The Best of the Whitesell Prize Competition
The Best of the Whitesell Prize Competition
2016–2017
The Writing Center’s Phyllis C. Whitesell Prizes for
Expository Writing in General Education
14th Edition, Fall 2016
The Writing Center at Franklin and Marshall College
Lancaster, PA 17604-3003
717.358.3866
Preface
The Writing Center’s Phyllis C. Whitesell Prizes honor excellent student writing in Franklin and Marshall’s General Education curriculum. Each year the Writing Center invites submissions and awards a prize for the best essay in both Connections I and Connections II. This booklet contains the prize-winning and honorable mention essays from this year’s competition.
Named for the emerita Director of F&M’s Writing Center, the Whitesell Prizes serve several goals. In addition to honoring both Phyllis’s dedication to teaching writing and the achievements of the College’s students writers themselves, the Whitesell Prizes seek to add to the vitality of the College’s General Education curriculum by getting students to think of their intellectual efforts as ongoing enterprises (revision, often after the essay has been graded and the class is completed, is a requirement of the competition). Also, by involving faculty and Writing Center tutors in the judging of the essays—and by making this booklet available to the College community—the Whitesell competition hopes to foster a fuller awareness of the interesting work being done in our First-Year Writing Requirement courses.
My great appreciation goes to this year’s Whitesell Prize judges. Professors Meredith Bashaw and SherAli Tareen and tutors Erin Hallenbeck ‘17 and Chang Hee Han ‘17 awarded the prizes in Connections I. Professors Dave Ciuk and Laura Shelton and tutors Gregory Fullam ’18 and Jennifer Thal ’18 awarded the prizes in Connections II.
Many thanks go to Dave Mix ‘17 for compiling this booklet.
Daniel Frick
Director, Writing Center
January 2018
Table of Contents
Connections I Writing
Whitesell Prize Winner 3
“The Majority Rules”
By Nina Dashti-Gibson for Professor Hopkins
CNX134
Whitesell Prize Winner 8
“Brief Amicus Curiae for the National Coalition on Racism in Sports Media”
By Ellie Driscoll for Professor Kibler
CNX145
Honorable Mention 18
“Immigration Done Differently: Indian Muslim Peddlers in America”
By Emily Rutherford for Professor Tareen
CNX169
Connections II Writing
Whitesell Prize Winner 24
“Continued Colonization in Native America”
By Teresa Norman for Professor Churchville
CNX276
Honorable Mention 42
“American Jazz in Germany, 1918-1945”
By Yuan Chen for Professor Mitchell
CNX257
Honorable Mention 60
“Epistle II”
By Matthew Hamby for Professor Fenlon
CNX230
Connections I Category
Whitesell Prize Winner
“The Majority Rules”
Nina Dashti-Gibson
CNX134; Professor Hopkins
…
In the United States of America, a single night determines the future of the country. Every four years, Americans find themselves huddled around glowing television screens in their living rooms, waiting in suspense to find out if they will go to bed in tears or with a heaving sigh of relief. This election not only decides who will lead the country for the next four years, but what the United States will stand for in the greater context of the world. Considering three of Shakespeare’s most compelling characters as candidates in an American election in 2016 sheds light on the qualities and characteristics that lead to a successful campaign today. In this hypothetical scenario, Mark Antony would likely use his persuasive public speaking skills and a projected image of goodness to defeat both Brutus’ strong morals and Richard III’s merciless strength. While some Americans would vote for morality and others for ruthlessness and violence, the majority would fall prey to Antony’s ability to know his audience and tell them exactly what they want to hear.
While both Brutus and Antony display violent behavior, the American public would more readily accept the seemingly pure motivations behind Antony’s violence, just as the people of Rome do. Immediately after stabbing Caesar, Brutus exclaims, “People and senators, be not affrighted. / Fly not! Stand still! Ambition’s debt is paid” (3.1.81-82). Despite his commands, the people run away from Brutus and the other conspirators. Brutus tries to explain that he killed Caesar not for personal gain, but to stop Caesar’s ambition from eventually destroying Rome. The people do not interpret his actions as the result of his strong morals, however. Rather, they see him savagely murder their future king and run from him because they simply cannot accept such violent behavior. On the other hand, when Antony encourages the Romans to revolt against the conspirators and start a civil war, they support his violent orders. After he accuses the senators of being traitors, the plebeians cry out in unison, “Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! / Let not a traitor live!” (3.2.196-97). The people of Rome do not accept Brutus’ violence, but they accept and even embrace Antony’s because he makes himself and his motivations seem pure. When Antony suggests taking back power from the conspirators to avenge Caesar’s death, the people respond favorably because they think that Antony’s actions are for the greater good. Most Americans would find it difficult to vote for Brutus who literally stabs his best friend in the back. However, Antony’s portrayal of his violence would satisfy Americans because they would believe it was for a worthy cause.
While some Americans would believe that the country needs a powerful president like Richard to protect it from harm, they would not celebrate his violence because he uses it for his own good rather than the good of the country. On the other hand, they would appreciate that Antony only seems to use violence when the situation calls for it. In a world where terrorism and other threats plague the country, some Americans would like to have a president who will fight back and protect the country at any cost. With a closer look, however, one realizes that while Richard does use violence freely, he only does so to give himself more power. Richmond says of Richard right before defeating him, “A bloody tyrant and a homicide; / One raised in blood, and one in blood established” (5.5.200-202). In this quote, Richmond explains how Richard has come into power by killing people and has stayed in power by killing even more people. The resentment in his words would likely be shared by Americans who have grown tired of greedy politicians acting only for their own good. Antony, however, seems to use violence seldom and selflessly, which would appeal to Americans. After discovering Caesar’s dead body, Antony exclaims, “Cry ‘havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war, / That this foul deed shall smell above the earth” (3.1.276-77). Antony does not turn to war and violence until he is prompted to do so. In this case, he tells the Romans that Brutus and the other conspirators having power would harm Rome, and therefore, he must use violence to stop them. Americans would understand and accept Antony’s violence more than Richard’s because Antony claims to fight for the common good rather than to give himself more power.
Both Brutus and Antony speak to the people of Rome after Caesar’s death, but Antony ultimately sways the crowd to support him, which demonstrates his superior public speaking skills. After explaining to the plebeians why he stabbed Caesar, Brutus asks, “Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? . . . Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended” (3.2.28-31). Brutus gives the Romans a chance to speak out if they do not believe he has done the right thing in killing Caesar. However, he says that any such person is rude, vile, and does not love his country. While this discourages anyone from speaking against him, it does not eliminate feelings of animosity towards Brutus and does not convince anyone to support him wholeheartedly. In contrast, Antony later tells the Romans, “You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; / And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar, / It will inflame you, it will make you mad” (3.2.139-41). Antony acknowledges the personhood of each of the Romans; the fact that he regards them as men and not inanimate objects shows that he respects them and recognizes their dignity. This deliberate flattery causes them not only to pay attention to his words, but to receive them favorably. He also plants the suggestion in their minds that they should be angry when they hear Caesar’s will, and they indeed become infuriated when he reads it to them. By using clever and emotional language, Antony persuades the citizens of Rome to do exactly as he wants them to, while Brutus only convinces them to hold their tongues. Antony’s skillful public speaking could sway large crowds of Americans to vote for him in an election because he would not only make them feel important, but he would plant suggestions in their minds about how to act.
Antony uses his communication skills to convince his greatest enemies to let him do what he wants, while Richard cannot even persuade his closest friend to do his bidding, suggesting that Richard also lacks the public speaking ability to win an election in America. Supporters of Richard might point to his success in becoming the king of England as evidence of his ability to overcome obstacles and seize a powerful position. However, an unsuccessful interaction with Buckingham, his right-hand man, indicates that he would not have the necessary characteristics to become the president of the United States, or even to remain the king of England. After obtaining the crown, Richard tells Buckingham, “Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead, / And I would have it immediately performed. / What sayest thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief” (4.2.19-21). Even though Richard has already been crowned, he decides that he wants Buckingham to kill his young nephews who are the rightful heirs to the throne. However, Richard does not waste time persuading Buckingham or showing him respect as a person. Rather, he rudely commands him to do his bidding, which does not ultimately convince Buckingham to kill the children. On the other hand, after quickly recovering from the shock of seeing Caesar’s dead body, Antony composes himself and coaxes his friend’s killers into letting him speak at the funeral. He tells the conspirators, “Therefore I took your hands, but was indeed / Swayed from the point by looking down on Caesar. / Friends am I with you all, and love you all” (3.1.220-23). In this quote, Antony does not deny that he feels upset about Caesar’s death because doing so would seem unrealistic and might raise suspicions amongst the conspirators. Rather, he acknowledges his shock but quickly moves on to declaring his loyalty to his enemies. He addresses them as friends, indicating that he does not hold their actions against them, and even claims to love them. He then asks to speak to the people of Rome at Caesar’s funeral, and they consent, despite the great risk they take in doing so. Richard cannot even persuade Buckingham to follow orders, while Antony masterfully makes emotional declarations to get what he wants from his enemies. This ability to manipulate others’ opinions of him using only his words suggests that Antony would be able to talk his way into office by convincing conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between to vote for him.
As clocks around the country tick relentlessly into the early hours of the morning, Americans move closer and closer to the edges of their seats. Although everyone has a good idea of who has won, they still wait to go to bed until the official announcement is made. Mark Antony wins the presidency by a landslide, thus defeating both Brutus and Richard III. For the next four years, America will not represent morality or ruthlessness, but what will Antony’s presidency say about the country? It will not say much, except that the majority of Americans will fall easily for empty promises, masterful rhetoric, and excellent public speakers again and again. And, in this country, the majority rules.
Connections I Category
Whitesell Prize Winner
“Brief Amicus Curiae for the National Coalition on Racism in Sports Media”
Ellie Driscoll
CNX145; Professor Kibler
…
University of North Dakota v. NCAA
Brief Amicus Curiae for the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media
Table of Authorities
Baca, Lawrence R. "Native Images in Schools and the Racially Hostile Environment." Journal of Sport & Social Issues 28.1 (2004): 71-78. The Native American Mascot Controversy (2010): 79-87. Print.
Davis, Laurel R. "The Problems with Native American Mascots." Multicultural Education 9 (2002): 11-14. ProQuest. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.
Jenson, Robert. "What the ‘Fighting Sioux’ Tells Us About White People." The Native American Mascot Controversy. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010. 33-40. Print.
McEwan, Patrick J., and Clive R. Belfielf. "Native American Mascots and Alumni Giving." The Native American Mascot Controversy (2010): 127-42. Print.
Munson, Barbara E. “Teach Them Respect Not Racism: Common Themes and Questions About the Use of "Indian" Logos.” Indian Mascots. Wisconsin Indian Education Association “Indian” Mascot and Logo Taskforce, 1997. Web. 30 Nov. 2016. .
National Center for Education Statistics. "Fast Facts." Fast Facts. U.S. Department of Education, 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016. .
National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media. "National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media (NCARSM)." National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media (NCARSM). American Indian Movement, 2014. Web. 30 Nov. 2016. .
Office for Civil Rights. "Education and Title VI." US Department of Education. US Department of Education, 14 Oct. 2015. Web. 11 Dec. 2016. .
Saigo, Roy H. “On the Use of Native American Mascots.” A Presentation to the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee. 28 Jan. 2002.
Staurowsky, Ellen J. "American Indian Imagery and the Miseducation of America." Quest 51.4 (1999): 382-92. Abstract. The Native American Mascot Controversy (2010): 63-77. Print.
United States of America. Office of the President. The White House. By Office of the President. The White House, 2014. Web. .
United States Commission on Civil Rights. Statement on the Use of Native American Images and Nicknames as Sports Symbols (2001). U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. United States, 2001. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.
University of North Dakota. "UND Student Body Profile." UND Student Body Profile. University of North Dakota, 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016. .
Court Cases
Brown v. Board of Education. 74 S.Ct. 686 (1954). Westlaw Next.
Illinois Native American Bar Association v. University of Illinois. 368 Ill.App.3d. 321. FindLaw.
Pro-Football, Inc. v. Blackhorse. 112 F.Supp.3d 439 (2015). Westlaw Next.
Zeno v. Pine Plains Central School District. 702 F.3d 655 (2012). Westlaw Next.
I. Statement of Interest
The amicus curiae is the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media, a group dedicated to fighting racism in athletics and broadcasting. NCARSM was created in response to racial stereotyping resulting from the commercialized usage of American Indian identities in the form of sport mascots. In 2006, the NCAA ordered the University of North Dakota to change their mascot, the Fighting Sioux, in a sanction that called for the removal of mascots with tribal logos that they deemed hostile and abusive. UND has since fought this decision, arguing that the school maintains the right to choose their mascot. Amicus submits this brief in the hopes to convince the Court that the usage of Native Americans as mascots perpetuates harmful stereotypes that distort the historical accuracy of Native peoples and creates a racially hostile environment, thus violating Title VI.
Native Americans are harmed by their portrayal as mascots because the caricatures promote a false collective history, diminish their struggle over the past centuries, and constitute a Title VI violation. Some argue that schools should be allowed to persist usage of racially insensitive mascots for continuation of monetary sponsorship and for the sake of tradition; however, these contentions constitute feeble excuses for institutionalized racism. Therefore, schools that use Native American mascots, such as the University of North Dakota, ought not to allow the promotion of institutional tradition and financial donation to outweigh the rights of Native people to feel secure; thus, UND must change their mascot to promote accurate cultural history and protect the educational opportunities of Native children.
II. Native American mascots constitute stereotypes that perpetuate cultural ignorance of Indigenous people and their customs.
The use of Native American mascots further marginalizes Native people through generalization and thus creates false knowledge. Native American Activist Fred Vellieux observed that the reliance on Native American Mascots “is based upon [the] misinformed stereotypical notion that [their] Indian ancestors were warlike, bloodthirsty, wild savages” (qtd. in Staurowsky 73). The mascots romanticize and trivialize the struggle of the Native people by placing them under severe cultural constraints. Schools and sports teams claim to honor the strength and resilience of the Native people while simultaneously asserting these as the sole characteristics of these people. This dangerous generalization of Native culture eliminates the vast diversity that exists between nations and thus leads to further erasure of native history and subsequent collective ignorance of the culture. Furthermore, the use of Native Americans as mascots for sports teams propagates the harmful one-dimensional “savage” stereotype. Native Americans, especially native men, find it hard “to be heard in the present when someone is always suggesting that [their] real culture only exists in museums. The logos keep [them] marginalized…Indian men are not limited to the role of warrior” (Munson 2). The usage of Native Americans as mascots prevent the collective American knowledge base to view these people as contemporary and instead locks them into a historical stereotype of the bloodthirsty savage.
Native Americans mascots create unacceptable parallels to animals and dehumanizes the ethnic group. When all mascots representing Native Americans are considered, such as Chiefs, Braves, etc., “it turns out that Native Americans are the most common mascot in US sport…[the next] are animals, most of which are also associated with aggression and fighting” (Davis 12). These mascots place depictions of Native people as equivalent to animals and therefore suggest that their sole – or sole redeeming – qualities are animalistic and aggressive. Some assert that because this stereotype doesn’t seem inherently offensive or derogatory, as the mascots are usually associated with strength and athletic prowess, Native Americans do not have the right to feel offended. Yet, this argument still places the power of defining the native culture into the hands of white America, and portrays Native Americans as sub-human; they are deemed incapable of self-definition. Additionally, this dehumanizing treatment leads to acts of disrespect – in the case of the University of North Dakota, the “Fighting Sioux mascot has been portrayed in sex acts with the North Dakota State University ‘Bison’” (Saigo). Use of Native people as mascots allows for perpetuation of generalization and of disgusting parallels to animals that harm the collective Native psyche. Native American mascots normalize the dehumanization of the entire group of people and thus gives others supposed allowance to portray the Native people in other racist and demeaning fashions.
III. The use of Native Peoples as mascots creates a hostile environment that violates Title VI.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” (Office for Civil Rights). This law remains relevant to the UND case because the Fighting Sioux mascot constitutes a racially hostile environment that deprives Native American students of equal educational opportunity due to their race. The subsequent argument outlines the steps necessary to classify an environment as racially hostile and the way in which the continued usage of Native Americans as mascots constitutes a Title VI violation.
Native American mascots generate severe physical and mental distress that constitutes a hostile environment. Per the Title VI case of Zeno v. Pine Plains Central School District (2012), certain conduct creates a racially hostile environment if it was “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive…[and] discriminatorily deprived [students of] educational benefits as a result of racial harassment” (Zeno). When coupled with dehumanizing stereotypes, the subjugation of Native children to offensive mascots restricts their educational opportunities as compared to non-Native children. When Native American children see their race as separate from and inferior to other races in an educational setting, they are denied the assurance of racial acceptance that other students may experience. In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Court stated that “to separate [students] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone” (Brown). This is evidenced through data that indicates American Indians have the lowest high school graduation rates in the nation, and even lower college attendance and graduation rates (United States Commission on Civil Rights); the most recent Department of Education data suggest that Bureau of Indian Education schools have “a graduation rate of 53 percent, compared to a national average of 80 percent” (2014 Native Youth Report). These stereotypes contribute to decreased academic achievement through creating a hostile environment that restricts educational equity, thus indicating that educational systems that promote institutionalized racism impede the educational opportunities of Native students, constituting a racially harassing environment sanctionable by Title VI.
Moreover, the pervasive nature of the Native American mascot depictions are sufficient to constitute a hostile environment. In addition to creating a severe enough environment to prompt increased drop-out rates and decreased college attendance and graduation rates, the pervasiveness of offensive mascots creates a racially hostile environment. The mascot “images are ubiquitous, they are omnipresent, and they are so pervasive as to become white noise or wallpaper to the non-Indian. To the Indian child, they are an insidious invasion of his or her educational experience” (Baca 85). The pervasive, racially insensitive mascots serve to disrupt the lives of Native children who are forced to look upon offensive caricatures of their ancestors on a daily, even hourly basis at institutions that force them to attend. Furthermore, it continues to reassure non-Native students that their Native counterparts are inferior and not worthy of the same socio-ethnic environment they themselves experience.
Some argue that a college student may avoid these images by attending a different school if they oppose the mascot. This assumption is false. Many factors “limit a college student’s choice. It is particularly onerous if the student must also consider whether or not the institution is maintaining a racially hostile environment for Indian students” (United States Commission on Civil Rights). Due to the overwhelming number of institutions that present a Native American related mascot, the choice of university for a student is dramatically limited. In the case of the Illinois Native American Bar Association v. Illinois (2006), Justice Hall stated, “the sports mascot violates the civil rights of Native American students by creating and contributing to an objectively hostile educational environment” (Illinois Native American Bar Association). Although this argument comes from the dissenting opinion, the point remains valid – Native students are deprived of educational equality, a basic right, due to a racially hostile environment. This educational disruption directly violates Title VI and thus the mascots necessitate replacement.
IV. The arguments of loss of sponsorship and tradition of the University do not outweigh the damage created by the mascots.
The argument that universities will suffer a revenue impact and should be allowed to retain their Native American mascots is flawed. The general argument iterates that alumni donations will decrease because fond memories of the school are intertwined with the mascot, and thus a change in mascot signals a fundamental institutional shift. If school administrators change the mascot, alumni may feel the institution no longer retains the ideals that drove them to donate in the first place. However, past cases disprove this argument. In a sample of 83 universities that boasted a Native related mascot, “there is no strong evidence that total alumni donations are affected, and there is weak evidence that the average donation (among alumni who donate) rises slightly” (McEwan and Belfielf 128). This data indicates that although some alumni may reject the changing of the mascot and cease donating, enough donors view the changes positively to remedy the deficit and potentially increase the amount of money given to the school, as they become more likely to support a university they feel shifted toward a superior direction.
Furthermore, the idea that mascots should retain preservation because they exist as symbols of tradition is flawed because it furthers institutionalized racist ideology. Many in favor of conservancy contend that “they do not intend to offend anyone…[universities] are just having fun and affirming tradition” (Davis 13). However, their intent is irrelevant. The mascots still have disastrous consequences for the history of Native people and their collective psyche. In Pro-Football, Inc. v. Blackhorse (2015), the Court ruled against the trademarking of “redskins” as a mascot, despite claims of harmlessness and emotional attachment to the team, because it disparages a “substantial composite of Native Americans", as illustrated "by the near complete drop-off in usage of 'redskins' as a reference to Native Americans beginning in the 1960s" (Pro-Football, Inc.). If the public wholly agreed that the use of the word ought to be terminated, it follows that sports teams ought to cease usage. Also, traditions are not always equitable to decency – racial segregation and the exclusion of women from schools also may constitute traditions that indubitably harmed marginalized groups. Professor Robert Jenson maintains that “many traditions have fallen by the wayside over time when it became clear that the tradition imposed a cost on some other person or group” (Jenson 38). In this case, the right of a school to maintain tradition should not trump the right of a marginalized group to feel secure in their race. The argument to keep mascots for the sake of tradition gives priority to student nostalgia over the right to not suffer racial harassment in academia, and thus is obviously morally flawed.
V. Conclusion
The usage of Native Americans as mascots irreparably harms Native people by creating racially hostile environments that prevent educational equality by perpetuating harmful stereotypes and histories. Not only is the portrayal of an ethnic group in a one-dimensional manner incredibly stereotypical and racist, it allows for the continuation of educational inequality. While proponents of the mascots argue conservation for the sake of tradition and financial compensation, amicus urges the Court to consider whether money and tradition truly outweigh the right to equality. Consider the mental and academic damage done to Native children and the further ramifications if this damage was endorsed by the highest Court in the United States. Consider prioritizing human rights.
Connections I Category
Honorable Mention
“Immigration Done Differently: Indian Muslim Peddlers in America”
Emily Rutherford
CNX 169; Professor Tareen
…
When reflecting on the history of immigration in America, there is often a romanticized image that surfaces: a packed ship of immigrants sailing into New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty watching proudly as the ship docks at Ellis Island, waiting to “lift [her] lamp beside the golden door,” and welcome the weary travelers to their new home with open arms (Lazarus, line 14). American mythology paints the picture of immigrants as those who left their homelands permanently behind to create new and better lives for themselves and their families in the United States. However, this picture fails to capture the lives of immigrants who do not fit this definition, immigrants who remained closely linked to their native countries, and used the era of the Orient Craze to profit off the American economy.
In his work, Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, Vivek Bald details the history of the first Indian Muslim immigrants to enter the United States. These men weren’t Catholic or Jewish, nor were they traveling with families. Especially apparent, these men were not European. In other words, they did not at all resemble the iconic American immigrants of the early 20th century. These small groups of men, originating from a cluster of Muslim villages in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, India (modern-day Bangladesh), were oriental good peddlers who followed “a very different trajectory of migration,” by immigrating to America with no intention to permanently settle there (15). They came originally for economic prosperity, to game the system.
America, at the time of the peddlers’ immigration, was infected with the “Oriental Craze,” the obsession of the aristocracy and middle class over the “collective fantasy” of the mysterious and exotic “Orient” that captivated the Western world from 1880 to 1920 (16-17). For Americans, owning items from “the East” (the swath of territory including North Africa, the Middle East, and Sri Lanka) indicated sophistication and identification with their fellow European imperial cousins. Any items connected to the Orient, “silk scarves and shawls, cushion covers, wall hangings, rugs, brassware, carved and enameled boxes, jewelry, incense, perfume,” were lusted after by all classes “in a society in which people’s identities and social standing were increasingly defined by what they consumed and displayed” (18). Incentivized by the high demand overseas, a handful of these Muslim peddlers decided to give the Americans what they wanted, and set sail from the ports of Calcutta and Britain for the United States. Getting in to sell these oriental goods, however, was easier said than done.
Despite originating from “the East,” and displaying behaviors that elicited awe and admiration from their white customers, the Hooghly peddlers lived on the strenuous border between Indophilia and xenophobia, demonstrated through immigration policies and segregation. The 1885 Contract Labor Law and the 1917 Immigration Act “were suffused with racist assumptions about the nature of Asian laborers, and both complicated the Bengali peddlers’ ability to cross into the United States” (14). Beginning in 1904, when Indian workers began pouring into the country, they were met by a frenzy of white opposition, “emboldened by years of targeting immigrants from China and Japan. The nativists focused their vitriol on the Indian newcomers, whipping up a moral panic over what they called the “tide of turbans” that threatened to swamp white America” (1). However, the peddlers’ persistence was evident. Despite continuous withholdings and deportations, most would, time and again, slink their way back through U.S. borders, “traveling in smaller groups, trying different ports, finding a way to get back in, reunite with kin and co-villagers, and carry on their work” (14-15).
Once inside U.S. borders, these men adopted a pattern of sojourning labor, travelling through various hubs of American tourism, selling decoratively embroidered chikan (cotton and silk), “small rugs, perfumes, and a range of other items” produced in their native villages, profiting tremendously off Americans’ craving for worldliness (15). The peddlers, or chikondars, moved according to the seasonal tourist economy, residing in Atlantic City during “the summer season of New Jersey’s beachside resorts,” and New Orleans and other southern cities during the fall, winter, and spring (23-24). Many returned to their villages in India at the end of each tourist season to replenish their stockpile of goods and see their families before traveling back to the United States the following year, beginning the migration cycle over again.
After overcoming the struggle to even enter the country, these peddlers’ daily lives were dominated by the segregationist laws and violence of Jim Crow. Despite several of the men passing as “white” on their naturalization records, the peddlers’ “position within the racial order… [was] provisional and uncertain.” Their “darkness, no matter what shade or category, made them vulnerable to individual acts of violence,” and the conditions of the peddlers’ housing, health, and public access were ultimately selected by their skin pigment (59). This led them ultimately to form new bonds with the colored communities they lived with.
Some of the men did eventually decide to settle in the United States, aligning themselves more properly to the typical American immigrant. But they didn’t establish their own ethnic enclaves, like the Italian or the Russian or the Chinese. They blended with the people that they lived with in black and Hispanic urban neighborhoods. With the neighborhood of Tremé in New Orleans as a classic example, the peddlers established their roots of operation by gaining “neighbors, acquaintances, lovers, and wives,” marrying black or Creole or Puerto Rican women whose families had been rooted to the region for generations (52). These partially emotional, partially economic unions aided in the expansion of their globally connected organization, with wives, both in the United States and back in India, managing children and property while their husbands were away. These established settlement outposts serviced new or seasoned members of the trade by acting as middlemen, collecting goods shipped from Calcutta to the “customhouses in New Orleans, Charleston, Savannah, and Philadelphia… [and distributing] the embroidery to individual chikondars, who then fanned out to sell the goods” as they made their way through the city (29). These middlemen also trained new peddlers who “were drawn into the network through family and kinship ties and largely hailed from the cluster of [Hooghly] villages where the chikan goods were being produced” (29). Thus, the peddlers built a global, multiethnic network based on cooperation between network members and familial ties both in India and in the colored neighborhoods of urban America.
The generation of children produced by these marriages “grew up shifting among a multiplicity of different cultural and religious practices, worldviews, languages, relations, and relationships within the context of their immediate and extended families, their schools, their neighborhoods,” and the cities in which they lived (203). Due to the mixing and remixing of ethnicities through marriage, these families served as a shining example of the Great American Melting Pot. In one noted case during the holidays, when one extended family united for celebration, “they brought together a group of more than a dozen American-born cousins who were Bengali and Puerto Rican, Bengali and African American, Bengali and white, who grew up together as kin—hearing and speaking multiple languages, eating multiple kinds of home food, navigating multiple and shifting racial, ethnic, and cultural identifications—all as part of a single circle of extended family and friends” (204). The community feeling that existed in the urban neighborhoods produced racial acceptance and belonging. One child of a Bengali peddler fondly remembers what it was like:
East 102nd Street [in East Harlem] was about ninety-eight percent Hispanic; there were a few blacks, and besides us, we had the Mahais and the Alis on the street. And it was fine—you were just accepted. ‘You’re Indian? All right, okay, come on let’s go.’ Everybody hung out and just had a good time together and you weren’t looked upon as anything strange. You were just one of the kids on the block (205-206).
Producing children of this caliber, with mixed ethnicities and backgrounds, whose judgements were based less on race and more on character, aligns with the notion of an inclusive America as a “country of immigrants.”
These South Asian peddlers are placed “at the margins of U.S. immigration history” due to the transient nature of their commercial operations, both globally and within the United States (48). But by persevering through anti-immigration and citizenship laws, and living with “the consequences of having dark skin in a society structured by race,” these men showed their commitment to the country. By marrying women of color and producing children who increased the moral culture of the American population, these Bengali peddlers proved that, despite not being the typical style of immigrant to settle in the United States, they added substantial diversity to America and its immigrant history.
Works Cited
Bald, Vivek. Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2015. Print.
Lazarus, Emma. “The New Colossus.” American Academy of Poets, . Accessed on 18 Oct. 2016.
Connections II Category
Whitesell Prize Winner
“Continued Colonization in Native America”
Teresa Norman
CNX276; Professor Churchville
…
Introduction
The Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile-long oil pipeline designed to transport 570,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota, through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois, has struck a chord in the hearts of many Americans[1]. The pipeline has ignited a widespread fear of eminent domain implementation--who gets to use eminent domain laws, and who suffers from the use of eminent domain laws. However, on a broader scale, the proposal of the pipeline and the protests against such have highlighted a longstanding problem in the United States of America: continued colonization and oppression of Native American people. The Dakota Access Pipeline will serve as the framework and case study through which this paper will examine cyclical oppression of Native Americans. The history of Native America is one fraught with distrust and pain. The treaties that have been enacted to provide self-determination and sovereignty have been crossed numerous times. While stoic images of protestors standing against militant police forces provide some hope, they also stand as a stark reminder of the pain that is entrenched in the history of this country[2]. As Brian Ward, an indigenous-rights and climate-justice activist, writes, “[it is] both tragic and inspiring. They are the story of America.”[3] By tracking the historic oppression of Native Americans, by explaining what eminent domain law is and how it has been implemented in the past, and by exploring the militant response to the Dakota Access Pipeline, this paper seeks to illustrate the use of criminalization to control America’s native populations.
Understanding Historic Native American Oppression
To understand the context and the gravity of implementing eminent domain law on Native American land (in this case focusing on the Sioux Tribe), it will first be important to grasp how land has historically been taken from the Sioux and how what we are seeing now is a continuation of that cyclical oppression. As Edward Lazarus, author of Black Hills White Justice -- a history of the relationship of the Sioux Tribe and the United States from 1775 through the present (note: the present in his book is 1991) -- tells it, the Sioux lived in the expansive midwest, in the Black Hills. This area originally encompassed parts of what are now North and South Dakota, as well as Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska[4]. There were no definite lines. The Sioux were a flourishing tribe that spread over indiscriminate acres of land. It was not until the 1800’s with the arrival of Lewis and Clark that the Sioux’s way of life was threatened.
Historian and author Edward Curtis documents the rich culture of the Sioux, in his book The Sioux and the Apsaroke, a collection of photographs and historical accounts. It is important to acknowledge the intrinsic value of the lives of the Sioux people and the historical significance of their tribe, “which have [almost] vanished under the heel of progress.”[5] The Sioux initially consisted of many smaller sub-tribes spread out across the plains. Each tribe had a head-chief, wichashayatapika, and usually smaller sub-chiefs, itacha. They had systems of reporting and self monitoring, and could join together in times of war. They had traditions of feasting and ear-piercing ceremonies following the birth of a child. They respected their elders greatly and had distinct mortuary rights. The Sioux were a people of religion and culture. Of rights and rituals. And, while that is not the main focus of this paper, it is important not to lose their personhood in the journey to understand their loss of land. Too often, environmental advocacy sees the land, and the animals, the flora and the fauna, but overlooks the people who are affected by the destruction of the land. It is important, therefore, not to do that here.
Cartographic resources are crucial in understanding the relationship between the indigenous people and the government who has been historically taking their land. As previously mentioned, the Sioux lived in very undefined borders, so the mapping of their land came in conjunction with the taking of their land. In attempt to quantify what was considered “Indian land” cartographers inherently “[rendered] tribal lands as less than they were perceived to be by the tribes.”[6] However, the result of cartography is that the land transferring and the creation of reservations could be tracked on a larger scale. When looking at the spatial boundaries of Indian land over time, the role that manipulative treaties (put forth by the government) has played in land dissemination becomes glaringly obvious[7]. Daniel G. Cole and Imre Sutton write in their Cartographic History of Indian-White Government Relations during the Past 400 Years that “European powers felt that the right to land depended on discovery, without consideration of the Native population inhabiting and possessing the land.”[8] They go on, asserting that this behavior “evolved into the right of eminent domain [...] and expansionist policies.”[9] It is here one can draw a link between past, present, and future relations with Native Americans: colonization is a long standing and extant American practice.
For the Sioux tribe oppression in regards to land rights began in the 1800’s, accompanying American entitlement through Manifest Destiny. In 1804 Lewis and Clark endeavored into the Midwest and set up the Missouri and American fur companies. The land, and its resources, became a source of profit, and thus was sought after further[10]. This idea -- that the exploitation of the land for resources is more valuable than the human lives of those occupying the land -- is a pervasive one that highlights the historic cycle of making and breaking treaties with the Native Americans[11]. In order to protect American fur interests, in 1825 the U.S. government sent military troops on an expedition to Missouri in attempt to awe the Native Americans with the U.S.’s military strength, thus “encouraging” the Natives to transfer land in upper Missouri to America[12]. For their cooperation, the U.S. government, under false pretenses, promised the Sioux protection; they offered to prosecute wrongdoers as long as “‘[their] friendship [...] may be convenient’ in the eyes of the President.”[13]
This matter of “convenience,” which ran in tandem with the introduction of disease, the massacring of buffalo, and other conditions that would create what is now known as the “Trail of Tears” subsequently led to many disputes between native people and the U.S. government. This lead to many treaties (and beyond that, many broken treaties). In 1851, many of the subgroups within the Sioux tribe joined together, in an act more of desperation than excitement, to sign the Fort Laramie Treaty. The natives agreed to recognize the right of the U.S. government to construct roads and forts; they also promised to maintain peace among tribes and to approve of boundary lines for each tribe as set forth by the treaty[14]. The U.S., in exchange promised, once more, protection, and also offered to compensate each tribe fifty thousand dollars each year for fifty years. This exchange reinforced what would become their eventual reliance on whites, as it marked a large pecuniary push to integrate the Sioux in the U.S. economic structure. Fig 1.[15] Illustrates the land sectioned off to the Sioux at this time (it is important to recall here that they previously were borderless, so this “bordering” inherently limits their perceived land[16]). The Fort Laramie Treaty ultimately failed, “one party [the U.S.] had revised its terms; the other party [Native Americans] ignored them,” effectively succeeding at nothing but the precedent for the making and breaking of treaties.[17] As the nineteenth century progressed, so did this pattern. In 1868, the understanding of the lands allotted by the treaty shifted, resulting in a smaller spatial circumference Fig 2. Then again in the Act of February 28, 1877 (Fig. 3), and the Act of March 2, 1889 (Fig 4.), such that the amount of Native Land remained only a fraction of what it was less than one hundred years before.[18] It is no surprise, then, that eminent domain laws began to emerge in 1879, when the taking of land was becoming habitual.[19]
Understanding the Fifth Amendment and Eminent Domain
Eminent domain exists as a subset of the fifth amendment to the constitution, which reads: “No person shall be [...] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”[20] Therefore, suggesting that when land is to be taken from an individual, the individual shall be compensated at fair market price. It also suggests, in the first sentence, that there is a responsibility of the government to assure that neither property nor life is taken without due process of the law.
Property seizure via use of eminent domain law, historically, has been centered around the idea that the government will acquire the land for public use.[21] The use of eminent domain laws has not always been malicious, often times the government seizes land for the sake of facilitating transportation, supplying water, or preserving lands as National Parks. This notion that eminent domain enactment is mutually beneficial, that it will in some ways benefit the people or the community from whom the land is being taken, has often accompanied eminent domain.[22] However, this idea is muddied by court cases such as Kelo v. New London, a Supreme Court case from 2005 in which it was decidedly legal for the U.S. government to seize private land and sell it to private developers under the pretense that said developers will then provide jobs and improve the economy.[23] The history of eminent domain, as expressed earlier, was also muddied by the culture of entitlement that accompanied early land seizures during the time of Manifest Destiny. However, now the question of people over profit has stood before the Supreme Court, and they have chosen profit.
It is, therefore, through this lense that we must view the continued atrocities on and around Native American lands. Lands where burials took place, where rituals were performed, where lives were lived and gods were sung to[24]. It is this greater context (of ritual, culture and personhood) -- rather than the limited perspective of bordered ‘reservations’ -- through which continued colonization and criminalization as a form of suppression should be viewed. It is this duality, of both the history and the present evaluation of profit superseding human life, that calls into question the righteousness of environmental measures such as the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Case Study: Dakota Access Pipeline
The aforementioned Dakota Access Pipeline has a route of 1,172 miles and travels through four states: from fracking sites in North Dakota, through South Dakota, Iowa, to Patoka Illinois where oil is refined, stored, and prepared to export. Fig. 5 illustrates the route of the pipeline[25]. The DAPL, which crosses twenty-two bodies of water, (Fig. 6) has been widely disputed, protested against, and fought over for a variety of reasons[26]. This section of the paper will examine the pipeline’s route--and how it compares to modern Sioux land--where eminent domain has and has not been used, and how that factor has lead to different battles for different people (more explicitly, legal battles for farmers in comparison to militant battles that hinge upon criminalization for Native Americans). Naomi Schaefer Riley, in her book The New Trail of Tears, questions what it is that America owes its first people, and concludes, “nothing less than the opportunity to live lives of freedom and dignity in the land we all share.”[27] This section will argue, in line with Riley, that America is not following through on what it owes, and that the DAPL is not at all a site of dignity, decency, or freedom.
Though the pipeline crosses ancestral Sioux lands, it does not technically cross the Sioux lands that have been defined by the U.S. government. As exemplified by the comparison of Fig. 7[28] (a map of Standing Rock and other contemporary Sioux tribal lands) with Fig. 6 and Fig. 5 the pipeline comes within five miles of Sioux lands and also affects their water supply by way of Lake Oahe and estuaries that service the Sioux. The land being crossed is also historically significant ancestral land. The question here becomes one of property--what qualifies one to have a claim to land? Is that a legal matter or a cultural matter? These different points of view have created tension and strife at the site of protests. By not using eminent domain to take the land, but by coming so close to ancestral lands and waterways, the pipeline endangers the Sioux and also leaves them defenseless in legal battles. While the Standing Rock tribe’s issues were momentarily considered by Department of Justice, the Department of the Army, and the Department of the Interior -- temporarily halting construction in September of 2016 -- their concerns ultimately did not hold up in the eyes of the government and the pipeline proceeded to be built[29]. The consideration of their worries was done more out of “peacekeeping” and good publicity than it was done out of genuine concern; therefore fears about clean water supply and disturbed ancestral lands have remained unabated. This pattern, of doing things out of convenience rather than genuine concern seems to be longstanding in the history of America’s first people[30].
The experience of the Native Americans at Standing Rock is particularly strife when juxtaposed with that of other groups along the pipeline’s route, who, because of the use of eminent domain, have been able to take their fight to a court of law. One such group--the Private Property Rights Coalition--has been fighting eminent domain rulings in Iowa[31]. This group has been standing up for the rights of farmers whose private land has been taken by the US government and sold to the Energy Transfer Partners responsible for building Dakota Access Pipeline. Because the Sioux tribe’s ancestral land has not been taken through use of eminent domain, however, they are unable to join in with this legal battle[32]. The fight by the Private Property Rights Coalition, while it has not been able to slow the construction of the pipeline, has enabled the people of Iowa to fight for their right to “just compensation.”[33]
Any pipeline inevitably endangers everyone in it’s path. Instantiating a pipeline is always a cost-benefit analysis, rather than just being a move that is beneficial to every party involved[34]. In the case of pipelines, the potential cost is human life and well being, whereas the benefit is pecuniary and exclusively received on the behalf of the Energy Transfer Partners, instead of involving all the parties on the pipeline’s route[35]. Some of the pipeline’s less dramatic risks include landslides, habit loss, destruction of historic ancestral land and artifacts[36]. Some of the pipeline’s more dramatic risks, however, include potential for spill, potential for water being poisoned and and potential for explosion -- these effects affect the human lives along the pipeline’s route indiscriminately, however who is able to defend themselves legally is a factor that is challenged by the idea of discrimination. The farmers in Iowa are able to defend themselves legally because their land was taken through use of the law, but the Sioux of Standing Rock have to put themselves in legal danger of criminalization and in danger of militant police forces because their ancestral lands were not taken legal but through deceptive tactics. Again, there is a very clear link between the past and the present of Native America.
Native Americans have, therefore, turned to peaceful protests at the site of Lake Oahe and have been met with militant opposition[37]. This opposition and use of extreme force has been rationalized because the fights have taken place on “public land”[38]. However, many of the actions taken by the security and police guarding the pipeline (some hired by Energy Transfer Partners and some North Dakota Police force) hardly seem justifiable. Such actions include the use of brutal force through rubber bullets and water cannons in sub freezing conditions[39] [40]. More than two hundred people were hit with tear gas and pepper spray[41]. It is difficult to find conclusive evidence and reporting of what actually occurred at the site of the protest as news sources are either biased into favor the police or the protesters, and have only covered the events during moments when the DAPL was considered a hot topic. However, it is distressing to read that over 70 individuals were arrested in a police raid on an encampment site and it is distressing to read the differing points of view as two who is at fault for the militant action and intense criminalization[42].
When examining the pipeline in a historical context though, it seems to run congruently with the narrative of Native American in the United States. Ancestral and historical lands were taken without consultation[43]. Native Americans were criminalized and met with brute force when they tried to stand for their right to history and culture, as well as to their right for clean water and a safe environment[44]. By fighting against them their arguments and point of view on the situation was silenced. The history of the situation was silenced. They were left unable to defend themselves in a court of law (as eminent domain had not been implemented) or through protests (as their protests were seen as invalid and were met with police opposition that was justified in the eyes of the law). And thus their land was taken, colonization was continued and they were further integrated into a white man’s America.
One might quip that they had no right to put up a fight against the pipeline and that focus should not have been on them as their land was not stolen for use in the DAPL. And, while, that might be true in the context of a short-sighted history, in context of a large scale history of broken treaties, the question of just compensation stands in the forefront of our minds. Were they ever justly compensated for what had been taken? No. So, did they have a right to defend themselves against the DAPL? Yes. And, so it is possible see criminalization and eminent domain being used as tactics to unfairly coerce even more land from America’s first people.
Conclusion
Ultimately, through looking at the case study of the DAPL in context of the history of Native America, it is possible to see one disturbing, and overarching feature: this oppression is patterned.
In Marianne O. Nielsen and Robert A. Silverman’s book Criminal Justice In Native America, they discuss corporate crime used to strip Navajo land of Uranium during the cold war[45]. In Black Hills White Justice Lazarus describes the very coming of the white man to the Black Hills as an economic measure. They set up fur trades to further their control over the land[46]. They broke treaties that promised compensation, and only after the land had been taken began writing into the U.S. constitution that land or life shall never be unjustly taken. Therefore, Native Americans have suffered from routine distrust at the hands of the U.S. government as the government has systematically valued profit over people time and time again. They have been left in a place where they struggle to find an appropriate route to protest for their lives. It is not a place of “dignity” or “freedom” as Riley argued they deserved[47].
Looking towards the future, this tightened fist does not appear to be letting up. This pattern can be expected to continue repeating itself, especially in the context of pipelines and other forms of environmental injustice. Pipelines are “a symptom of a larger problem,” Jon Telesco of Lancaster Against Pipelines said in an interview[48]. They simply illustrate how the brunt of environmental injustice falls on the backs of minorities. They illustrate a government that would rather criminalize its people than give up the profit made through injustice. They illustrate broken promises and general disdain for human life. As Ward put it, they are indeed “the story of America.”[49]
Works Cited
Bult, Laura. "Cops Use Pepper Spray, Rubber Bullets on Standing Rock Protesters." NY Daily
News. Ny Daily News, 03 Nov. 2016. Web. 02 May 2017.
Cole, Daniel G., and Imre Sutton. "A Cartographic History of Indian-White Government
Relations during the Past 400 Years." American Indian Culture and Research Journal 37.1 (2013): 5-77. Print.
Curtis, Edward S., and A. D. Coleman. The Sioux and the Apsaroke: From Volumes Three and
Four of "The North American Indians". Ed. Stuart Zoll. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Print.
Danielson, Dar. "Private Property Rights Coalition Holds Informational Meetings on Bakken
Pipeline Eminent Domain." Radio Iowa. Radio Iowa, 19 May 2016
Doukas, Alex. "The Dakota Access Pipeline's Massive Government Subsidies." (2016): n. pag.
Oil Change International. Oil Change International, Sept. 2016. Web. 5 Apr. 2017.
Hawkins, Derek. "Police Defend Use of Water Cannons on Dakota Access Protesters in Freezing
Weather." The Washington Post. WP Company, 21 Nov. 2016. Web. 02 May 2017
“History Of The Federal Use Of Eminent Domain." The United States Department of Justice.
The United States Department of Justice, 15 May 2015. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.
Isue, Cary. "Dakota Access Pipeline: What You Need to Know." Nat Geo Education. National
Geographic, 05 Sept. 2016.
Kelo v. New London. 545 U.S. 469. Supreme Court. 2005. Rpt. in Justia US Supreme Court.
Web. 6 Apr. 2017
Lazarus, Edward. Black Hills White Justice the Sioux Nation versus the United States, 1775 to
the Present. First ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1991. Print.
Nielsen, Marianne O., and Robert A. Silverman. Criminal Justice in Native America. Tucson,
AZ: U of Arizona, 2009. Print.
"Police Raid New Camp, Evict and Arrest 70+ DAPL Protesters." RT International.
Autonomous Nonprofit Organization, 2 Feb. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017.
Riley, Naomi Schaefer. The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American
Indians. New York: Encounter, 2016. Print.
Sottile, Chiara. "Police Fire Rubber Bullets as Pipeline Protesters Try to Protect Sacred
Site.". NBCUniversal News Group, 03 Nov. 2016. Web. 02 May 2017
United States. Department of Justice. Environment and Natural Resources Division..
Department of Justice, 15 May 2015. Web. 6 Apr. 2017.
United States. Department of Justice. Office of Public Affairs. Joint Statement from the
Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior Regarding Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. N.p.: Department of Justice, 2016.
United States Constitution. Amendment V
Ward, Brian. "Native Americans Are Fighting a New but Familiar Battle at Standing Rock." The
Nation. The Nation, 21 Sept. 2016. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.
Appendix A
[pic]
Fig 1. The Sioux tribal land as of 1851, the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty.
[pic]
Fig 2. Reassessment of Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868, resulting in a shift in Sioux tribal land.
[pic]
Fig 3. Sioux tribal land as of the Act of Feb. 28, 1877. Drastically smaller
[pic]
Fig 4. Sioux tribal land as of 1889.
[pic]
Fig 5. DAPL route.
[pic]
Fig 6. A map of the 22 waterways crossed by the DAPL with Lake Oahe, the site of Sioux protests marked in red. Image not available.
[pic]
Fig 7. Contemporary Sioux Lands, specifically focus on Standing Rock Lands, on the border of North and South Dakota, approximately 5 miles from where the pipeline crosses.
Connections II Category
Connections II Category
Whitesell Prize Honorable Mention
“American Jazz in Germany, 1918-1945”
Yuan Chen
CNX257; Professor Mitchell
…
Imagine two things: First, you are a German citizen living in Berlin from 1918-1945. Second, you are hearing jazz for the first time. What do you feel? How should you feel? These questions cannot be answered without investigating post-WWI German society and jazz. Ever since its birth in the United States, jazz was controversial for its African American origins. The controversy continued in Germany, where, subject to complicated political and cultural realities, jazz was either embraced or resented because of its unique musicality, its symbolism of liberalism and modernity, and its association with African Americans and Jews. Among all the labels applied to jazz, one stood out as the sum of others: “American.” From 1918 to 1945, jazz came to represent a larger phenomenon of americanization of Europe and German democracy in particular, with the interpretation of jazz reflecting the complex responses towards americanization and democracy.
Jazz stemmed from the diverse musical cultures of African American communities in New Orleans at the start of the twentieth century. Faced with racism and segregation in the South, African American communities were stratified into two classes, including the richer Creoles, who were of European descent and influenced by European style classical music and ragtime, and the poorer “uptown” blacks, who possessed a folk musical tradition. As a result of the increased mobility of African Americans and changes in racial codes, the two social groups, along with their music, came into closer contact.[50] Early jazz thus originated as a hybrid that combined the syncopation and “swung” notes of ragtime with the improvisational style of blues.[51] In the meantime, social dancing became more intimate and closely associated with popular music like ragtime, which provided a breeding ground for jazz.[52] However, because of the social status of African Americans, jazz was often perceived with suspicion, if not antagonism.
As jazz grew in the States, Europeans came to know ragtime, a precursor of jazz, through increasing contact between America and Europe. After 1918, the Allied occupying force brought jazz sheet music into the defeated countries.[53] Meanwhile, many African American jazz musicians, experiencing racism in the United States, came to Europe in search of stable careers.[54] Thus, an influx of Americans allowed Europeans to hear ragtime and jazz for the first time. While the middle class in larger cities, such as Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg, had access to live performances by American musicians, the masses became more familiar with American jazz after the importation of jazz recordings in 1921 and the establishment of a national radio network in 1923.[55]
Aside from American influences, a drastic political change reshaped post-war Germany. In 1918, the Weimar Republic replaced the previous autocratic German Empire. The unprecedented democratic government encouraged and welcomed liberal values and avant-garde art, including jazz.[56] However, was Germany ready for jazz, whatever that term stood for?
1. Weimar Germany, 1918-1933: a dual approach to American modernity and race
In the ears of the German public, jazz belonged indisputably to America, primarily because American musicians gave birth to jazz and thus displayed a far more superior technique than European musicians. Aware of Americans’ eminence, in the 1920s German bands tried to master jazz mainly by imitating the American style. Musicians achieved different degrees of success, depending on how well they were able to copy American jazz musicians. While Stefan Weintraub’s Syncopators, a German jazz band of five, became popular in the early 1920s by modeling itself on American bands, many German musicians new to jazz “toiled hard to acquire the right American touch, which was so often overwhelmed by their lustrous European technique.”[57] Educated in classical music, most German musicians lacked the spontaneity and improvisational skills necessary for jazz performance.
Hence, the popularity of German jazz declined, as the German public gained more access to American jazz. As the Dawes Plan of 1924 brought American loans that stabilized the German economy, an increasing number of American performers arrived in large cities, such as Berlin or Hamburg, for short-term tours or long-term employment.[58] Sam Wooding’s orchestra, a touring band consisting entirely of Americans, received acclaim in Berlin, where, “Wooding remembered giving some seventy performances.”[59] The competition from American jazz musicians was so fierce that some German musicians even adopted American names to sell records.[60] Nevertheless, although German jazz musicians tried to emulate and compete with American musicians, the German public regarded genuine jazz as essentially American.
However, liberals embraced jazz not only as a new type of music, but also as an ideology. Following the defeat of Germany in World War I, an influx of American products, including Ford cars, Hollywood films, and jazz, prompted the birth of Amerikanismus, infatuation with America. German intellectuals praised America as “the land of the future,” as American artifacts, including jazz, became synonymous with American liberal ideology.[61] German writer Klaus Mann described jazz as “the great balm and narcotic of a disconcerted, frustrated nation,” indicating that it comforted and helped Germany to recover from World War I.[62] Although the unconventional rhythms of jazz certainly entertained German audiences, the music alone would not provide the soothing function. It was what Frank Warschauer, a Weimar radio journalist, called “the youthful energy of America” that directed the audience away from a defeated psychology by offering the hope of prosperity to the post-war Germany.[63] Because the liberals viewed jazz as an American construct, they associated the musical qualities of jazz, including the fact that every band member has the freedom to improvise, with the ideal of American democracy pursued by Weimar Germany.
The avant-garde works of art further revealed how liberals projected their obsession with American modernism on jazz. [64] Many avant-garde art journals devoted entire issues to praising jazz as the symbol of “the very spirit of modernism, freedom, and experimentation.”[65] Artists of all sorts adored jazz by fusing it into their works, which often connoted the American identity of jazz. In his To Beauty, Otto Dix, a Weimar painter, depicted an African American jazz musician wearing an American-flag-printed pocket square. Composers such as Ernst Krenek, Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, and Paul Hindemith also incorporated elements of jazz into their operas. However, German musicians did not necessarily comprehend the essence of jazz. Rather, as Krenek observed, “Real jazz was unknown in Europe. We gave the name jazz to anything that came out of America.”[66] This accurately depicted the liberals’ perception of jazz, as the interest in jazz was tied inextricably to Amerikanismus, the obsession with America. Jazz thus existed not only as a new genre of music, but, more importantly, as a token of American prosperity and innovation.
While supporters saw in jazz “American paradigms of efficiency, specialisation, and productivity,” thinkers on the left denounced the production of jazz as a commodity, a result of mass production.[67] Conductors such as Hans Pfitzer criticized jazz as the “musical expression of Americanism,” and derided American musical product as mass-consumed.[68] Theodor Adorno also claimed that jazz is not an artistic but a highly commercialized product that used improvisation and other seemingly democratic techniques as a disguise.[69] Evident in post-war volatile realities, opponents of jazz based their critiques on the fear of Americanization, especially its organization of industry that endangered German economy and culture. In this case, critiques perceived jazz, like Fordism, as a symbol of American modernity, but diverged in their opinions regarding the American way of production.
Not surprisingly, then, jazz came under the scrutiny of conservatives as much as it was endorsed by liberals, as the reception of jazz varied due to the different perceptions of American modernity and German identity. For many conductors and composers of classical music, German culture meant the high culture signified by the waltz music of the nineteenth century. Jazzy operas, such as The Threepenny Opera and Jonny Spielt Auf, posed a threat to the traditional musical order as well as the German way.
Some conservative critics further condemned jazz as morally decadent. As the economy recovered and provided more opportunities for the development of big bands, jazz was increasingly used to accompany dances such as fox-trot, Charleston, and later on, swing, in which women were criticized for rotating their hips and shaking their shoulders.[70] Accompanying the increasing female employment in Weimar Germany, the image of the “neue Frau”, or “New Women,” also emerged due to the Hollywood portrayal of glamour girls. The myth of “New Women,” who expressed their independence and sexuality by wearing bobbed hair and fashionable dresses, while “frittering away the night dancing the Charleston,” became popular but also raised social concerns.[71] In Otto Dix’s painting Metropolis, unlike traditional women typically chaperoned by other women, a woman dances sensually with a man, while musicians on the other side play typical jazz instruments such as saxophones. Another part of the painting shows prostitutes on the streets, further indicating the link between jazz and decadence.[72]
Concerns about morality and traditional gender norms were written through with race. Germans generally believed that the overt sexuality, evident in jazz dances, resulted from African American influences. This was not only because African American musicians excelled in jazz, but also because European colonialism created “popular myths that linked the black body to Africa,” which, to the Germans, connoted primitiveness and promiscuity.[73] African Americans might also remind the Germans of the North African troops sent by France to occupy the Rhine after the First World War.[74] The image of Africans thus implied both barbarism and the threat of emasculation of German male. However, the perception of African Americans in Weimar Germany merged the stereotypes of primitive Africans with the impression of American modernity, resulting in conflicted reception of jazz. Josephine Baker, as an African American female jazz performer who toured around Germany in 1926, spoke to both sides of the opinions. She won widespread praise by dancing Charleston almost naked in her “Danse sauvage,” with few yet exotic decorations, which pandered to the public’s assumption of African primitiveness. An Anglo-German writer claimed that her performance represented “a mixture of the jungle and skyscraper elements,” combining the primal sexuality of Africa and the modernity and freedom of America in jazz dances.[75] Because of the fetishization of Americanism, supporters saw her primitiveness as liberating. Nevertheless, right wing groups still opposed her performance for its “corrupting” influences.[76]
An overview of the Weimar republic shows that, because of Amerikanismus, liberals and the public generally embraced American jazz, but its relationships with America also led the conservatives to criticize its symbolism of American capitalism and African American primitiveness. In general, the critique viewed jazz music with a mixture of fear and worship for African Americans. Ivan Goll, a French-German poet, recognized this complication by describing African American jazz as both “the rhythm of Sodom” and music “from paradise.” “In this case, rise and fall are one.”[77] While the Hoch Conservatory intended to teach Jazz classes in 1927 and reasoned that those courses could be a “transfusion of fresh Negro blood,” many musical authorities condemned jazz, fearing that it was impure and barbaric.[78] In April 14, 1930, Wilhelm Frick, the National Socialist Minister of Education of Thuringia banned jazz entertainers, as he believed that “Negro culture as typified by the jazz music of Negro singers, dancers and actors, is corrupting German morals.”[79] The opera Jonny spielt auf, composed by Ernst Krenek in 1925, demonstrated the complicated perception of America and American jazz. In the play, Jonny, an African American jazz musician, defeated a European high class protagonist and won a white girl’s heart through his mastery of jazz.[80] While the composer Krenek, like many of his fellow musicians, hardly grasped the difference between ragtime and jazz, he believed that American jazz, represented by Jonny, “stood for the fullness of life, optimistic affirmations, freedom from futile speculations and devotion to the happiness of the moment.”[81] Nevertheless, what Krenek and the audience applauded as a hopeful future for Europe, the conservative critique interpreted as a brutal threat by the African Americans. When the Munich press wrongly reported that a black singer, instead of a white actor in blackface, would perform the role of Jonny, protesters even tried to stop the performance.[82] Towards the end of the Weimar Republic, as nationalism and racism surged, so did criticism towards jazz as both American and black music. This sentiment was evident even within the jazz industry, as the foreign musicians, mostly American and English, were harassed by their colleagues. In 1932, the German chancellor Franz von Papen denounced jazz as “nigger music” and thus halted the employment of musicians of color.[83]
2. Nazi Germany, 1933-1945: racializing and politicizing jazz
Spurred on by the economic depression after WWI, the Nazi party enjoyed growing electoral appeal in the early 1930s. Adolf Hitler was named chancellor in January 1933. At this time, the Nazi government, with Joseph Goebbels as head of the Reich Culture Chamber and Minister of Propaganda, regarded jazz with intensified racism and anti-Americanism.
Firstly, the Nazis politicized the musical qualities and the origins of jazz, considering it anti-Nazi and un-German. In 1934, the radio production director of Nazi Germany stated that the aim of the radio should be political.[84] The improvisation element of jazz was therefore deemed uncontrollable and anti-Nazi. As jazz originated in America, and American jazz musicians was far more popular than German jazz musicians, the Nazi saw jazz as a harmful foreign influence to the construction of German identity.[85] The Nazis’ anti-American approach and the outward expression of xenophobia reflected their struggle to define Germanness.
The xenophobia was evident when the Nazis directly attacked the representation of Jews and African Americans in jazz industry. The negative connotations surrounding African Americans remained largely similar to earlier prejudices articulated during the Weimar Republic. However, accompanied by the surge in anti-Semitism, the racism towards African American musicians in the Weimar Republic only worsened in Nazi Germany. Since African Americans were prominently represented among jazz musicians, and Jews often worked as jazz band leaders, managers, or musicians, the jazz industry was regarded as a Jewish plot to corrupt German culture.[86] The Nazis denounced jazz as “Nigger-Jew” music. Rudolf von Laban, a dance artist employed by the Ministry of Propaganda, decried jazz dances as “nigger dance, jewified and spoiled by Americanism.”[87] As the Nazi government attempted to establish a racist national identity, American came to symbolize everything un-German, and jazz, as an American cultural import, fell under the attack of Joseph Goebbels, head of the Ministry of Propaganda.
At first, Goebbels attempted to circumvent the Americanness in jazz by Germanizing both the musicians and the music. The Nazis so frequently harassed foreign and Jewish musicians, that by 1938 most of them left Germany. Michael Danzi, an American jazz guitarist who remained Germany, described that foreign jazz musicians found it increasingly hard to find a job due to the Nazis’ and German musicians’ harassment. Eventually he left Berlin in 1939.[88] In 1935, Goebbels banned jazz from the airwaves, although his inability to define jazz resulted in loose enforcement of the proscription.[89] In 1937, Goebbels declared that all “Jewish or Negro” recordings were to be banned, including jazz.[90] In 1938, the Nazisstaged an exhibition called “Entartete Musik” (degenerate music) that attacked what they regarded as corrupting music, including jazz. The cover of the exhibition program bore a striking resemblance to the cover of Jonny Spielt Auf, an 1926 opera composed with jazzy elements, but the African American musicians displayed in the poster wears a lapel with the star of david, signifying the Nazi perception of jazz as both African American and Jewish.[91] Although Goebbels tried to eliminate jazz mainly through bans on jazz and the expulsion of Jewish and American musicians, he also once attempted, by forming radio combos like The Golden Seven, to create a new German dance music that distinguished itself from American jazz. However, as with other policies towards jazz, the Reich Music Chamber naturally assumed jazz to be foreign and thus failed to understand the essence of the music. The band that attempted to create German dance music was eventually abandoned, as it ended up sounding too American.[92]
Although the 1936 Olympics temporarily halted the restrictions of live jazz performances, the xenophobia and racism directed towards jazz intensified in 1938 and especially after 1941, as America stood starkly opposed to Nazi Germany in World War II.[93] In 1941, the Nazis further denounced and urged Germans to abandon foreign and Jewish recordings.[94] In the meantime, foreign radio stations including the BBC, French and Luxembourg stations as well as American shortwaves, continued to broadcast American jazz.[95] As a result, jazz became increasingly politicized, since the Nazis believed that not only jazz itself but also the propaganda that might accompany jazz would be extremely harmful to the morale of German soldiers. Foreign countries were well aware of the political connotations of jazz, especially its symbolism of the American ideal of freedom. In 1944, Glenn Miller, a leading American jazz musician, was interviewed on the radio. When the German interviewer employed by the Allies rhetorically asked him about jazz’s representation of freedom, he answered, “America means freedom, and there is no expression of freedom quite so sincere as music!”[96] Therefore, rather ironically, to avoid the direct and indirect influences of American jazz, Goebbels decided to organize an official jazz band, later named “Charlie and His Orchestra,” to offer a light amount of entertaining music on German airwaves.[97] Though still much resented, the form or musical qualities of jazz did not surpass its value and threat as a political weapon, whether representing or opposing American ideology.
The Nazis’ toleration of jazz depended largely on the popular demand for jazz, as not only the public, but also the soldiers and officials liked the dance music. In contrast to the Nazis’ perception towards jazz, the German public’s love for jazz had little to do with politics or races. Their preference for American jazz, similar to the Weimar audience, stemmed from the superior technique of American jazz musicians, as it was generally recognized that European swing music was “not so hot.”[98] In fact, the public disregard for Nazi politics concerning jazz surpassed the zealousness of the Nazis to eliminate jazz. In 1941, the Nazi made an anti-jazz propaganda film, Around the Statue of Liberty, denouncing and showing footages of American swing bands, but instead of successfully stigmatizing jazz, the film attracted jazz aficionados to watch the film in order to hear genuine American jazz.[99]
However, as the war prompted the Nazis to suppress not only music, but also any signs of potential dissent, the perception of jazz among the aficionados grew more politicized and linked more closely with America, as a reaction against the totalitarian regime. The Swing Youth represented this shift towards jazz as a form of political resistance. The Swing Youth, formed in Hamburg in 1937 by upper-middle class teenagers who dressed fashionably and danced to American swing music, aimed at “nothing more than to have fun.”[100] However, as the total war progressed and the Nazis enforced harsher restrictions on entertainment, such as banning foreign radio since 1939, the Swing Youth grew in numbers and viewed American jazz increasingly as the representation of American freedom against repression of the Nazis. They used American names such as “Harlem Club” and often named their members after famous African American jazz musicians, such as “Fatz.” Furthermore, they created songs that bespoke rebellion against the Nazi regime, including lyrics such as “We would like to be free of Hitler.” Therefore, as the Nazis progressively politicized and antagonized American jazz, the youth group “sought their counter identity in what they saw as modern and thus ‘casual’ culture of the national enemies,” America in particular.[101] Their perception of America in turn determined their political use of American jazz.
While liberals and conservatives in the Weimar Republic perceived America and African Americans with a variety of contrasting views, resulting in a mixture of support for and protest against jazz, Nazi Germany adopted a simplified and intensified approach grounded in race, whereby the Nazi racialized and tried to eliminate jazz, with the resistance utilizing American jazz to express their will for freedom. However, although different social groups and authorities varied in their perceptions of America, the association of jazz with America from 1918 to 1945 was consistently strong and influential in the reception and treatment of jazz. Jazz represented America but also the fractures of German society as it sought to navigate that shoals of democracy and dictatorship.
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Connections II Category
Whitesell Prize Honorable Mention
“Epistle II”
Matthew Hamby
CNX230; Professor Fenlon
…
415 Harrisburg Ave
Lancaster, PA 17603
March 8, 2017
Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, President and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges
655 K Street, NW, Suite 100
Washington DC, 20001-2399
Dear Dr. Kirch,
Richard Fee, a bright and promising pre-medicine student, felt immense pressure to get into medical school. Like many others in his position, he chose to abuse prescription ADHD medications like Adderall and Vyvanse to help him focus while studying. In 2009, after he received a disappointing MCAT score and prepared to take the test again, he began to take dangerously high doses of these medicines, leading to his hospitalization and eventually, his suicide.1 I am sure that you are well-acquainted with the adverse effects of stimulants like Adderall, Ritalin, and Vyvanse, as well as the relevance of the over-prescription of these drugs. With that said, I ask that as the President and CEO of the organization that administers the MCAT, you consider implementing drug tests into the exam-day protocol. Specifically, test takers should be subjected to random drug tests that screen for the use of “study drugs”, and users should have their scores voided and be denied the privilege of taking the test again. Of course this would not apply to those who have proof of medical diagnosis of conditions that require these drugs, like ADHD. However, considering that ten percent of medical school students have used study drugs non-medically, these tests would be valuable for screening for illicit use of neuroenhancers.2 MCAT takers should be subjected to drug tests that screen for psychostimulants because users not only have an unfair advantage over non-users on the exam, they are also not suited to become future physicians, as they may worsen the Adderall epidemic, plus the tests would deter future abuse of these drugs.
Since medical schools value an undergraduate’s MCAT score and GPA so highly, students will do everything they can to boost these numbers, even if that means taking prescription drugs illegally. While there has been debate about how much study drugs actually help students study or focus, or if they even help at all, the bottom line is that they are Schedule II drugs that give users intense focus and alertness by boosting the adrenaline, dopamine, and norepinephrine levels in the brain.3 Studies have shown that neuroenhancing drugs not only improve memory and cognitive control, but also the ability to learn material and recall it several days later.4 For this reason, it is evident that anyone taking Adderall or similar drugs non-medically has a distinct advantage over someone who chooses not to for moral or economic reasons. Since the new MCAT requires sitting and critically thinking for almost eight hours, neuroenhancers clearly boost one’s ability to endure the mental rigors of the exam. Preparation for the MCAT also requires intensive studying, so the ability to study longer, harder, and more efficiently gives those who use the drugs the ability to prepare better than those who do not. Quite simply, taking these pills is cheating. In the realm of athletics, anabolic steroids essentially have the same effect: they give users unfair advantages; hence, they are banned. Why should the realm of academics be any different? A line needs to be drawn to outlaw this cheating; drug testing would prevent abusers of the drugs who take the test from gaining an unfair advantage over those who I believe take it “the right way”.
Drug testing would also be of particular interest to your organization because it would help prevent abusers from getting into and graduating from medical school, which could give them the ability to prescribe the same drugs to future generations. The American Psychiatric Association claims that ADHD affects about 5 percent of American children. So why do fifteen percent of American children get diagnosed with ADHD?5 The answer lies within the so-called “Adderall epidemic”, in which doctors over-prescribe Adderall. If non-medical users do well on the MCAT and become doctors, they will be likely to prescribe these drugs with little hesitation because of their personal, advantageous experience with them, worsening the Adderall epidemic. While there will always be people who genuinely need a prescription for Adderall, it is being prescribed to people who lie about their conditions to gain access to Adderall for non-medical reasons, like studying. Evidence of this trend is shown by the 41% rise in the diagnoses of ADHD in American children over the past decade, two-thirds of whom have been prescribed psychostimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin.6 Abusers are not only desensitized to the effects of Adderall, but other drugs too. Studies have shown that Adderall abusers are more likely to use alcohol and marijuana, two drugs that I believe practicing physicians should not be abusing.3 In order to slow the over-prescription of neuroenhancers, drug tests must be implemented.
Another benefit of drug testing would be its effect of deterring usage by undergraduates contemplating trying Adderall. I would think that, as a doctor, the well-being of bright young adults would be of utmost concern to you. Drug testing would deter students from abusing the drugs, developing side effects, and risking addiction. Common side effects include sleeplessness, weight loss, headaches, and nausea. These dextroamphetamine salts can cause heart attack, stroke, or even sudden death, and people can develop dependence on them, causing withdrawal effects like severe depression.7 The immense pressure that people feel to use psychostimulants to perform on the MCAT can cause them to take drugs that can ultimately jeopardize their well-being. Drug testing would prevent the students that are on the fence about using them from actually doing so because they could be assured that anyone who does risks being caught. As someone who plans to take the MCAT, I would personally feel at ease knowing that I do not need to take Adderall because of the drug test’s deterrent effect.
Implementing drug tests into the MCAT exam-day procedure is imperative. The tests would prevent users from having unfair mental advantages over non-users. They would also help to hinder the advance of the Adderall epidemic. Lastly, they would help to ensure that college students do not suffer from harmful side effects of the drugs. I understand that there are potential drawbacks to drug testing, but they can be minimized or eliminated through careful installation. First, I am aware that these tests will cost money. However, because they would be random (so not everyone would take one), the total number of drug tests administered would be rather small compared to the total number of MCAT takers. Drug testing no more than ten percent of the exam takers on the morning of the exam is an economically feasible task, since it generally costs between $10 and $30 to administer one drug test,8 while it costs $310 to take the MCAT.9 Drug tests could detect illicit substances taken the morning of the exam and during the period of time leading up to the exam. It is true that there will be some people who can show they have a diagnosis of ADHD, even though they may have lied to doctors to get it. However, the drug test will discourage students from illegally buying pills from their peers who have prescriptions. After analyzing the costs and benefits of drug tests for the MCAT, it is clear that they should be implemented. (1194 words)
Sincerely,
Matthew Hamby
References
1. Flam, Lisa. "Dad's Word of Warning: Adderall 'changed' My Son." . TODAY, 07 Feb. 2013.
Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
2. "Adderall Abuse in Medical Schools." The Ranch. The Ranch, Inc., 21 Feb. 2017. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
3. Rivas, Anthony. "Adderall's Effect On Your Brain: Whatever Obscure Benefits There Are, It's Not Worth
It." Medical Daily. IBT Media, Inc., 11 Dec. 2014. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
4. Szalavitz, Maia. "Popping Smart Pills: The Case for Cognitive Enhancement." Time. Time Inc., 06 Jan.
2009. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
5. Schwarz, Alan. "Introduction." Introduction. ADHD NATION: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the
Making of an American Epidemic. First ed. New York City: Scribner, 2016. 2. Print.
6. Schwarz, Alan, and Sarah Cohen. "A.D.H.D. Seen in 11% of U.S. Children as Diagnoses Rise." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 31 Mar. 2013. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
7. "Dextroamphetamine and Amphetamine." MedlinePlus. American Society of Health-System Pharmacists,
Inc., 15 Jan. 2016. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
8. "Drug Testing." Drug Testing. Connecticut Clearinghouse, 2017. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
9. "MCAT Registration Fees." AAMC Students, Applicants and Residents. AAMC, 2017. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
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[1] Doukas, Alex. "The Dakota Access Pipeline's Massive Government Subsidies." (2016): n. pag. Oil Change International. Oil Change International, Sept. 2016. Web. 5 Apr. 2017.
[2] Ward, Brian. "Standing Like a Rock." The Nation. The Nation, 21 Sept. 2016. Web. 05 Apr. 2017
[3] Ward, Brian. “Standing Like a Rock.”
[4] Lazarus, Edward. Black Hills White Justice the Sioux Nation versus the United States, 1775 to the Present. First ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1991. Print.
[5] Curtis, Edward S., and A. D. Coleman. The Sioux and the Apsaroke: From Volumes Three and Four of "The North American Indians". Ed. Stuart Zoll. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Print.
[6] Cole, Daniel G., and Imre Sutton. "A Cartographic History of Indian-White Government Relations during the Past 400 Years." American Indian Culture and Research Journal 37.1 (2013): 5-77. Print.
[7] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[8] Cole and Sutton. “A Cartographic History of Indian-White Government Relations”
[9] Cole and Sutton. “A Cartographic History of Indian-White Government Relations”
[10] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[11] Ward, Brian. “Standing Like a Rock.”
[12] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[13] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[14] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[15] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[16] Cole and Sutton. “A Cartographic History of Indian-White Government Relations”
[17] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[18] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[19] United States. Department of Justice. Environment and Natural Resources Division.. Department of Justice, 15 May 2015. Web. 6 Apr. 2017.
[20] U.S. Constitution. Amend. V.
[21] United States. Department of Justice. Environment and Natural Resources Division.
[22] United States. Department of Justice. Environment and Natural Resources Division.
[23] Kelo v. New London. 545 U.S. 469. Supreme Court. 2005. Rpt. in Justia US Supreme Court. Web. 6 Apr. 2017.
[24] Edward Curtis and A. D. Coleman. The Sioux and the Apsaroke.
[25] Isue, Cary. "Dakota Access Pipeline: What You Need to Know." Nat Geo Education. National Geographic, 05 Sept. 2016.
[26] Isue, Cary “Dakota Access Pipeline: What You Need to Know.”
[27] Riley, Naomi Schaefer. The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians. New York: Encounter, 2016. Print.
[28] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice.
[29] United States. Department of Justice. Office of Public Affairs. Joint Statement from the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior Regarding Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. N.p.: Department of Justice, 2016.
[30] Edward Lazarus. Black Hills White Justice
[31] Danielson, Dar. "Private Property Rights Coalition Holds Informational Meetings on Bakken Pipeline Eminent Domain." Radio Iowa. Radio Iowa, 19 May 2016
[32] Isue, Cary “Dakota Access Pipeline: What You Need to Know.”
[33] Danielson, Dar. "Private Property Rights Coalition Holds Informational Meetings on Bakken Pipeline Eminent Domain."
[34] Muhlbauer, W. Kent. Pipeline Risk Management Manual: Ideas, Techniques, and Resources. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007. Print.
[35] Telesco, Jonathan, Lancaster Against Pipelines, Interview, November 27, 2016.
[36] Telesco, Jonathan, Lancaster Against Pipelines
[37] Ward, Brian. “Standing Like a Rock.”
[38] U.S. Department of Justice, Joint Statement Regarding Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
[39] Sottile, Chiara. "Police Fire Rubber Bullets as Pipeline Protesters Try to Protect Sacred Site.". NBCUniversal News Group, 03 Nov. 2016. Web. 02 May 2017
[40] Hawkins, Derek. "Police Defend Use of Water Cannons on Dakota Access Protesters in Freezing Weather." The Washington Post. WP Company, 21 Nov. 2016. Web. 02 May 2017.
[41] Bult, Laura. "Cops Use Pepper Spray, Rubber Bullets on Standing Rock Protesters." NY Daily News. Ny Daily News, 03 Nov. 2016. Web. 02 May 2017.
[42] "Police Raid New Camp, Evict and Arrest 70+ DAPL Protesters." RT International. Autonomous Nonprofit Organization, 2 Feb. 2017. Web. 02 May 2017.
[43] U.S. Department of Justice, Joint Statement Regarding Standing Rock
[44] U.S. Department of Justice, Joint Statement Regarding Standing Rock
[45] Nielsen, Marianne O., and Robert A. Silverman. Criminal Justice in Native America. Tucson, AZ: U of Arizona, 2009. Print.
[46] Lazarus, Black Hills White Justice
[47] Riley, New Trail of Tears
[48] Telesco, Interview, November 2016.
[49] Ward, Standing Like a Rock
[50] Jeff Taylor, “The Early Origins of Jazz,” in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, ed. Bill Kirchner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 44-48.
[51] Susan C. Cook, Opera for a New Republic: The Zeitopern of Krenek, Weill, and Hindemith (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988), 41.
[52] Taylor, “The Early Origins of Jazz,” in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, 45.
[53] Michael H. Kater, Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 5.
[54] Mike Zwerin, “Jazz in Europe: The Real World Music...or the Full Circle,” in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, ed. Bill Kirchner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 534-537.
[55] Cook, Opera for a New Republic, 60.
[56] Detlev J. K. Peukert, The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 164-167.
[57] Kater, Different Drummers, 16.
[58] Jordan, “‘The Rhythm of Our Time is Jazz,’” in Peters, Berlin Metropolis (Munich: Prestel, 2015), 255.
[59] Susan Cook, "Jazz As Deliverance: The Reception and Institution of American Jazz during the Weimar Republic," American Music 7, no.1 (1989), 36.
[60] Kater, Different Drummers, 16.
[61] Jochen Schulte-Sasse, “Cinema and Modernity: On Fritz Lang's Metropolis,” in High and Low Cultures: German Attempts at Mediation, ed. Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 26-27.
[62] Jordan, “‘The Rhythm of Our Time is Jazz,’” in Peters, Berlin Metropolis, 246-8.
[63] Frank Warschauer, “Jazz: On Whiteman’s Berlin Concerts,” in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, ed. Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 571-572.
[64] Ibid., 245.
[65] Cook, "Jazz As Deliverance," 37.
[66] Michael J. Budds, Jazz & the Germans: essays on the influence of "hot" American idioms on the 20th-century German music (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press), 100.
[67] T. F. Rippey, “Rationalisation, Race, and the Weimar Response to Jazz,” German Life and Letters (Jan 2007): 81.
[68] Kater, Different Drummers, 21.
[69] Theodor W. Adorno, Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno, ed. Richard Leppert ; trans. Susan H. Gillespie (Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 2002), 478-483.
[70] Mihaela Petrescu, “Domesticating the Vamp: Jazz and the Dance Melodrama in Weimar Cinema,” Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 46, no.3 (2010), 276–92.
[71] Peukert, The Weimar Republic, 99.
[72] Olaf Peters, “Berlin Metropolis: Art, Culture, and Politics Between the Wars,” in Berlin Metropolis 1918-1933, ed. Olaf Peters (Munich: Prestel, 2015), 17.
[73] Nancy Nenno, “Femininity, the Primitive, and Modern Urban Space: Josephine Baker in Berlin,” in Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture, ed. Katharina von Ankum (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 147.
[74] Budds, Jazz & the Germans, 43.
[75] Jordan, “‘The Rhythm of Our Time is Jazz,’” in Peters, Berlin Metropolis, 266-8.
[76] Ibid.
[77] Ivan Goll, “The Negroes Are Conquering Europe,” in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, ed. Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1994), 559-60.
[78] Cook, “Jazz as Deliverance,” 40.
[79] Special Cable, "Acts To Save Reich From 'Negro Culture," New York Times, April 15, 1930.
[80]Alan Lareau, “Johnny’s Jazz: From Kabarett to Krenek,” Jazz & the Germans: essays on the influence of "hot" American idioms on the 20th-century German music, ed. Michael J. Budds (Hillsdale, NY : Pendragon Press, 2002), 21.
[81] Dane Heuchemer, “American Popular Music in Weill’s Royal Palace and Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf: Influences and Usages,” in Jazz & the Germans, ed. Michael J. Budds (Hillsdale, NY : Pendragon Press, 2002), 101.
[82] Jordan, “‘The Rhythm of Our Time is Jazz,’” in Peters, Berlin Metropolis 1918-1933, 267.
[83] Kater, Different Drummer, 19, 27.
[84] Randall L. Bytwerk, Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, 2004), 112.
[85] David Snowball, “Controlling Degenerate Music: Jazz in The Third Reich,” in Jazz & the Germans : Essays on the Influence of "hot" American Idioms on the 20th-Century German Music, ed. Michael J. Budds, (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2002), 160-61.
[86] Michael H. Kater, “Forbidden Fruit? Jazz in the Third Reich,” The American Historical Review 94, no. 1 (1989): 15.
[87] Lilian Karina and Marion Kant, Hitler's Dancers: German Modern Dance and the Third Reich (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004), 206.
[88] Michael Danzi, American Musician in Germany, 1924-1939: Memoirs of the Jazz, Entertainment, and Movie World of Berlin during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi Era, and in the United States. (Schmitten: N. Ruecker, 1986), 108-09, 133-39.
[89] H. J. P. Bergmeier and Rainer E. Lotz, Hitler's Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 138-9.
[90] David Snowball, “Controlling Degenerate Music,” in Budds, Jazz & the Germans (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2002), 163-4.
[91] Anno Mungen, “Music Iconography of Modernism: From the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany and Beyond,” Music in Art 29, no.1-2 (2004): 259-260.
[92] Clarence Lusane, Hitler's Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi Era (New York: Routledge, 2003), 202.
[93] Special Correspondence, “Swing is the thing in Germany,” New York Times, November 14, 1937.
[94] "Nazis Frown on Jazz Records," New York Times, September 15, 1941.
[95] Kater, Different Drummers, 52-54.
[96] Kater, Different Drummers, 173.
[97] H. J. P. Bergmeier and Rainer E. Lotz, Hitler's Airwaves, 148-55.
[98] Frederick T. Birchall, “Europe’s Swing Not So Hot,” New York Times, June 05, 1938.
[99] Clarence Lusane, Hitler's Black Victims, 203.
[100] Jon Savage, Teenage: The Prehistory of Youth Culture, 1875-1945 (New York: Penguin, 2008), 327.
[101] Detlev Peukert, [102]
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