Position Of Negroes Research Articles

Labels of African American Ballers: A Historical and Contemporary Investigation of African American Male Youth's Depletion from America's Favorite Pastime, 1885–2000

wish I was a bailer, I wish I was a little taller. I wish I was like 6'9 so I could get with Leoisbi, yo she's really fine. (Skee-Lo 1996) To Be Equal, Be Better The position of Negroes in professional baseball is much better than it was a generation ago when -by gentleman's agreement-they were totally excluded. Today some of the game's superstars are Negroes. Nevertheless, the Negro ballplayers, to be treated equally, must be better. The distribution of both player and nonplayer positions in the baseball hierarchy is different for the two races. Discrimination appears to operate for managerial jobs on the field and in the front office as well as for player positions below the star level. Thus, as organizations become integrated, Negroes appear to be more readily accepted in follower rather than leadership positions, where integration appears to take much longer. How much longer is not known. (Rosenblatt 53) Introduction Over the past decade, little scholarly attention has been given to Americans in organized baseball (Gerlach; Harrison, Life; Korr; Nathan). Through various research perspectives, attempts have been made to understand the virtual invisibility of American baseball players in youth leagues, high schools, and at intercollegiate and professional levels. Studies have highlighted how has maintained the low numbers of Americans on team sports like baseball and football (Edwards, Sociology; Martin; Nightengale; Smith and Harrison; Smith and Henderson; Wiggins). Patterns of racial stacking were evident through the mid-1980s, when Americans were relegated to playing positions based on their race/ethnicity instead of their playing abilities (Smith and Henderson). Plaschke suggests that there are greater numbers of Americans who play basketball and football because these sports have an abundance of role models, youth leagues, and cultural appeal. This increased interest in basketball and football contributes to fewer Americans who play organized baseball. Rhoden suggests that a lack of youth baseball programs and scarcity of full scholarships in college baseball are reasons for the decline of American participation in organized baseball. Early contends that ever since the establishment of the Negro Leagues, black interest in the game has not been intense. Further, he states that African Americans experienced the game through flawed Americanism, imposed on them by whites, and this is why they are somewhat alienated and distant from the game today (41). Despite these authors' viewpoints, our understanding of the underrepresentation of Americans in organized baseball remains limited. There is a tendency to overtheorize the core and crux of this issue and ignore widespread perceptions and beliefs among American male youth. It is essential to understand the complex elements that shape and influence the socialization process of American youth (Edwards, Crisis; Harrison; Sailes; Sellers, Kuperminc, and Waddell). Specifically, racial demographic differences among football, basketball, and baseball require investigation into the environmental conditions that impact the selection of sport by participants (Sellers). A lack of empirical studies that examine the decline of Americans in organized baseball and the use of anecdotal evidence provide only a minimal, exploratory understanding of this issue. Therefore, drawing from various sociohistorical references to Americans in organized baseball at the intercollegiate and professional levels, this article details the empirical patterns and trends of American participation from 1885 to its steady decline in the late 1990s. In addition, this article seeks to extend labeling theory (Becker, Raalte, and Linder; Goffman), which has been used occasionally in sport scholarship to frame and analyze symbolic interaction (see Coakley, Sport). …

The American Negro Problem in the Context of Social Change

The highly elaborate social system which controls relations between Negroes and whites in the United States, especially in the Southern states where it had been built up for over a century, has shown signs of weakening especially since 1940. The major forces in this decline are analyzed as im personal, large-scale social forces arising outside the system of race relations—such as industrialization, urbanization, economic prosperity, the decline of the cotton economy, the growth of the United States as a great power with international obligations in a world that also includes hostile Communist states and neutral Negro states, and the ascendancy of the federal government over the state governments. A secondary set of variables in the social change are held to be a variety of "reform" organiza tions, with differing philosophies and strategies, which collec tively have created a social movement to improve or to equalize the position of Negroes. A tertiary set of variables analyzed are psychological changes. The major changes in race relations themselves are described, so that a summary picture of the position of the Negro in American society as of 1964 is presented.

Future Educational Emphasis: Psychological or Sociological

There is a need, of course, for education to contribute towards preparing Negroes for better jobs and for improving their socio-economic status. This might be called a sociological emphasis in education because it more or less deals with the Negro's position in a social group, or in an economic society. Although this emphasis is important there is another dimension of education the psychological that must not be overlooked. This emphasis in education seeks to develop a person's potential as a human being-as one who dreams as well as labors, pursues as well as conforms, and feels as well as thinks.

The Relative Status of the Negro in the United States--A Critical Summary

Democracy is theoretically and essentially a single status system in which certain complexes of rights, obligations, and privileges may be acquired voluntarily but not by force. In the United States socially accepted classifications based upon race and color have created a special status for Negroes. This status is at once defined by law in some geographical and social areas, and by customs in others. It is this principle of the special social status of race-or color-identified people which has in part effected a legal status for Negroes, or has played a predominant part in determining the social position of Negroes within the total community. This series of papers, therefore, deals with selected status situations that are based upon the observable phenomena of race and color. The facts they present should mirror the likenesses and differences of people affected by this nation's peculiar status systems. Any general analysis of this sort is to some degree arbitrary as to the subjects included and excluded, phases of the data emphasized to a greater or lesser degree, the order of treatment, and the scheme of social values used as a basis for pronouncing judgment. Eclecticism, moreover, invariably involves some degree of personal predilection, for the personal, professional, and social judgments of the authors are evident throughout the volume. However, the volume in its totality permits a meaningful interpretation of a wide variety of aspects of the Negro's position within the United States' status system and the frame of reference established by the, editor. The cue and key to the problems discussed in this volume are to be found in the implied definitions of relative status. Almost without exception the authors establish their comparisons between Negroes (or nonwhites) and the generalized white population. While this is an acceptable and valid method, of description and analysis it certainly does not exhaust the possibilities of scientific exploration. One may raise a question as to whether or not this comparison of the special status group with the generalized other population provides the most meaningful and accurate type of analysis. The context of the analyses presented herein is an implied rather than a stated one. The relative status of the Negro population is established, in gaming parlance, the hard way. Slight shifts in the frames of reference-the comparison of Negroes with other nonwhites, with foreign-born whites, or native-born whites, with the statuses of migrating populations, or with populations 25 years of age and over-may have indicated totally different types of statu changes.

The Negro and Unionism in the Birmingham, Ala., Iron and Steel Industry

The iron and steel industry of South is largely concentrated in and around Jefferson County, Alabama. In this area are found rich deposits of coal, iron ore, and limestone, conveniently located side by side; and here since 1870, has arisen city of Birmingham, the Pittsburgh of South, as well as several smaller industrial towns within a sixty mile radius. This article is concerned with relationship of Negro workers and organized labor in this region.2 Previous to 1937, unionism had not existed to any appreciable extent in steel industry of Alabama. The changes that have taken place in industrial relations since then have been almost revolutionary. Especially significant has been effect of these changes on status of colored steel workers. But before any attempt is made to discuss what steel unionism has meant to Negro workers, it will be necessary to describe, as a background for our main analysis, Negro's position in southern sector of industry.3

Research on the Urban Negro

Since the Negro's position is an essential part of the social structure in the South, a structural approach is generally sufficient for studying Negro-white relations. In the North, however, the social structure does not depend on keeping the Negro (or other "aliens") in a given place; and the status of minority groups has been marked by rapid changes. The nature of urban life and the differences in the sentiments of northerners as against southerners are examined as explanation of these changes. It is found that fixed status rather than free competition tends to govern the Negro's position in social relations based on primary contacts, while competition is allowed in other spheres. The interaction of social distance and free competition thus determines his positionin the social structure at any given moment. By devising indices of fixed status and free competition, Negro-white relations in various societies may be directly compared.

The Black Worker in Industry, Agriculture, Domestic and Personal Service

The position of the Negro in industrial pursuits today is conditioned by a basic conflict between black and white labor which had its inception in their competing positions as slave and free laborer. This basic conflict was intensified after emancipation when the Negro lost his protected status and entered into direct competition with white labor as a part of the free labor population. Racial antipathies, which had become ingrained in the two groups during slavery, were reflected in their inability to recognize any common basis of collective action or similarity of interest. Thus, the hope of general betterment of the Negro's position in industrial occupations through collective action with the dominant working group implies the elimination or certainly minimizing of the ancient conflict between the two groups. At the close of the Civil War, an overwhelming majority of some 4,000,000 ex-slaves remained in Southern agriculture. A few, however, were able to gain entrance to industrial occupations and to the handicraft trades in which they excelled. The Negro skilled craftsmen who outnumbered the whites, at this time, 5 to 11 in the South, were thus forced into a position as a labor reserve from which they entered into direct competition with the white craftsmen. The paucity of Negro labor in Southern factories following the Civil War was a reflection of the dearth of industrial development in a predominantly agricultural region. The majority of those who became attached to the existing industries found employment in "the flour mills and tobacco factories of Virginia and North Carolina and in the phosphate industry of South Carolina"2 as unskilled laborers. Others were employed in substantial numbers as longshoremen and as common laborers in the construction gangs of the railroads. During the 80's and 90's the Negro became a factor in a number of developing Southern industries but made few inroads in the North. The rapid increase in industrial activity had begun to break the grip in which cotton had long held the South and was affording new jobs for unskilled Negro labor in coal mines, steel mills, cotton seed oil and fertilizer plants. One in-

Race Prejudice as a Factor in the Status of the American Negro

It is widely believed that race prejudice has been historically and is at the present time the basic factor in the status of the American Negro. Race prejudice is assumed to be the effective factor in the Negro's subordination. It is the purpose of this paper to define the character of the relationship between prejudice toward the Negro and the position he occupies in the American social structure. The problem is to analyze the interaction, if any, between status and prejudice. The simplest approach to this question is first to indicate in outline what the status of the Negro is, and second to analyze specifically the role of prejudice in the determination of the Negro's position in the American social order. Since the status of the Negro is the theme of this volume it will be treated briefly in the present chapter. Only the essential aspects of the Negro's status will be cited. The greater part of this discussion will represent an attempt to diagnose race prejudice as a factor in the status of the American Negro.