Lasch-Quinn - Black Neighbors

Lasch-Quinn, Elisabeth. Black Neighbors: Race and the Limits of Reform in the American Settlement House Movement, 1890-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Argument
Taking a broader (than merely Progressive Era) view of the settlement house movement, Lasch-Quinn reveals that contrary to the simplistic assessment of reformers ignoring black issues while black leaders were divided by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, many settlement houses did strive to address racial issues. The problem was, however, the vast majority of settlement houses failed to recognize their role in the community presented them with the power to address segregation, and instead of taking the lead they tacitly approved segregation out of fear (probably correct to an extent) that their success in reaching the white immigrant community would suffer.

The National Federation of Settlements is the most significant example of the failure of settlement houses to address race issues until after World War II. Part of the problem was a resistance to engage with black churches which were also performing similar roles to settlement houses because of the modern antipathy to propaganda and evangelism for any one particular religion, thus excluding church settlement/missions.

But in the South, Lasch-Quinn finds a few key examples of Southern School-Settlements which, often (and most successfully) under white leadership, strove for an integrated ideal of a stronger community. White women played important roles in these schools. YWCAs also provided similar roles throughout the nation.

Reviews
Paula Pfeffer - JAH
"Her dual aim is to "explain the tragic fail- ure" of the mainstream settlement houses to redirect their services from immigrants toward the African Americans who moved into their neighborhoods and to demonstrate how the void created by that neglect was filled by other institutions not customarily considered part of the settlement movement"

"Faced with changing neighorhoods and un- willing to commit themselves to integrated services, most settlement houses chose one of four courses of action, according to Lasch- Quinn: total exclusion of blacks, segregated activities, removal to white enclaves, or com- plete closure. She concludes that the failure of the movement to extend its mission to encom- pass African Americans led to its decline and to the fragmentation of its all-encompassing functions due to its replacement by various institutions that dealt separately with social service and civil rights activities."

RAH - Arnold Hirsch
"The problem was
not a social blindspot or ignorance, but rather a cold, reasoned judgment that
grew from their perceived reality. They accepted the liberal environmentalism
of the age, but accepted in corollary fashion environmentally induced "cultural"
explanations for black inferiority and moral weakness in place of the
crude biological determinism popular elsewhere. Such conclusions could lead to a benevolent paternalism on the one hand, or, even more frequently, to the
judgment that blacks and immigrants were somehow different and that the
former were irrelevant to the settlement's raison d'etre"

Connections
The connection to Race Experts is Lasch-Quinn's concern with the failure of certain social activists to fully pursue a holistic community ideal. Among the Settlement Houses, their flaw was neglecting America's racial problems. Among Race Experts, the problem was an utter dismissal of MLK, Jr's egalitarian ideal in favor of a divisive, therapeutic solution.

Lasch-Quinn - Race Experts

Lasch-Quinn, Elisabeth. Race Experts: How Racial Etiquette, Sensitivity Training, and New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Norton, 2001.

Argument
The turn away from MLK et al.'s dream of an equal society towards black power coincided with the rise of the Therapeutic society in America to take American Civil Rights in the wrong direction. Racial etiquette and sensitivity training emphasize racial differences. New Age ideas coupled with therapeutic ideas to suggest that low self-esteem among blacks was the critical problem that had to be overcome, distracting from the real socio-economic issues that undermined black progress in America.

Other Ideas
The Encounter Group was a tool of group therapy designed to spark a revolution in black-white relations. Experts believed slavery had created a psychology of white supremacy among all whites, and a lack of self-respect among blacks. Experts designed a program for multiracial groups to confront whites with their inherent racism and simultaneously allow blacks a cathartic release of black rage towards whites.

Diversity training was broadly adapted by corporations in the 1990s as a means to fostering a positive work atmosphere in an increasingly racially diverse ethnic environment. But in emphasizing politeness and appreciation for racial identities, it merely emphasized differences, further underscoring racial identities.

The Morgan Memorial "Deja Vu - You've Seen this Before"
Lasch-Quinn applies to racial issues the problems in the Therapeutic culture explored by Lasch, Rieff, and others. The Therapeutic culture and narcissistic focus on the healing of the self has replaced a more traditional conception of morality which emphasized the individual's place and behavior within a community/towards a better community.

Gerstle - American Crucible

Gerstle, Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Argument & Key Terms
(p.4-5) Gerstle argues America pursued both civic and racial nationalism throughout the 20th century. Civic nationalism (from Michael Ignatieff and others) is the idealized perception of America as an ethnic and cultural melting pot which, resting on the values of equality and liberty inscribed in the founding documents, could accept waves of new immigrants and deal with a variety of ethnicities while still growing stronger and stronger as a nation of people.

Racial nationalism was a contradictory, conflicting ideal that emphasized America as the pinnacle of global civilization as the home of the greatest race in the world, the Anglo-Saxon. "Lesser" peoples, Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, and (before the 1930s) southern and eastern Europeans could never fully assimilate and thus never truly be members. They had to be prevented from entering, and expelled, segregated or subordinated.

Theodore Roosevelt looms as the catalyst for the book's trends. Gerstle is constantly noting what Roosevelt would have thought about a certain development. Roosevelt as President and as leader of the Progressive Party attempted to balance civic and racial nationalism. He believed firmly in the supremacy of the white Anglo-Saxon race, but also valued civic ideals and believed America could absorb new immigrants provided they assimilate through rugged individualism. His alliance with Progressives grew out of his recognition of the terrible poverty new immigrants faced. He borrowed Herbert Croly's idea of "New Nationalism," which said that the poverty created by industrialization had to be addressed by a strong state that could provide regulation and relief without turning to socialism. (p.67)

Trends, by Chapter
Ch. 3 Hardening the Boundaries of the Nation, 1917-1929: Immigration restriction intensifies along with racial nationalism. RN ASCENDENT

Ch. 4 The Rooseveltian Nation Ascendent, 1930-1940: FDR, who admired his older cousin greatly, finally got the chance to put TR's visions into place. Without bending to civil rights issues, FDR implemented a massive federal program of regulation, relief, and reform. TR would have particularly loved the uniformed, masculine CCC. RN STEADY WITH HOPE OF DECLINE

Ch. 5 Good War, Race War, 1941-1945: WWII, with the army still segregated, was fought most brutally in the Pacific amidst inherent racism against the Japanese. While blacks began to vocalize the inherent contradiction of fighting for a country in which they were deemed second class citizens, other previously lesser groups gained prestige: Jews, Catholics, southerners, etc. RN STEADY FOR BLACKS, DECLINE FOR OTHERS

Ch. 6, The Cold War, Anticommunism, and a Nation in Flux, 1946-1960: McCarthyism, unlike the first Red Scare, was directed not at new immigrants but at the liberal elite. Meanwhile, America began to face the contradiction of Jim Crow as it claimed the moral upperhand in the Cold War. RN DECLINE

Ch. 7 Civil Rights, White Resistance, and Black Nationalism, 1960-1968: MLK et al appealed to civic nationalism, but black nationalism emerged as a replacement for the civic nationalist ideal, which was called a lie. CN DECLINE

Ch. 8 Vietnam, Cultural Revolt and the Collapse of the Rooseveltian Nation, 1968-1975: Amidst the cultural upheaval and LBJ's calamity in Vietnam, the Rooseveltian Nation imagined by TR and built by FDR collapsed. CN DECLINE, FIRST PANGS OF MULTICULTURALISM

Epilogue Beyond the Rooseveltian Nation, 1975-2000: Gerstle argues Reagan returned to racial nationalism, but in a subtle, acceptable (in terms of political correctness) way. White and black communities remained separate in the 80s, and income gaps increased. Multiculturalism was offered as an alternative to Reagan's model. "Hard" multiculturalists argue that America's civic values cannot be salvaged. Some hard multiculturalists argue minority cultures poses the civic values mainstream America needs. Others dispute the idea that any particular culture has the necessary values. They celebrate cultural hybridity. (350-351) "Soft" multiculturalists believe in a blend between old American ideas and new diverse ideals from America's many cultures.

Use of Culture
The films of Frank Capra emphasize the Anglo-Saxon average American as its hero. (ch. 4)
Francis Ford Coppola, on the other hand, emphasized the Italian Family unit as being corrupted by capitalist America, rather than the other way around.

The Morgan Memorial "Deja Vu - You've Seen this Before"
Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities: Gerstle is heavily influenced by Anderson's concept of nationalism as an imagined sense of belonging to a created community. The broad trends Gerstle discuss thus affect the self-identity held by all Americans throughout the century.

This synthesis also uses Denning's Cultural Front to describe the 30s.

Critique
This book has similar strengths and weaknesses to any synthesis. Gerstle paints in broadstrokes. He also writes in an easy-to-read style that would be accessible for an advanced undergraduate. His ideas are not earth shattering, but as a synthesis of the contradictions between racism and civic values in 20th century America, this book is outstanding. The emphasis on Theodore Roosevelt feels a little forced at times, and fresh at other times.