Tag Archives: discrimination

05/15/11

Obama Is The Fairest Of Them All?

On January 29, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the first act of his presidential legacy, called Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The act states that the 180-day timeframe to raise a discriminatory wage lawsuit is renewed with the issuance of each  new discriminatory paycheck. This act overturns the decision from the 2007  case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which states that the lawsuit commences on the date the employee forms a discriminatory wage decision. The act would protect women and other workers from pay discrimination.

During former President Bill Clinton’s administration, the policies he pursued loosened the government’s grip on private businesses and other sectors. For instance, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated broadcasting and telephone companies. He also abolished “welfare,” also known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). As a result, it became more difficult for needy individuals to receive assistance and payments. In comparison with President Clinton’s administration, President Obama’s act was a move towards government regulation. President Obama’s priority is the the rights and interests of American citizens. By signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as the first of his presidential career, he conveyed the message that he wished to expand government’s role and power in the economy and business.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/us/politics/30ledbetter-web.html

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/grossman/20090213.html?=features

04/24/11

Civil Rights act of 1964

5 days after Kennedy’s  death in 1964, Lyndon Johnson was in presidency and quickly established the Civil Rights act of 1964.  This act protected the rights of people based on their race, and sex.  This act prohibited discrimination in employment, hospitals, schools, restaurants, hotels, and theaters.  This act was a huge step in eliminating racism and discrimination as the previous decade saw much of it.  The civil rights movement which was started in 1955 was ongoing and the act of 1964 led to future movements and historical speeches such as Martin Luther King’s “I had a dream apeech” in 1968.

03/20/11

NRA: Negroes Ruined Again

L. Rogers, Chicago Defender, 1934

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal created many controversies where some were optimistic about the new programs and others were left in doubt. One particular cartoon artist L. Rogers expressed his stance of the latter by publishing a series of political cartoon that direct towards anti-New Deal sentiments. As a prominent writer for a black Chicago newspaper he published the cartoon above, in 1934, conveying his discern of the first New Deal establishment, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which was created to abolish corrupt business practices and to induce rights for workers by setting standards of minimum wage and maximum hours.

The cartoon above displays a joyful family where the father is telling his wife news about his company becoming a member of the NRA, and his presumptions about better wages and better hours. On the second half of the cartoon it shows that the father later learns that the company has cut his job and his fellow workers by exclusively hiring whites only. The factory discriminated blacks because they did not want to promote more black rights. The cartoon shows that white racists were using the New Deal as a way of furthering discrimination against the blacks. Lynching and wage discrimination were still very much prevalent in the 1930s, and eventually the NRA was even referred to as “Negroes Ruined Again.” L. Rogers created this cartoon to illustrate Roosevelt’s fail recognition of the blacks and his sentiments that the New Deal was only created to aid the whites.

03/19/11

How the South Interprets the New Deal

This political cartoon was published in a black Chicago newspaper, the Chicago Defender, on January 27, 1934, during the first term of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. L. Rogers, created this cartoon. He expresses his belief that white racists used programs under the New Deal, like the NRA, to further discriminate against low wage black labor. Throughout the 1930s, discrimination and racist beliefs about blacks continued to thrive and practices such as lynching and wage discrimination were prevalent. Blacks even referred to the NRA as “Negroes Ruined Again”. Rogers created this cartoon because he wanted to spread the word to fellow blacks, who were readers of the Chicago Defender, that the New Deal programs under Roosevelt were actually aimed at only helping white folk. Rogers believes that Roosevelt failed to recognize that blacks were just as affected by the Great Depression as whites and that racism in the US resulted in black laborers suffering even more than white laborers.

03/4/11

The great migration

The great migration during 1910 to 1940 described in Foner’s book has a long-term effect on American politics, economics and culture. As picture above shows, up to 1.5 million African American moved from southern states to North, to look for jobs and search a peace place to live. Detroit, chicago and Cleveland are among the most popular destinations. And the reason simply is, the rail fare was the cheapest.

Carrying a sign in front of a milk company, Chicago, Illinois, July 1941 John Vachon, Photographer Gelatin-silver

In Foner’s book, the discrimation against newly arrived African American was not talked enough. Many black workers were having a hard time to get promoted and many of them simply couldn’t find a simple job, as second picture depicted.