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 33, this Headquarters, dated May 3, 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above area by 12 o'clock noon, P. W. T., Saturday, May 9, 1942.
No Japanese person living in the above area will be permitted to change residence after 12 o'clock noon, P. W. T., Sunday, May 3, 1942, without obtaining special permission from the representative of the Commanding General, Southern California Sector, at the Civil Control Station located at
Japanese Union Church,
120 North San Pedro Street,
Los Angeles, California
SEE CIVILIAN EXCLUSION ORDER NO. 33
Such permits will only be granted for the purpose of uniting members of a family, or in cases of grave emergency.
The Civil Control Station is equipped to assist the Japanese population affected by this evacuation in the following ways:
1. Give advice and instructions on the evacuation.
2. Provide services with respect to the management, leasing, sale, storage or other disposition of most kinds of property, such as real estate, business and professional equipment, household goods, boats, automobiles and livestock.
3. Provide temporary residence elsewhere for all Japanese in family groups.
4. Transport persons and a limited amount of clothing and equipment to their new residence.
The Following Instructions Must Be Observed:
1. A responsible member of each family, preferably the head of the family, or the person in whose name most of the property is held, and each individual living alone, will report to the Civil Control Station to receive further instructions. This must be done between 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M. on Monday, May 4, 1942, or between 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M. on Tuesday, May 5, 1942.
2. Evacuees must carry with them on departure for the Assembly Center, the following property:
(a) Bedding and linens (no mattress) for each member of the family;
(b) Toilet articles for each member of the family;
(c) Extra clothing for each member of the family;
(d) Sufficient knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups for each member of the family;
(e) Essential personal effects for each member of the family.
All items carried will be securely packaged, tied and plainly marked with the name of the owner and numbered in accordance with instructions obtained at the Civil Control Station. The size and number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual or family group.
3. No pets of any kind will be permitted.
4. No personal items and no household goods will be shipped to the Assembly Center.
5. The United States Government through its agencies will provide for the storage, at the sole risk of the owner, of the more substantial household items, such as iceboxes, washing machines, pianos and other heavy furniture. Cooking utensils and other small items will be accepted for storage if crated, packed and plainly marked with the name and address of the owner. Only one name and address will be used by a given family.
6. Each family, and individual living alone will be furnished transportation to the Assembly Center or will be authorized to travel by private automobile in a supervised group. All instructions pertaining to the movement will be obtained at the Civil Control Station.
Go to the Civil Control Station between the hours of 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M., Monday, May 4, 1942, or between the hours of
8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M.,
Tuesday, May 5, 1942, to receive further instructions.
Lieutenant General, U. S. Army
Commanding
This map shows the location of the American concentration camps where Japanese Americans were interned during WWII.
Figure 1.
In 1943, Fred Korematsu, with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit in federal court arguing that it was unConstitutional to deprive American citizens of the their civil rights without due process of law. The Supreme Court of the United States decided that, in times of great national strife, it was Constitutional to deprive one specific segment of the population of their civil rights because of the potential for harm by that specific group. You might be interested to know that this decision has never been overturned, which means that it is still the law of the land.
Genocide
Genocide, however, is the most egregious and monstrous example of bigotry. According to “The United Nations 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Genocide [is defined] as:
Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:
A. Killing members of the group;
B. Causing serious bodily harm or mental harm to members of the group;
C. Deliberately inflicting on the group the conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part;
D. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
E. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
4
5
Social critic, author, philosopher, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, has argued that the 20 th century was the most genocidal century in the history of humankind, with 174 million non-combatants dead. 6 7
Many estimates give the number of 20th century victims of genocidal violence at 174 million dead. 8 This would be as if the entire population of the 15 most populous states in the US were to be killed. So that California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Minnesota would cease to exist. “The 174 million murdered by government [between] 1900 and 1990 would, [if laid head to toe] circle the earth four times. 9
King Leopold of Belgium
Perhaps the genocide of the 20th century really had its beginnings in the 19th century when King Leopold II of Belgium personally owned all of Central Africa—the Congo! From 1880 until 1920, more than 20 million Congolese natives had been murdered by the Belgian soldiers loyal to Leopold. It is unknown how many millions were maimed in a deliberate terror campaign that left entire villages—every man, woman, and child—without hands, or arms, or legs. All this wanton destruction of human life and human productivity occurred because Leopold believed the native slave labor was not sufficiently productive and was not making him rich enough. In 40 years, half of the population of the Congo was murdered! 10 11 12
The Armenian Genocide
In 1915, under the orders of Mehmed Talaat the Turkish Minister of the Interior, the Muslim Turkish army crossed the borders it shares with Christian Armenia. Within a year, 1.5 million Armenians who had been forced out of their homes were dead, many of starvation. While the Armenian refugees were forced to flee in vast numbers, the Turkish government sanctioned hanging in order to engender terror. The Turkish government also stole or destroyed crops and food stuffs so that starvation became the primary way of death. 13 14 15
The Soviet Gulags
In the Soviet Union Gulags, between 1917and 1977, 62 million people are thought to have been murdered. The Gulags were prison camps for political dissidents in the Soviet Union. Under Stalin’s rule, the Gulags were filled to capacity and new ones had to be built continuously to accommodate the vast numbers of people who were purged from the body politic. The vast majority of those sent to the Gulags were political prisoners. The barracks were large but poorly made—even though winters in Siberia are brutally cold, many buildings had no sides. Prisoners were used as slave labor which included digging post holes in almost-frozen ground in early winter, and building new rail lines for more prisoners. Prisoners often built their own barracks, often being forced to use extremely shoddy material. If the bad food or starvation diet, lack of medical care, dangerous work, and brutal beatings didn’t kill the prisoners, sometimes the weather did: many prisoners froze to death. The only headstones for the graveyards where most prisoners ended up were rough wooden posts made by the friends of those who had died. 16 17
The Burning of “Little Africa”
In 1923, a large white mob invaded and burned to the ground the large African American suburb in Tulsa, Oklahoma. No white perpetrator was arrested, although millions of dollars in property was destroyed and an unknown number of lives were lost. The local newspapers blamed the blacks for provoking the violence. In fact, many blacks were arrested or held during the conflagration. The smoke rising into the air from the fires covered a huge geographical area: in one photograph from the time, the caption reads “Little Africa burns.” African Americans were rounded up and arrested or held while their neighborhoods burned. Even the elderly were not spared, one photo in a Tulsa newspaper of the time shows an elderly man standing in the midst of a pile of burnt rubble in what used to be his house. Where homes once stood, there is only devastation. African Americans who gathered to try to stop the fires were arrested and marched down the streets. Many of the photographs bear an eerie resemblance to scenes of bombed towns and villages in World Wars I and II. Even God wasn’t immune from the violence and destruction; there is a photograph that shows a large African American church burning. The mob carried, and used, weapons in order to make sure that no one would interfere and forcibly removed African Americans from their homes. 18 19 20
The Destruction of Rosewood, Florida
In January 1923, a white mob in east-central Florida, enraged by unfounded rumors of the attack on a white woman by a black man, assaulted the small, all-African American community of Rosewood, killed 8, and, as in Tulsa, burned the entire town to the ground. The night before the raid on Rosewood a Ku Klux Klan rally was held just outside of the nearby white town. The neighborhoods of Rosewood lay in smoldering ruins and the white mob spared nothing, not even the shacks of poor sharecroppers. 21 22 23 24
The Nazi Holocaust
When we think of genocide in the 20th century, the Holocaust is our model of its evil. In the 12 years of Nazi rule from 1933-1945, nearly 20 million non-combatants were killed—14 million in the camps, where six to seven million Jews were murdered, and six to seven million others including Muslims, Latvians, Estonians, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Communists, and Poles were also among the slaughtered. The gate to Auschwitz, one of the most heinous of all the death camps, had a sign that “greeted” new arrivals—the sign read, Arbeit Macht Frei , “Work will make you free!” As many as 100,000 prisoners a day met their deaths in the showers that were filled with Zyklon B, a deadly gas. The ovens were used to burn the remains. After D-Day however, the ovens were sometimes used to burn people alive. Many of the ovens used to cremate both the living and the dead were manufactured by firms who made ovens for commercial bakeries. 25 26 27 28 29
Kristallnacht
The Warsaw Ghetto, home to Polish Jews for centuries, was a battle ground where Jews tried to hide, to protect each other, and to resist Nazi domination. Even though not all the Jews had been removed, the ghetto was eventually burned to the ground. One night in November 1938, military men, SS officers, and mobs of thugs attacked the Jewish sections of many Eastern European cities. For hours they walked through the streets breaking all the glass in every building they passed. Jews all over the world remember that night as Kristallnacht —the Night of Broken Glass—and on the anniversary of that event, Jews gather together to pledge their eternal vigilance and resistance to such terror ever again occurring. On Kristallnacht , a synagogue burned to the ground, while firefighters and neighbors stood by and watched. German-Jewish children were singled out for humiliation in their schools. 30 31 32
Children were also victims of the Nazi “medical experiments” at Auschwitz and other death camps and there are photographs that show children who have been burned deliberately. The so-called medical experiments of the Nazis, such as the amputations and mutilations shown in some photos, were thinly veiled torture conducted without anesthetic. The Nazis didn’t confine their murders only to those they had imprisoned in the camps. There is one photograph that shows Russian civilians who were forced to dig the trench into which their bodies fell when shot by German soldiers. There were thousands of bodies found in mass graves all over Europe after the war, but one of the sites of such atrocities was Babi Yar in the Soviet Union where 30,000 non-combatants were slain in two terrible days, September 28-29, 1941. 33 34 35
Many bodies of the dead at places like Dachau death camp were thrown into a heap like badly stacked cord wood. Hundreds of starving prisoners were found by the Allied forces at the liberation of the concentration and death camps. So that they could maintain order and efficiency, the Nazis tattooed on the arm everyone in the camps. These tattoo numbers were entered into the extensive files that the Nazis kept. Holocaust victims were often forced to dig their own graves. Sometimes, however, there was no one left alive to bury the dead who were thrown by their murderers into the pits that the victims themselves had dug. The photo shows bodies thrown into an open pit at Auschwitz shortly before the allied troops arrived. 36 37 38
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
I am not arguing here that the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were genocide or that they were in any way meant by anyone to be genocide. What I am arguing here is that the US is, as of early 2010, the only nation on earth to use nuclear weapons against human beings. Currently (February 2010) Iran is claiming to have fissionable material as is North Korea. It is clear that the use of a nuclear weapon would result in massive loss of human life and the destruction of huge amounts of property as well as a crisis of confidence: anomie would ensue, and the repercussions could be horrendous. What used to be the unthinkable (MAD—mutual assured destruction) during the Cold War has now become a possible scenario because of terrorism and what the world calls “loose nukes”—those nuclear weapons that are not under the strict control of a powerful nation-state. 39 40 41 42 How this will play out, no one knows. How this will play out, know one wants to find out.
Although there is still a great deal of controversy surrounding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what remains an incontrovertible truth is that the United States of America is the only nation on the face of the earth to ever use nuclear weapons against human beings. The Enola Gay, named after the mother of the pilot, dropped the first of only two nuclear weapons ever used against human beings. It was the first time in human history that such a weapon of mass destruction was used. The United States government argued that it was necessary to use such a weapon in order to end WW II. Many historians agree with that assessment. However, many, including Albert Einstein whose work led to the creation of the A-Bomb, and J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was responsible for building the A-Bomb, did not agree and spent the remainder of their lives after Hiroshima trying to halt nuclear proliferation.
On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay, dropped an A-Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, Commander Bock, in his B-29 nicknamed “Bock’s Car” dropped the second A-Bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. The living fell dead in their tracks. Four square miles of the city of Hiroshima were virtually obliterated in a matter of minutes. The eerie shell of one large, domed structure was the only thing to remain standing after the bomb fell on Hiroshima. The center of Hiroshima, which was the target, was populated by non-combatant civilians. Those who survived the blast were horribly burned and maimed. Makeshift hospitals were set up in the outskirts of the city in order to care for the survivors, many of whom died from their burns or from radiation sickness within days or weeks of the bombing. There was no reconstructive surgery and the burn victims were often hideously scarred for life. The medical, emergency, and educational infrastructure was destroyed in the bombing. One photo from after the bombing shows a badly scarred and deformed child getting lessons in the ruins of a school. The last survivor of the bombings, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, died in January 2010 at the age of 93. 43 44 45 46 47 48
The Killing Fields of Cambodia
Cambodia is still known as the killing fields, which is a reference to the murder of two million Cambodians (25% of the population) by the Communist insurgent paramilitary group known as the Khmer Rouge, which was led by Pol Pot, from 1975-1979. Mass graves scarred the earth over all of Cambodia. The massacred men, women and children were tossed in pits that were covered only loosely with soil. Within months, erosion due to monsoonal rains and winds caused the bones of the dead to rise to the surface littering the ground with the skeletal remains of the victims. The bones were gathered up and stored in sheds and warehouses. Children often gather the bones that litter the earth, the bones of their ancestors—sometimes the bones of their parents, grandparents or siblings. 49 50 51
South African Apartheid
Throughout its more than 400 year history, South Africa has been a nation separated by color. The dominant white group, descended from Dutch and later British settlers, comprised only 10 % of the population but controlled the economy, the government, the military and police, the educational system, and all internal and external commerce. Although it had existed in fact for more than two hundred years, the rigid, caste-like system of racial segregation known as Apartheid was begun officially in the late 19th century. It gained strength and popular support in the 1920s and 1930s when internal passports were required of all non-whites who were forced to live in “black” or “colored” townships such as Soweto which were called ironically, “homelands,” but were, in fact, little more than shanty towns populated by poor blacks. An unknown number of black South Africans were murdered by their government between 1930 and the early 1990s. Garbage dumps are seldom, if ever, built in affluent communities.  The waste of the world, toxic and non-toxic, is dumped near the neighborhoods of the poor. Soweto was no exception, it dumped its own refuse and the refuse of all-white Johannesburg in its own back yard.
Metal and wood scraps are usually scrounged to build houses. A typical Soweto house was a makeshift shanty. Some “affluent” blacks, physicians, lawyers, educators, and merchants who managed, against all odds, to attend universities in Europe, lived in brick houses. However, affluence is relative and the bricks and mortar for their houses was usually scrounged also. Open cooking fires often led to large portions of Soweto erupting in flames. Because there was no fire department, bucket brigades were used to try to contain the conflagration. Sometimes, however, the fires were set deliberately by dissidents or by white soldiers acting on official orders. The vast majority of houses in Soweto had no electricity, running water, plumbing, natural gas, telephones or any of the utilities that white South Africans not only took for granted but felt entitled to—much as we do in America. However, children, even in places liked Soweto, exhibit an enormous exuberance and joy of living even though the perimeter of Soweto and all the other homelands was fenced and gated. Traditional celebrations, with people dressed in traditional, ethnic/tribal clothing, are a method of identity maintenance and social cohesion in the midst of anomie—conditions of social chaos. Maintaining traditions is also a social critique that indicates resistance toward oppression. Maintenance of peoplehood is helpful in overcoming depression and alienation. 52 53 54 55
Idi Amin’s Uganda
In a military coup in 1979, dictator Idi Amin became the ruler of the central African nation of Uganda. Rich in minerals, timber, oil, and other natural resources, Uganda had been systematically exploited by foreign governments and multi-national corporations for most of the 20th century. Because many Ugandans protested against the coup and the dictatorship of Amin, soldiers loyal to Amin, at Amin’s behest, began a systematic slaughter of dissidents resulting in 300,000 deaths. There are few internet-based photographs available of the horrors that took place in Uganda under the vicious, dictatorial rule of Idi Amin, which lasted until he was forcibly removed from power in 1987. As in Cambodia, piles of human skulls and bones are the only physical indications of the slaughter. The sheer ubiquity of the bones of the dead is shockingly evident in a photo of a toddler and a human skull. 56 57 58 59
The Rwandan Genocide
In a terrible ethnic war in the central African nation of Rwanda (1994-1996), more than 800,000 were killed in only the first three months; many hacked to death by machetes. Besides those slaughtered, nearly a million people were forced from their homes and into enormous, unsanitary refugee camps across the border. These camps had no running water, no toilets, no cooking facilities, and little to no food. Many people starved to death, many others succumbed during a particularly virulent outbreak of cholera, an already virulent disease in which the victim vomits and defecates blood for several days until they die of dehydration and shock. Sometimes cholera evidences symptoms similar to hemorrhagic fevers in which the victims bleed from every orifice in the body. Cholera epidemics have killed untold millions during the history of the world. Fleeing refugees pass bodies of their fellow citizens along the roadside. During times of great fear, people often seek solace, sanctuary, and community in houses of worship, but evil respects no boundaries—more than one massacre took place in Christian churches during worship services. Children orphaned because of the mass murder often did not survive and the majority of parentless children starved to death. 60 61 62 63 64
Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo
“Ethnic Cleansing” can mean nothing less than genocide. From 1997 to 1998, the Christians of Bosnia and Kosovo engaged in a struggle to annihilate the Muslim population of this remnant of the former country of Yugoslavia. United Nations and American military forces are still in the Balkans attempting to prevent any further bloodshed. Half a million people were killed, tens of thousands of women were raped, and the leader of the Serbian government who authorized the slaughter awaited for years an oft-postponed trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, other Serbian leaders are still at large as recently as 2010. 65 66 67
Refugees
Refugees have been reduced to an uncertain future. Refugees often find themselves living in conditions that would have seemed normal to a 13th or 14th century peasant. Where would you go if forced from your home with only what you could carry? What would you take with you? How would you live? How would you feed and shelter your family?  In the 20th century, the United Nations has often had to persuade governments to accept refugees and has had to control the refugee camps. Non-governmental organizations (called NGOs) like the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies and Doctors without Borders supply needed aid to both refugees and host nations in times of crisis. It is easier in some ways for modern day peasants to survive as refugees, because they are more accustomed to certain levels of privation than technologically sophisticated, highly educated, urbanites. Refugees often walk for tens if not hundreds or thousands of miles to reach safety, crowding roads with masses of fleeing humanity. 68 69 70 71 72 73 74
The Iraqi Kurds
The more than ten million Kurds in the Middle East, are the largest ethnic group in the world without a country to call their own. Many Kurds resided for many years in Northern Iraq. During and shortly after the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein turned his biological weapons on Kurdish villages, so that, between 1987 and 1999 he had succeeded in killing half a million and sending one million into exile. What will become of the Kurds in the aftermath of the 2003 war against Iraq still remains to be seen in 2010. Where do one million homeless, unwanted, forcibly exiled people go? They have only as much food, fuel, medicine, shelter, and clothing as they can carry. Photos show Iraqi Kurds trying to cross the border into Iran. The young, the old, the healthy, the sick, the rich, the poor—everyone must flee, on foot, from the threat of torture and death. Some will die along the way, some will starve, but some will survive. Is this a recipe for rage? Will these refugees one day come back as guerilla insurgents or as an army of revolution, doing to their persecutors what had been done to them? Does mass violence create more mass violence? It is always the most vulnerable members of any society that suffer the most during times of social upheaval. Children, the elderly, and the sick are the least likely to survive as refugees. The dead must be buried along the way, but how do you find the grave later? Where do bury a child who dies while you are escaping from the monsters who want to kill all of you? 75 76 77 78
The American Slave Trade
From 1500 to 1850, a period of 350 years, between ten and fifteen million Africans were landed in chains in the New World, and four to six million more are thought to have died during their capture or the Atlantic crossing—a total of between 14 and 21 million people. Some scholars think the Slave Trade may have cost as many as 200 million lives and there are many scholars today in both the United States, South America, the Caribbean, and East Africa who are attempting to unearth centuries old data concerning the slave trade. Whatever they find, it is all too clear that the consequences of racism is death! 79 80 81 82 83
Genocidal Monsters and Their Crimes 84http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html. Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
Figure 2.
However, acts of monstrous evil are sometimes offset by a few of the heroic human beings who resisted and stood up to evil in their own lands in their own times—people who had the courage to speak truth to power! Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent civil disobedience against the British Raj in India fueled the fires of human rights campaigns across the world. More than fifty years after his assassination, Gandhi is still revered for his intellectual strength, moral courage, and indomitable will. From Oskar Schindler’s heroic attempt to save Jews from the death camps, Steven Spielberg made the award winning film, Schindler’s List . When the Nazis decreed that all Swedish Jews were to wear yellow stars on their clothes, King Gustav V of Sweden, the next day, appeared in full dress regalia, mounted on a horse and riding through the streets of the capital with a yellow star on his uniform. Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers Union in order to address the egregious exploitation of migrant laborers. Bishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, spent much of his life in segregated South Africa calling for the dismantling of the Apartheid system. Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-Apartheid activist became the first black to be freely elected to the Presidency in the country where he had spent most of his adult life as a political prisoner on Robbyn Island. The courageous Rosa Parks was not solely responsible for the Civil Rights Movement, but she was the catalyst for the events that followed her 1953 refusal to “move to the back of the bus.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the best known leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement because of his non-violent civil disobedience, gave a famous speech in Washington, D.C. in which he said “I have a dream . . . that someday, my little children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.” Perhaps the courage of these people and others like them will give us all the bravery needed to stop such horrors from happening again in this, our world. 84
Minority-Majority Country
By 2050, the United States will be a Minority-Majority country—California is already a minority-majority state, and Houston is a minority-majority city which means that there are numerically more minority group members than dominant group members. Since Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the U.S., who will have the POWER (political, social, economic) when there are numerically more minorities than whites? Why? What is the basis of POWER?
Conclusion
Regardless of the theories, minorities in America do less well by any statistical measure than the dominant group. (See: The Statistical Abstract of the United States: Income, Expenditures, Poverty, & Wealth: Income and Poverty--State and Local Data ; The Statistical Abstract of the United States—Labor Force, Employment, and Earrnings . The Statistical Abstract of the United States—Law Enforcement, Courts, and Prisons .) It is not enough to be reminded of the oppression, the inequality, indeed the hatred that has been heaped on minorities since the dawn of American history. Rather, it is for us, as individuals, day-by-day to stop the racism, sexism, and ageism by refusing to be a party to it. Perhaps if we analyze our stereotypes, our ideas of the essential characteristics of a group other than our own, then we can discover that our prejudices and pre-conceived ideas are inaccurate.
During the summer semester of 2001, a student in my Minorities class at the University of Houston-Clear Lake decided to conduct a study based on her stereotypes. She was a server in a restaurant, and had been in that job for several years. She and her fellow servers were of the opinion that African Americans did not tip well. Using this stereotype, she conducted a semi-scientific study with the help of her co-workers. To her amazement, she found that whites (after adjusting for raw numbers) were the worst tippers, and that the level of service determined how well African Americans tipped. In other words, she tested her theory (her stereotype) and found it to have no basis in fact. She told me that she had always thought of herself as a non-racist person, and was truly shocked to learn that she had been carrying some level of racism in her mind and heart for years.
Testing our beliefs may be painful, but the tests may show us the error of what we have learned. To rid the world of prejudice and discrimination toward minorities we must begin in our own hearts and minds, and in our behaviors. Perhaps if we refuse to listen to the jokes, refuse to accept negative comments, reject the stereotypes that daily bombard us in the media and in society in general, others will begin to question their own behavior and perhaps make changes that will eventually ripple throughout all of America. In other words, “let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me!
Footnotes
- 1 http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/trailtea.htm
- 2 Ibid.
- 3 Migration from Philippines in limited numbers was still permitted largely because the United States owned Philippines.
- 4 Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4. p. 57.
- 5 http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
- 6 http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/eliewiesel.aspx
- 7 blogs.ushmm.org/COC2/special_...y_and_witness/
- 8 www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html
- 9 www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html
- 10 Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
- 11 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3516965.stm
- 12 http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/se...king-s06.shtml
- 13 Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
- 14 http://www.armenian-genocide.org/
- 15 http://www.genocide1915.info/
- 16 http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/
- 17 http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/gulag.html
- 18 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5119/
- 19 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfspeccoll/3428221058/
- 20 www.africawithin.com/maafa/tulsa_burning.htm
- 21 http://www.displaysforschools.com/history.html
- 22 http://www.hierographics.org/yourhis...eReport--I.htm
- 23 http://www.racewithistory.org/html/bcwcr.html
- 24 http://conversations.blackvoices.com...241a74c2a758e0
- 25 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php...uleId=10005143
- 26 http://www.historyplace.com/worldhis.../holocaust.htm
- 27 http://www.remember.org/educate/medexp.html
- 28 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/holo.html
- 29 www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.as...JLnF&b=4441251
- 30 frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/knacht.html
- 31 www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/...acht/frame.htm
- 32 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...istalltoc.html
- 33 www.militaryphotos.net/forums...1-Very-Graphic
- 34 www.history.com/this-day-in-h...rticle&id=5383
- 35 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...t/babiyar.html
- 36 http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/RESOURCE/GALLERY/DACHAU.HTM
- 37 http://history1900s.about.com/od/hol...aupictures.htm
- 38 www.deathcamps.info/Auschwitz/
- 39 www.cfr.org/publication/9549/
- 40 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nukes/
- 41 www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_5/Luongo
- 42 http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1205/p1s3-wogi.html
- 43 http://www.hiroshima-remembered.com/
- 44 http://history1900s.about.com/od/wor.../hiroshima.htm
- 45 www.gensuikin.org/english/photo.html
- 46 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mpmenu.asp
- 47 http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...a+and+nagasaki
- 48 http://www.latimes.com/news/obituari...,7286220.story
- 49 www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html . Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
- 50 http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GZEU_enUS330&q=the+killing+fields+of+cambodia&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=KY90S83gIIOFnQeUuti5CQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCEQsAQwAw
- 51 www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/...in184477.shtml
- 52 http://www.africanaencyclopedia.com/apartheid/apartheid.html
- 53 www.unmultimedia.org/photo/gallery.jsp?mode=auto&query=subject%3AApartheid
- 54 home.snu.edu/~dwilliam/f97pro...document5.html
- 55 http://www.ic-creations.com/SouthAfrica/Pages/southafricapicturegallery.html
- 56 www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html . Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
- 57 www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6421597
- 58 http://www.paperlessarchives.com/idi_amin.html
- 59 http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4GZEU_enUS330&q=idi%20amin's%20regime%20photos&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
- 60 Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
- 61 http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/rwanda_genocide.html
- 62 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1288230.stm
- 63 www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_rwanda.html
- 64 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/
- 65 http://www.islamawareness.net/Persec...cleansing.html
- 66 http://balkansnet.org/ethnicl.html
- 67 http://balkansnet.org/ethnicl.html
- 68 www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html . Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
- 69 http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home
- 70 http://www.refugees.org/
- 71 www.uscis.gov/portal/site/usc...000ecd190aRCRD
- 72 www.state.gov/g/prm/
- 73 http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=418
- 74 www.amnestyusa.org/refugees-a....do?id=1011010
- 75 www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html . Power, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. Perennial, New York: 2003. ISBN: 0-06-054164-4.
- 76 www.gendercide.org/genocideinkurdistan.html
- 77 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4555000.stm
- 78 http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq203/crossroads03.html
- 79 http://www1.american.edu/TED/slave.htm
- 80 abolition.nypl.org/essays/us_slave_trade/
- 81 www.slaveryinamerica.org/geog...lave_trade.htm
- 82 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/...t/aopart1.html
- 83 http://www.google.com/search?q=us+sl...ed=0CCkQ5wIwCg
- 84 www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html


6.1: Graph Theory
There are several definitions that are important to understand before delving into Graph Theory. They are:
- A graph is a picture of dots called vertices and lines called edges .
- An edge that starts and ends at the same vertex is called a loop.
- If there are two or more edges directly connecting the same two vertices, then these edges are called multiple edges .
- If there is a way to get from one vertex of a graph to all the other vertices of the graph, then the graph is connected.
- If there is even one vertex of a graph that cannot be reached from every other vertex, then the graph is disconnected.
In the above graph, the vertices are U, V, W, and Z and the edges are UV, VV, VW, UW, WZ1, and WZ2.
This is a connected graph. VV is a loop. WZ1, and WZ2 are multiple edges .
The graph in Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\) is connected while the graph in Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\) is disconnected.
- Order of a Network: the number of vertices in the entire network or graph
- Adjacent Vertices: two vertices that are connected by an edge
- Adjacent Edges: two edges that share a common vertex
- Degree of a Vertex: the number of edges at that vertex
- Path: a sequence of vertices with each vertex adjacent to the next one that starts and ends at different vertices and travels over any edge only once
- Circuit: a path that starts and ends at the same vertex
- Bridge: an edge such that if it were removed from a connected graph, the graph would become disconnected
In the above graph the following is true:
- Vertex A is adjacent to vertex B, vertex C, vertex D, and vertex E.
- Vertex F is adjacent to vertex C, and vertex D.
- Edge DF is adjacent to edge BD, edge AD, edge CF, and edge DE.
The degrees of the vertices:
| A | 4 |
| B | 4 |
| C | 4 |
| D | 4 |
| E | 4 |
| F | 2 |
Here are some paths in the above graph: (there are many more than listed)
A,B,D
A,B,C,E
F,D,E,B,C
Here are some circuits in the above graph: (there are many more than listed)
B,A,D,B
B,C,F,D,B
F,C, E, D, F
The above graph does not have any bridges.