BLACK NEOCONSERVATISM in the POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA a Thesis

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

BLACK NEOCONSERVATISM in the POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA a Thesis INCITING THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION: BLACK NEOCONSERVATISM IN THE POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Professional Studies by La TaSha Beatrice Levy January 2007 ©2007 La TaSha Beatrice Levy ABSTRACT Black neoconservatism is one of the most contested political ideologies of the Post-Civil Rights era. As a challenge to mainstream Black political thought, Black neoconservatism enjoys a particular celebrity as the “bold new voice” in American racial discourse. This thesis critically analyzes Black neoconservative ideology as a counter-discourse: a direct opposition to the liberalism of the 1960s and the legacy of the Civil Rights and Black Power eras. The emergence of Black neoconservatives as a significant collective in the Post-Civil Rights era correlates with the rise of the New Right in American politics since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The New Right has forcefully disputed the philosophy and strategy of civil rights legislation and the traditional quest for racial equality and justice. Black neoconservatives play an increasingly significant ideological role in conservative politics and public debate in the Post-Civil Rights period. Furthermore, their racial identity lends credence to the New Right’s attack on social policy that disproportionately benefits Black people in general and the Black poor particularly. Black neoconservatives dissent from the prevailing convention that racism and White supremacy have become subtle, but nevertheless remain formidable. They insist that civil rights legislation, government intervention and liberal programs have created a pathological dependency among African Americans. Black neoconservatives contend that this dependency is the true cause for the debilitating conditions of the Black underclass and the slow progress among African Americans. Essentially, Black neoconservatives blame the Black Power era for instilling a sense of entitlement among African Americans, and they charge civil rights leaders with profiting from the manipulation of racism. The core of Black neoconservative critiques is their presumption that African Americans subscribe to a victim-oriented identity that exaggerates the saliency of racism in order to evoke “white guilt.” They argue that welfare and affirmative action are two bankrupt policies that perpetuate victimization and dependency among African Americans and impede racial progress. As such, Black neoconservatives maintain that self-help and personal responsibility are the only solutions to the nation’s enduring race problems. Black neoconservatives are presumed to be marginal voices among the vast majority of African Americans. Nonetheless, they are gaining wider currency in the American racial discourse to ultimately shape racial attitudes and change public policy. Furthermore, this thesis posits that Black neoconservatives have taken a political posture that negates the legacy of Black liberation struggles in the United States, which is grounded in an emphasis on Black identity and opposition to racism. Although Black neoconservatives claim their ideology is rooted in the philosophy of Booker T. Washington, this thesis explores the ideology of archconservative George S. Schuyler as a prototypical progenitor of Black neoconservatism. The thesis details the political positions of Black neoconservatives by examining the works of Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, Star Parker, Stephen Carter, Ward Connerly and Glenn Loury. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH La TaSha Levy was born in Washington D.C. on May 29, 1978 to Tanya C. Levy and William Parran. Raised by her mother, La TaSha enjoyed the spoils of being “the baby;” her sister La Shonne is eleven years her senior. Unfortunately, both of La TaSha’s parents have since passed on, but their emphasis on education, their love, encouragement and memory provide everlasting guidance and comfort in her life. As a pre-teen, adverse circumstances prompted La TaSha’s mother to move to Alexandria, VA. The transition from “Chocolate City” to a predominantly White one peaked La TaSha’s interest in studying Black history and culture because of its omission in her school’s curriculum. At the age of 13, she enrolled in a Saturday program called Know Your History, sponsored by the Alexandria-Fairfax Alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Know Your History grounded its students in the legacy of African people in order to instill a sense of purpose, responsibility and a positive self-concept among young people during the crucial years of their development. La TaSha thrived in Know Your History and subsequently in school, as she applied her Saturday lessons to other areas in her life, especially in the classroom. In high school, she was the president of the Black Cultural Alliance and organized the school’s Black History Month program for three consecutive years. La TaSha attended Hampton University for two years before transferring to the University of Virginia where she was afforded the opportunity to major in African and African American Studies. Upon graduating in the year 2000, La TaSha returned to Washington, DC to teach English and Social Studies at Maya Angelou Public Charter School. In 2001, she was honored with the opportunity to serve the University of iii Virginia community as the Assistant Dean of the Office of African-American Affairs and Director of the Luther P. Jackson Black Cultural Center. After three years, La TaSha decided to pursue graduate study in the field she holds dear and enrolled in the Africana Studies and Research Center in 2004. In the fall of 2006, La TaSha will join the first cohort of Northwestern’s Ph.D. program in African American Studies. iv This thesis is dedicated to Sowande Tichawonna and Jeffrey Reid, The founders of Know Your History. Thank you for planting the seed. “I am because you are.” v ACKNOWLEGEMENTS I thank the Creator for strength and courage and for the many blessings bestowed upon me. Thank you Creator for surrounding me with extraordinary people, young and old, near and far who sustain me and make me whole, especially given the loss of my parents. Thank you Creator for blessing me with the memory of a phenomenal mother and woman. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to become close to my father and grow to love, trust and adore him. I thank my parents, Tanya C. Levy and William Parran, for being just good old-fashioned folks, for their support, encouragement and sacrifice. Being at Cornell was excruciating without you because I wish you two were here to share my accomplishments. Although you are not with me physically, I feel your presence and exalt your memory. I miss you immensely. There are so many people who have contributed to my success and sanity. I want to thank my sister La Shonne for your support, and for trying to make room for me when I come home to visit. I especially want to thank my Aunt Carolyn for sending me cards and calling me almost every week to check on me, I truly appreciate it. I thank my surrogate mother, Shirley Holbrook for your unwavering love and support. I miss you. Thank you Aunt Sondra for all of the trinkets and gifts you always give to me. I always enjoy our visits. I am also very grateful for the love and support of my Uncle Wilson and Aunt Debbie. I don’t know how I would have managed without you. Thank you Uncle Teddy for your encouragement and support, I really appreciate you for being there for me. Family is so important to me, and I thank all of my cousins, my godmother Beverly, Mr. Holbrook, Uncle David, Lee, Dickie—and so many others. I love you and appreciate all that you all have given and vi done for me during the various stages of my life. Rest in peace Aunt Janice, Aunt Berthalene, Andre, Grandma, Ernie, and Aunt Kathleen. I am the luckiest person in the world because my best-good-friend is an Angel—Thank you Tammy for holding a sister down! Whether it was listening to me struggle or helping to brainstorm ideas for papers, you are such a tremendous source of comfort and inspiration. I am forever grateful for the numerous occasions you put some “change” in my account and my pocket, without me having to ask. Your support meant so much to me. Thank you for taking care of me. For some reason, being in Ithaca made me a little more distant than I needed to be. My friends mean the world to me, and even though I did not call as often, you all are always in my heart, on my mind and in my prayers. I am thankful for my best friend Erica, my “partner in struggle.” One of these days, we are going to get our lives in order! Thank you for laughing at me. I love your smile. I want to also thank my beautiful friend Shirelle for making me laugh!! I truly appreciate your warmth and for opening your home to me when being in Shonne or Damian’s bed was getting to be a little too much. I also thank Shirelle and my “big sister” Nataki for partying with me when I came into town. I appreciate my “lil sister” Lisa and Sharmaine for also being wonderful friends to me. Thank you Sharmaine for being the ONLY person to visit me in Ithaca. Lisa and Erica know they wouldn’t have made it here if you didn’t suggest the trip and drive. In addition, I want to thank “Brien from Atlanta.” I can’t begin to express how grateful I am for your kindness and compassion. Thank you for always being there for me. To all of my dear friends who helped to prep me before I arrived in Ithaca—among them is Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, thank you so much for your support! I especially want to thank Arkee Hodges for your guidance during the beginning stages of this journey.
Recommended publications
  • Book Note Justice Thomas’S Inconsistent Originalism
    BOOK NOTE JUSTICE THOMAS’S INCONSISTENT ORIGINALISM MY GRANDFATHER’S SON: A MEMOIR. By Clarence Thomas.1 New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 2007. Pp. xii, 289. $26.95. Since his infamous confirmation hearings, several of Justice Tho- mas’s biographers2 have struggled to understand and explain the ap- parent conflicts in the life and jurisprudence of a man who acknowl- edges that his conservative views do not comport with the traditional viewpoints of African Americans3 and who advocates an originalist in- terpretation of the Constitution.4 Justice Thomas has received harsh criticism from some of these biographers, and the debate surrounding his adequacy as a Supreme Court Justice has strong political under- pinnings.5 Seeking to correct other accounts of his life, which Justice Thomas views as partly “untrue, at times grossly so” (p. x), My Grand- father’s Son sheds new light on his personal history — especially the key roles race and religion played therein — but generally eschews di- rect discussion of his jurisprudential philosophy. Even so, Justice Thomas’s memoir illuminates his judicial philosophy, because that phi- losophy stems from the experiences and principles discussed in his book. My Grandfather’s Son begins with a description of Justice Tho- mas’s West African ancestry (p. 2) and early childhood. Born in a shanty in Pinpoint, Georgia, on June 23, 1948 (pp. 3–4), Thomas spent his early years fatherless, alongside his mother, Leola; aunt, Annie; and siblings, Emma Mae and Myers (pp. 1, 3). In 1954, Myers accidentally burned down their home (p. 6), and Leola took her sons to live in a de- ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 1 Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Clarence Thomas
    Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive Faculty Scholarship Faculty Publications 2004 Reading Clarence Thomas Kendall Thomas Columbia Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Law and Race Commons Recommended Citation Kendall Thomas, Reading Clarence Thomas, 18 NAT'L BLACK L. J. 224 (2004). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2172 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Scholarship Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ESSAY READING CLARENCE THOMAS Kendall Thomas* The state is INHERENTLY racial, every state institution is a RACIAL institu- tion, and the entire social order is equilabrated (unstably) by the state to preserve the prevailing racial order. -Omi & Winant' Several years ago, a special issue of The New Yorker entitled "Black in America" included an extraordinary profile of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.2 Authored by Jeffrey Rosen, the article begins with an account of Justice Thomas's interventions in two of the most important cases decided during the Court's previous term. In the first of these cases, Missouri v. Jenkins, the Court was called upon to define the constitutional scope and limits of the federal judicial power to address racial concentra- tion in Kansas City's public schools through salary increases and the crea- tion of magnet programs.3 In the second case, Adarand v.
    [Show full text]
  • Economic Ascendance Is/As Moral Rightness: the New Religious Political Right in Post-Apartheid South Africa Part
    Economic Ascendance is/as Moral Rightness: The New Religious Political Right in Post-apartheid South Africa Part One: The Political Introduction If one were to go by the paucity of academic scholarship on the broad New Right in the post-apartheid South African context, one would not be remiss for thinking that the country is immune from this global phenomenon. I say broad because there is some academic scholarship that deals only with the existence of right wing organisations at the end of the apartheid era (du Toit 1991, Grobbelaar et al. 1989, Schönteich 2004, Schönteich and Boshoff 2003, van Rooyen 1994, Visser 2007, Welsh 1988, 1989,1995, Zille 1988). In this older context, this work focuses on a number of white Right organisations, including their ideas of nationalism, the role of Christianity in their ideologies, as well as their opposition to reform in South Africa, especially the significance of the idea of partition in these organisations. Helen Zille’s list, for example, includes the Herstigte Nasionale Party, Conservative Party, Afrikaner People’s Guard, South African Bureau of Racial Affairs (SABRA), Society of Orange Workers, Forum for the Future, Stallard Foundation, Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), and the White Liberation Movement (BBB). There is also literature that deals with New Right ideology and its impact on South African education in the transition era by drawing on the broader literature on how the New Right was using education as a primary battleground globally (Fataar 1997, Kallaway 1989). Moreover, another narrow and newer literature exists that continues the focus on primarily extreme right organisations in South Africa that have found resonance in the global context of the rise of the so-called Alternative Right that rejects mainstream conservatism.
    [Show full text]
  • Reconfiguring Nationalism: Transnational Entanglements of Hindutva and Radical Right Ideology
    Reconfiguring nationalism: Transnational entanglements of Hindutva and radical right ideology Eviane Leidig Summary This dissertation explores a minority within the Indian diaspora who support the ideological agenda of the radical right in the West. It situates the Brexit referendum and process in the UK, and Trump’s election and presidency in the US, as manifestations of the radical right which provided an opportunity to merge the ideological currents of Hindutva (or Hindu nationalism)— an ideology originating from India—with these phenomena. Thus, this dissertation traces the transnational ideological linkages between Hindutva and the Western radical right. It positions the role of diaspora networks as interlocutors in adapting Hindutva towards Western political contexts, in effect creating alliances with radical right actors. United by shared practices of exclusion, this results in the reconfiguring of nationalist imaginaries made possible by transnational entanglements. The dissertation consists of five articles that follow an overview of the background, the theoretical framework, and the methodological approaches of the study. The background provides historical and contemporary context of the evolution of Hindutva, its reformulation with the diaspora, and its convergence with the Brexit and Trump campaigns. The dissertation then draws upon theoretical insights in nationalism scholarship, as well as studies of diaspora and of the radical right, focusing on the conceptual overlaps between these fields in order to establish an intellectual foundation for the topic. Lastly, it employs a combined methodological approach that utilises genealogy, qualitative content analysis on social media, quantitative social media analysis, and semi- structured interviews as a means of demonstrating how ideology is operationalised at multiple scales.
    [Show full text]
  • Justices' Profiles Institute of Bill of Rights Law at the William & Mary Law School
    College of William & Mary Law School William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository Supreme Court Preview Conferences, Events, and Lectures 1995 Section 1: Justices' Profiles Institute of Bill of Rights Law at the William & Mary Law School Repository Citation Institute of Bill of Rights Law at the William & Mary Law School, "Section 1: Justices' Profiles" (1995). Supreme Court Preview. 35. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/preview/35 Copyright c 1995 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/preview WARREN E. BURGER IS DEAD AT 87 Was Chief Justice for 17 Years Copyright 1995 The New York Times Company The New York Times June 26, 1995, Monday Linda Greenhouse Washington, June 25 - Warren E. Burger, who retired to apply like an epithet -- overruled no major in 1986 after 17 years as the 15th Chief Justice of the decisions from the Warren era. United States, died here today at age 87. The cause It was a further incongruity that despite Chief was congestive heart failure, a spokeswoman for the Justice Burger's high visibility and the evident relish Supreme Court said. with which he used his office to expound his views on An energetic court administrator, Chief Justice everything from legal education to prison Burger was in some respects a transitional figure management, scholars and Supreme Court despite his tenure, the longest for a Chief Justice in commentators continued to question the degree to this century. He presided over a Court that, while it which he actually led the institution over which he so grew steadily more conservative with subsequent energetically presided.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Annual Report
    The New Conservative Flagship ANNUAL REPORT 2020A About American Compass Table of Contents Our Mission To restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity: 1 Founder’s Letter 4 REORIENTING POLITICAL FOCUS from growth for its own sake to widely shared economic development that sustains vital social institutions. SETTING A COURSE for a country in which families can achieve self- sufficiency, contribute productively to their communities, and prepare the next 2 Year in Review 10 generation for the same. Conservative Flagship 12 HELPING POLICYMAKERS NAVIGATE the limitations that markets and government each face in promoting the general welfare and the nation’s security. Changing the Debate 14 Our Activities Creating Community 16 AFFILIATION. Providing opportunities for people who share its mission to The Commons 18 build relationships, collaborate, and communicate their views to the broader political community. Our Growing Influence 20 DELIBERATION. Supporting research and discussion that advances understanding of economic and social conditions and tradeoffs through study of history, analysis of data, elaboration of theory, and development of policy 3 Our Work 21 proposals. ENGAGEMENT. Initiating and facilitating public debate to challenge existing Rebooting the American System 22 orthodoxy, confront the best arguments of its defenders, and force scrutiny of unexamined assumptions and unconsidered consequences. Coin-Flip Capitalism 26 Our Principles Moving the Chains 30 AMERICAN COMPASS strives to embody the principles and practices of a healthy democratic polity, combining intellectual combat with personal civility. Corporate Actual Responsibility 34 We welcome converts to our vision and value disagreement amongst A Seat at the Table 38 our members.
    [Show full text]
  • The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003
    THE REGIME CHANGE CONSENSUS: IRAQ IN AMERICAN POLITICS, 1990-2003 Joseph Stieb A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: Wayne Lee Michael Morgan Benjamin Waterhouse Daniel Bolger Hal Brands ©2019 Joseph David Stieb ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Joseph David Stieb: The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003 (Under the direction of Wayne Lee) This study examines the containment policy that the United States and its allies imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and argues for a new understanding of why the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. At the core of this story is a political puzzle: Why did a largely successful policy that mostly stripped Iraq of its unconventional weapons lose support in American politics to the point that the policy itself became less effective? I argue that, within intellectual and policymaking circles, a claim steadily emerged that the only solution to the Iraqi threat was regime change and democratization. While this “regime change consensus” was not part of the original containment policy, a cohort of intellectuals and policymakers assembled political support for the idea that Saddam’s personality and the totalitarian nature of the Baathist regime made Iraq uniquely immune to “management” strategies like containment. The entrenchment of this consensus before 9/11 helps explain why so many politicians, policymakers, and intellectuals rejected containment after 9/11 and embraced regime change and invasion.
    [Show full text]
  • The Impact of the New Right on the Reagan Administration
    LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON THE IMPACT OF THE NEW RIGHT ON THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION: KIRKPATRICK & UNESCO AS. A TEST CASE BY Isaac Izy Kfir LONDON 1998 UMI Number: U148638 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U148638 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 2 ABSTRACT The aim of this research is to investigate whether the Reagan administration was influenced by ‘New Right’ ideas. Foreign policy issues were chosen as test cases because the presidency has more power in this area which is why it could promote an aggressive stance toward the United Nations and encourage withdrawal from UNESCO with little impunity. Chapter 1 deals with American society after 1945. It shows how the ground was set for the rise of Reagan and the New Right as America moved from a strong affinity with New Deal liberalism to a new form of conservatism, which the New Right and Reagan epitomised. Chapter 2 analyses the New Right as a coalition of three distinctive groups: anti-liberals, New Christian Right, and neoconservatives.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Black Conservative: Rhetoric Or Reality?
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications: Political Science Political Science, Department of January 2003 THE NEW BLACK CONSERVATIVE: RHETORIC OR REALITY? Byron D. Orey University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/poliscifacpub Part of the Political Science Commons Orey, Byron D., "THE NEW BLACK CONSERVATIVE: RHETORIC OR REALITY?" (2003). Faculty Publications: Political Science. 16. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/poliscifacpub/16 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Political Science, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications: Political Science by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE NEW BLACK CONSERVATIVE: RHETORIC OR REALITY? Byron D’Andra Orey, Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska, Lin- coln There is [a] class of [black] people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. Booker T. Washington1 In recent years there has been growing speculation regarding an increase in the number of African Americans identifying themselves as conservatives. Much of this speculation has been heightened by the increase in the number of African American elites who identify themselves as conservatives. This list includes icons like Clarence Thomas, J.C. Watts, Alan Keyes and Ward Connerly, to name a few. Despite the increase in the number of African American elites who identify themselves as conser- vatives, there has been a dearth of systematic analyses to determine if this phenom- enon has trickled down to the masses.
    [Show full text]
  • Online Media and the 2016 US Presidential Election
    Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Faris, Robert M., Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling, Nikki Bourassa, Ethan Zuckerman, and Yochai Benkler. 2017. Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Research Paper. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33759251 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA AUGUST 2017 PARTISANSHIP, Robert Faris Hal Roberts PROPAGANDA, & Bruce Etling Nikki Bourassa DISINFORMATION Ethan Zuckerman Yochai Benkler Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is the result of months of effort and has only come to be as a result of the generous input of many people from the Berkman Klein Center and beyond. Jonas Kaiser and Paola Villarreal expanded our thinking around methods and interpretation. Brendan Roach provided excellent research assistance. Rebekah Heacock Jones helped get this research off the ground, and Justin Clark helped bring it home. We are grateful to Gretchen Weber, David Talbot, and Daniel Dennis Jones for their assistance in the production and publication of this study. This paper has also benefited from contributions of many outside the Berkman Klein community. The entire Media Cloud team at the Center for Civic Media at MIT’s Media Lab has been essential to this research.
    [Show full text]
  • In the Supreme Court of the United States ______
    No. 15-1293 In the Supreme Court of the United States __________ Michelle K. Lee, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office, Petitioner, v. Simon Shiao Tam, Respondent. __________ On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit __________ BRIEF OF THE CATO INSTITUTE AND A BASKET OF DEPLORABLE PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS AS AMICI CURIAE SUPPORTING RESPONDENT __________ Ilya Shapiro Counsel of Record Thomas A. Berry CATO INSTITUTE 1000 Mass. Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20001 (202) 842-0200 [email protected] [email protected] December 16, 2016 i QUESTION PRESENTED Does the government get to decide what’s a slur? ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page QUESTION PRESENTED .......................................... i TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...................................... iv INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ............................ 1 SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT .................................... 1 ARGUMENT ............................................................... 7 I. “DISPARAGING” LANGUAGE SERVES AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN OUR SOCIETY ........... 7 A. Reclaiming Slurs Has Played a Big Part in Personal Expression and Cultural Debate ... 7 B. Rock Music Has a Proud Tradition of Pushing the Boundaries of Expression ...... 10 II. THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE DECIDING WHAT’S A SLUR .......................... 12 A. It Is Impossible to Draw an Objective Line as to What Is Disparaging .......................... 12 B. Brands That Do Not Wish to Offend Can Change Their Names Voluntarily .............. 19 III. THE DISPARAGEMENT CLAUSE VIOLATES THE FIRST AMENDMENT ......... 22 A. The Disparagement Clause Is a Viewpoint-Based Unconstitutional Condition ..................................................... 22 B. A Trademark Is Neither a Subsidy Nor an Endorsement .......................................... 23 1. Choosing which artists and speakers to fund with limited resources is different than trademark registration.
    [Show full text]
  • African Americans in the Military
    African Americans in the Military While the fight for African American civil rights has been traditionally linked to the 1960s, the discriminatory experiences faced by black soldiers during World War II are often viewed by historians as the civil rights precursor to the 1960s movement. During the war America’s dedication to its democratic ideals was tested, specifically in its treatment of its black soldiers. The hypocrisy of waging a war on fascism abroad, yet failing to provide equal rights back home was not lost. The onset of the war brought into sharp contrast the rights of white and black American citizens. Although free, African Americans had yet to achieve full equality. The discriminatory practices in the military regarding black involvement made this distinction abundantly clear. There were only four U.S. Army units under which African Americans could serve. Prior to 1940, thirty thousand blacks had tried to enlist in the Army, but were turned away. In the U.S. Navy, blacks were restricted to roles as messmen. They were excluded entirely from the Air Corps and the Marines. This level of inequality gave rise to black organizations and leaders who challenged the status quo, demanding greater involvement in the U.S. military and an end to the military’s segregated racial practices. Soldiers Training, ca. 1942, William H. Johnson, oil on plywood, Smithsonian American Art Museum Onset of War The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 irrevocably altered the landscape of World War II for blacks and effectively marked the entry of American involvement in the conflict.
    [Show full text]