Human Rights advocates for the belief that all humans deserve and are entitled to certain basic rights simply because they are human. Although the idea of rights, whether legal or implied, has existed for most of history, the idea that certain rights belong to everyone has not been present all this time (Kabasakal Arat). Social status as well as race has, for as long as the idea of rights have existed, effected what rights you are said to deserve. We see this explained further in works like Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract, Haunani-Kay Trask’s The Color of Violence and Busangokwakhe Dlamini’s Homosexuality in the African Context.
The Racial Contract, according to Mills is “that set of formal or informal agreements or meta-agreements (higher
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What her chapter in this anthology does is provide yet another example of the Racial Contract and how non-white persons are considered subpersons and are deemed not worthy of basic human rights according to the contract. Trask states that “In a racist society, there is no need to justify white racist behavior” (Trask 83). She then goes on to detail how the native people of Hawai’i are subjected to “peaceful violence” a direct result of the colonializing of her country by white settlers. She describes peaceful violence as a covert form of racism, through practices of nuclearization and militarization, white settlers have contaminated the land, as well as the people. Through the testing of nuclear weapons on the native people, white settlers have shortened the life expectancy and raised the likelihood of cancer among these people – a clear violation of their human rights (Trask 85). The human rights violations of the native people and the infringement on their land was clearly based on race – because the natives are non-white, they were seen as not deserving of human …show more content…
Because of the way in white people have established themselves as the “dominant race” this also effects how we understand the history of the countries in which they have colonized. This concept of the relationship between race and the making of history is apparent in Dlamini’s discussion of homosexuality in Africa. Settlers colonization of Africa was accompanied by European ideals, religious and social ones. With their colonization came Christianity, and this religion altered the way African peoples understood their history. There has been ample proof that tribes within the continent of Africa engaged in homosexual relations however, it was not until European settlers that this was acknowledged as “wrong” (Dlamini 129). Acts such as these had no name until European settlers categorized it as prohibited because of their religion. It was because of European ideals of African people that it was believed that homosexuality didn’t occur in Africa. Dlamini states that Europeans saw Africans as “'primitive man'. Since primitive man was perceived to be close to nature, ruled by instincts, and culturally unsophisticated, he had to be heterosexual; his sexual energies and outlets devoted exclusively to their ‘natural’ purpose – biological reproduction” (Dlamini 132). The history of homosexuality in Africa presents a clear relationship between race and the making of history. The dominant race is
Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within himself.
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
The people of Hawaii and other Pacific Island Nation groups have experienced great injustice from their colonial powers and the acts of imperialism. Lands were seized, cultural practices banned, language lost, and people were even forced to move away from their homes for the purpose of bomb testing. The United States and other countries abroad sent out representatives to do their work for them; in return their future actions would be justified in describing the Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders as savages that need to have wider powers enforced upon them; thus resulting in a tangled web of political mythologies.
“.When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters.” –Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Over the years, many groups of people have been denied basic human rights based on simple things such as gender or race. These acts go against the UDHR, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UDHR is a document of the equal and inalienable rights/freedoms all people are born with.
The systematic racism and discrimination in America has long lasting effects that began back when Europeans first stepped foot on American soil is still visible today but only not written into the law. This racism has lead to very specific consequences on the Native people in today’s modern world, and while the racism is maybe not as obvious it is still very present. These modern Native peoples fight against the feeling of community as a Native person, and feeling entirely alone and not a part of it. The poem “The Reservation” by Susan Cloud and “The Real Indian Leans Against” by Chrystos examine the different effects and different settings of how their cultures survived but also how so much was lost for them within their own identity.
The world has been shaped to make European domination with racial contract. Racial contract is a set of formal or informal agreements between one subset of humans also known as a contract between whites. The purpose of the racial contract is a privileging of the whites as a group with respect to non whites as a group because they white supremacy. The agreement mostly concerns the third parties which are blacks. Yes I believe that what has happened with america electing trump can be explained in terms of racial contract.
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s reexamines the American historical record and moves it passed the typical narratives of colonialism, revolution, and American exceptionalism. Dunbar-Ortiz’s analysis will impact the field of Native Studies and even general United States history with its examination and focus on settler colonialism as a genocidal policy. It is, as Dunbar-Ortiz argues, impossible to write American history without the acknowledgment of Indigenous peoples. Dunbar-Ortiz shatters the myth of “free land” and conquered Natives. She instead focuses on “the absence of a colonial framework (7),” which she believes is the reason that most historians overlook Indigenous history. In other words, historians need to view colonization as an ongoing process and not a
As majority of the narrative in this poem is told through the perspective of a deceased Nishnaabeg native, there is a sense of entitlement to the land present which is evident through the passage: “ breathe we are supposed to be on the lake … we are not supposed to be standing on this desecrated mound looking not looking”. Through this poem, Simpson conveys the point of how natives are the true owners of the land and that colonizers are merely intruders and borrowers of the land. There is an underlying idea that instead of turning a blind eye to the abominations colonizers have created, the natives are supposed to be the ones enjoying and utilising the land. The notion of colonizers simply being visitors is furthered in the conclusion of the poem, in which the colonizers are welcomed to the land but are also told “please don’t stay too long” in the same passage. The conclusion of this poem breaks the colonialistic idea of land belonging to the colonizer once colonized by putting in perspective that colonizers are, in essence, just passerbys on land that is not
Race, as a general understanding is classifying someone based on how they look rather than who they are. It is based on a number of things but more than anything else it’s based on skin's melanin content. A “race” is a social construction which alters over the course of time due to historical and social pressures. Racial formation is defined as how race shapes and is shaped by social structure, and how racial categories are represented and given meaning in media, language and everyday life. Racial formation is something that we see changing overtime because it is rooted in our history. Racial formation also comes with other factors below it like racial projects. Racial projects seek
According to Oxford Dictionaries, race relations are "…Relations between members or communities of different races within one country" (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). Race relations are based on differences an individual possesses (physical and genetic traits) in comparison to other people. The traits explained by G. Edwards "are important in contributing to the observed ecological, economic, social, and political which constitute the subject matter of race relations" (Edwards, 2008). Therefore, the way in which a person differs from a certain racial group will lead to the same differences in cultural characteristics. Additionally, many critics claim race relations have seen a positive shift since the end of WWII and brought about a change in the composition of racial minorities; members within a group who appear less powerful in comparison to a larger group
Thompson, Kenneth W., and Asmarom Legesse. "Human Rights in African Political Culture." The Moral Imperatives of Human Rights: A World Survey. Lanham: University of America, 1980. 123-24. Print.
The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background information while supporting my hypothesis that human rights should be based on particular cultural values and finally drawing a conclusion.
…rights which are inherent to the human being ... human rights acknowledges that every single human being is entitled to enjoy his or her human rights without distinction as to race, [color], sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. [To add on, human] rights are legally guaranteed by human rights law, protecting individuals and groups against actions that interfere with fundamental freedoms and human dignity (Human rights for
Human Rights are the rights that are believed to belong justifiably to every person. “Human rights are what reason requires and conscience demands. They are us and we are them. Human rights are rights that any person has as a human being. We are all human beings; we are all deserving of human rights. One cannot be true without the other” (Kofi Annan). Human rights are a way to hurdle the obstacle in our struggle for justice, equal opportunity, and human development. Many nations ignore the fact that every human deserves rights. This is a guiding factor as to why we chose this topic for our project. Human rights involves many topics but we feel as if human rights start with the younger generation, and by building a connection with them we could shape the future for humans and their rights.