Why Reconstruction Matters

By ERIC FONER 

MARCH 28, 2015

nytimes.com 

THE surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, 150 years ago next month, effectively ended the Civil War. Preoccupied with the challenges of our own time, Americans will probably devote little attention to the sesquicentennial of Reconstruction, the turbulent era that followed the conflict. This is unfortunate, for if any historical period deserves the label “relevant,” it is Reconstruction.

Issues that agitate American politics today — access to citizenship and voting rights, the relative powers of the national and state governments, the relationship between political and economic democracy, the proper response to terrorism — all of these are Reconstruction questions. But that era has long been misunderstood.

Reconstruction refers to the period, generally dated from 1865 to 1877, during which the nation’s laws and Constitution were rewritten to guarantee the basic rights of the former slaves, and biracial governments came to power throughout the defeated Confederacy. For decades, these years were widely seen as the nadir in the saga of American democracy. According to this view, Radical Republicans in Congress, bent on punishing defeated Confederates, established corrupt Southern governments presided over by carpetbaggers (unscrupulous Northerners who ventured south to reap the spoils of office), scalawags (Southern whites who supported the new regimes) and freed African-Americans, unfit to exercise democratic rights. The heroes of the story were the self-styled Redeemers, who restored white supremacy to the South.

A caricature of President Andrew Johnson’s 1866 veto of a bill to create the Freedmen’s Bureau.

This portrait, which received scholarly expression in the early-20th-century works of William A. Dunning and his students at Columbia University, was popularized by the 1915 film “Birth of A Nation” and by Claude Bowers’s 1929 best-selling history, “The Tragic Era.” It provided an intellectual foundation for the system of segregation and black disenfranchisement that followed Reconstruction. Any effort to restore the rights of Southern blacks, it implied, would lead to a repeat of the alleged horrors of Reconstruction.

HISTORIANS have long since rejected this lurid account, although it retains a stubborn hold on the popular imagination. Today, scholars believe that if the era was “tragic,” it was not because Reconstruction was attempted but because it failed.

Reconstruction actually began in December 1863, when Abraham Lincoln announced a plan to establish governments in the South loyal to the Union. Lincoln granted amnesty to most Confederates so long as they accepted the abolition of slavery, but said nothing about rights for freed blacks. Rather than a blueprint for the postwar South, this was a war measure, an effort to detach whites from the Confederacy. On Reconstruction, as on other questions, Lincoln’s ideas evolved. At the end of his life, he called for limited black suffrage in the postwar South, singling out the “very intelligent” (prewar free blacks) and “those who serve our cause as soldiers” as most worthy.

Lincoln did not live to preside over Reconstruction. That task fell to his successor, Andrew Johnson. 

Once lionized as a heroic defender of the Constitution against Radical Republicans, Johnson today is viewed by historians as one of the worst presidents to occupy the White House. He was incorrigibly racist, unwilling to listen to criticism and unable to work with Congress. Johnson set up new Southern governments controlled by ex-Confederates. They quickly enacted the Black Codes, laws that severely limited the freed people’s rights and sought, through vagrancy regulations, to force them back to work on the plantations. But these measures aroused bitter protests among blacks, and convinced Northerners that the white South was trying to restore slavery in all but name.

There followed a momentous political clash, the struggle between Johnson and the Republican majority (not just the Radicals) in Congress. Over Johnson’s veto, Congress enacted one of the most important laws in American history, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, still on the books today. It affirmed the citizenship of everyone born in the United States, regardless of race (except Indians, still considered members of tribal sovereignties). This principle, birthright citizenship, is increasingly rare in today’s world and deeply contested in our own contemporary politics, because it applies to the American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

The act went on to mandate that all citizens enjoy basic civil rights in the same manner “enjoyed by white persons.” Johnson’s veto message denounced the law for what today is called reverse discrimination: “The distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” Indeed, in the idea that expanding the rights of nonwhites somehow punishes the white majority, the ghost of Andrew Johnson still haunts our discussions of race.

Soon after, Congress incorporated birthright citizenship and legal equality into the Constitution via the 14th Amendment. In recent decades, the courts have used this amendment to expand the legal rights of numerous groups — most recently, gay men and women. As the Republican editor George William Curtis wrote, the 14th Amendment changed a Constitution “for white men” to one “for mankind.” It also marked a significant change in the federal balance of power, empowering the national government to protect the rights of citizens against violations by the states.

In 1867 Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, again over Johnson’s veto. These set in motion the establishment of new governments in the South, empowered Southern black men to vote and temporarily barred several thousand leading Confederates from the ballot. Soon after, the 15th Amendment extended black male suffrage to the entire nation.

The Reconstruction Acts inaugurated the period of Radical Reconstruction, when a politically mobilized black community, with its white allies, brought the Republican Party to power throughout the South. For the first time, African-Americans voted in large numbers and held public office at every level of government. It was a remarkable, unprecedented effort to build an interracial democracy on the ashes of slavery.

Most offices remained in the hands of white Republicans. But the advent of African-Americans in positions of political power aroused bitter hostility from Reconstruction’s opponents. They spread another myth — that the new officials were propertyless, illiterate and incompetent. As late as 1947, the Southern historian E. Merton Coulter wrote that of the various aspects of Reconstruction, black officeholding was “longest to be remembered, shuddered at, and execrated.”

There was corruption in the postwar South, although given the scandals of New York’s Tweed Ring and President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, black suffrage could hardly be blamed. In fact, the new governments had a solid record of accomplishment. They established the South’s first state-funded public school systems, sought to strengthen the bargaining power of plantation laborers, made taxation more equitable and outlawed racial discrimination in transportation and public accommodations. They offered aid to railroads and other enterprises in the hope of creating a New South whose economic expansion would benefit black and white alike.

Reconstruction also made possible the consolidation of black families, so often divided by sale during slavery, and the establishment of the independent black church as the core institution of the emerging black community. But the failure to respond to the former slaves’ desire for land left most with no choice but to work for their former owners.

It was not economic dependency, however, but widespread violence, coupled with a Northern retreat from the ideal of equality, that doomed Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan and kindred groups began a campaign of murder, assault and arson that can only be described as homegrown American terrorism. Meanwhile, as the Northern Republican Party became more conservative, Reconstruction came to be seen as a misguided attempt to uplift the lower classes of society.

One by one, the Reconstruction governments fell. As a result of a bargain after the disputed presidential election of 1876, the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes assumed the Oval Office and disavowed further national efforts to enforce the rights of black citizens, while white Democrats controlled the South.

By the turn of the century, with the acquiescence of the Supreme Court, a comprehensive system of racial, political and economic inequality, summarized in the phrase Jim Crow, had come into being across the South. At the same time, the supposed horrors of Reconstruction were invoked as far away as South Africa and Australia to demonstrate the necessity of excluding nonwhite peoples from political rights. This is why W.E.B. Du Bois, in his great 1935 work “Black Reconstruction in America,” saw the end of Reconstruction as a tragedy for democracy, not just in the United States but around the globe.

While violated with impunity, however, the 14th and 15th Amendments remained on the books. Decades later they would provide the legal basis for the civil rights revolution, sometimes called the Second Reconstruction.

Citizenship, rights, democracy — as long as these remain contested, so will the necessity of an accurate understanding of Reconstruction. More than most historical subjects, how we think about this era truly matters, for it forces us to think about what kind of society we wish America to be.

-----------------------------

Eric Foner is a professor of history at Columbia University and the author of “Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad,” “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution” and “A Short History of Reconstruction.”

Afghan girls learn what it's like to be visible to the world

"One girl can be silenced, but a nation of girls telling their stories becomes free."

Through the Superhero Project and blogging Afghan girls learn what it's like to be visible to the world.

by Roya Mahboob
Salon-- March 8, 2015

A classroom of girls in Afghanistan.

Shortly after I started my first company in Afghanistan in 2010, my business partner, Francesco Rulli, and I began to construct Internet classrooms in girls schools in Herat and Kabul. Since that time, we have connected 55,000 students in our networks and directly trained 7,900 in our classrooms. Now we continue the work with my new nonprofit Digital Citizen Fund.

In our classrooms the girls learn how to use the computer, the Internet, email and social media at the same time that they begin to explore ways to express themselves through writing, drawing, and photography. On the computer, they learn where they can have a voice; through writing and art they learn how to have a voice.

The girls write about their experiences, their fears and their hopes. At first they share their blogs only with each other, and then they begin to share their stories online with the world, often under pseudonyms. In order to speak of their true feelings, many still have to remain anonymous. It is still dangerous for girls to talk openly in Afghanistan. A few short years ago, Malala, a young woman from Pakistan, was shot for expressing herself online. Instead of remaining quiet, more women and girls must speak out. One girl can be silenced, but a nation of girls telling their stories becomes free.

The drawings in the slide show below represent a small sampling from the Superhero Project, in which the girls invent their own superheroes. Currently in Afghanistan most heroes are soldiers who have survived warfare and killed many people. The Superhero Project encourages girls to imagine the kind of heroes who can lead them and their families toward a more peaceful future. In the act of drawing, the girls learn that hope is the product of a courageous imagination.

What is true of the Superhero Project is also true of the photographs. By taking pictures, the girls learn to envision the world, not as it is presented to them, but as they see it. Their photos are displayed as posters on walls along the streets outside their schools and shared on the Internet through our Web-sharing site, Artistic Street. The world sees what they see and begins to know something of what it is like to be a girl in Afghanistan, and for the first time many of the girls come to know what it is like to be visible to the world.

Editors' Note:

Weeks after the official end of U.S. military combat operations in Afghanistan, we traveled to Kabul and Herat where Roya could no longer go. Roya was forced to leave Afghanistan last year because of the security situation. We visited the schools where Roya had established IT classrooms and talked with many of the girls who spoke of a future in which they would share power with men. We collected blogs, drawings and photographs from the girls and have selected a few for this gallery.

Elizabeth Brown
Jason Brown

Blog I
"The Rights of Women in Afghanistan"
Rohiyda Hassanzada افغانستان در زنانحقوق
The only ones who can read this article have a clean mind from fresh rain and have a heart with the depth of the sea.
What kind of creature is a woman? Who are women? Women are emotional, kind and filled with pity. And in some places people call women angels. The wings of these angels are burned by the depth of their emotion and pity. In Afghanistan no one cares about women and no one pays attention to them. Having a daughter is a dishonor for parents. They don't let their daughters go to school, and they burn the wishes of the girls. In Afghan society, girls don't have the opportunity to speak of their desires. Always people strangle the girls' voices. Oh God! What did we do to them that they do such cruel things to us? Oh God, why do they always strangle our wishes and burn our desires. What did we do that they don't respect us? Is this freedom? Is this the world that I left my mother's womb for? If I had known they would do these cruel things to me, I would never have come to this world. They don't understand what women can do, and they don't understand that the world won't go on without us. The continuation of the world comes from the blessings of women. I ask you who gave birth to Einstein, Souqrat, Aflatoon, Aristotle, and others? Who were their first teachers? Women, who gave them warm hugs. Their lives grew from this early stage when their mothers took their small fingers and introduced the world to them. Oh God, who can tell Afghan society of these questions? As I take up the pen, I ask you to give the pen to other Afghan women so they can ask that our rights not be devastated. We, the Afghan women, will put our hands together and attend to all stages of life, such as politics, economics, sports, culture and religion. We will be beside the men to promote our country. We don't hear the whispering of some people. We aren't less than men. Under our veil we have hope and power. This is an Afghan woman's speech.
باشند داشته دریا عمق از دلی و باران از طراوتی سفید افکار از جنسی تا بخوانند را مقاله این میتوانندتنهاکسانی ها جاه بعضی در و میباشد دلسوز و احساساتی,مهربان موجودی زن کیست؟ زن میدانید؟ موجودی نوع چه را زنانشما سوختانده اش دلسوزانه و عمیق احساسات را فرشته این پر و بال است,و فرشته زن میگویند و میکنند خطاب فرشته رازنان دختر را,داشتن دختر داشتن نمیشود قایل ارزش ٓانان به کسی نمیباشند برخوردار خاصی اهمیت از افغانستان دراست.زنان افغان جامعه در میزنند.دختران ٓاتش را شان پاک ٓارزوهای نمیگذارند مکتب به را خود میدانند,دختران بزرگ ننگ یکرا
کرده گناهی چه ما ٓاخه است بس دیگر کی به !تا خدایا است ٓاویخته دار به بیانشان همیشه باشند داشته بیان ٓارادی توانندنمی ٓاتش را ما ٓارزوهای بزنند دار به را ما های صدا همیشه باید چرا میشود,خدایا! برخورد ظالمانه اینقدر ما با کهبودیم مادرم شکم به دیدنش بخاطر که دنیای بود این ٓازادی شد هم این ٓاخه نمیشوند قایل ارزش ما به که کردیم گناهی چهبزنند,ما این کردم نمی تالش دیدنش برای گاه هیچ میکنند رفتار وحشیانه اینقدر من به که است دنیای چنین میدانستم اگر میزدملگد میکنند رفتار وحشیانه اینقدر من به که است دنیای چنین میدانستم اگر میزدم لگد مادرم شکم به دیدنش بخاطر که دنیایبود کرد پیشرفت دنیا نمیشود بدون که دانند نمی داریم توانای چقدر ما که داند نمی ٓانان کردم نمی تالش دیدنش برای گاههیچ را وغیره مثل:انشتین,سقراط,افالطون,ارسطو بزرگان بگوید خودتان است زن مهربان قلب برکت از دنیا های پیشرفتتمام ٓانان گرمش ٓاغوش و مهربانش دستان له که زنی ٓان بود زن ایشان دبیرستان اولین بود؟ کی اینان دبیرستان کرد؟ تربیتکی با را ٓانان و گرفت را شان کوچک انگشتان طن که میباشد شان نخست های پله از ایشان های پیشرفت تمام و کرد تربیترا دیگر زنان هم تو میخواهم گرفتم قلم به دست که من برساند افغان جامعه گوش به کی را اینان کرد.خدایا! معرفیزندگی عرصه تمام در و داده هم دست به دست افغان زنان ما کنند پایمال را ما حقوق که نمیدهیم اجازه ما کنی قلم به دست راافغان و پسشرفته افغانستان یک بسوی شانه به شانه مردان با و میگذاریم قدم سیاسی,اجتماعی,اقتصادی,ورزشی,فرهنگی,دینیها این پشت و نداریم مردان از کمی هیچ ما بدهیم گوش مردم از یعضی فکری کهنه سخنان به اینکه بدون میکنیم حرکتٓاباد ٓامدم میدان به چون افغانیم غیرت ندانی گر افغان زنان ما شعار است این و است نهفته توانای و امید هزاران ماچادری
میدانیم

Blog II
"Mines and Their Results"
Sediqheh Rezaei
Mines are things that destroy the lives of men, women, and children in Afghanistan. People are just as afraid when they hear about a mine as they are when they hear about resurrection day. In fact, when enemies attack or mines explode, it is a resurrection day as we see our dear friends, relatives, neighbors, and other people of our country killed by bombs and mines. One meaning of "mine" is "problem" because it causes many miseries like homelessness and disability. The second meaning is "explosion." When the mines explode, people become so afraid. But why should our sinless people feel such fear? Why should they see their relatives killed in front of their eyes? What is their sin? Why can't these people have a comfortable life? It is their right to have a good and comfortable life with their families without hearing explosions. The third meaning of "mine" is "despair" because mines cause our people to emigrate to other countries. The voices of bombs and mines make them hopeless about their own country.
Allah orders all Muslims to not be harmful, so there are many people in this country who are trying to make us safe. But still there is pain in my heart because of the mines. The fourth meaning of "mine" is "chaos." Chaos destroys our homes. Our homes are the only places where we are calm. May God help us have hope to be patient, to be powerful, and to try to make peace, calmness, and improvements in our country. I hope for a country that is far from murder, war and terror. I hope to see an independent and flourishing Afghanistan in the future.
هایش دگرگونی وماین
افغان کودک و جوان ,مرد,پیر, زن همچون گناهان بی از بسیاری رفتن بین از باعث که است ای منفجره موادماین اندامشان بر ای لرزه میشنوند را ماین نام مردم میاورد.وقتی میان به بدبختی و ویرانی خود با باشد که هرجاییمیشود,در و خانه به میکنند منفجر را ماین این که دشمنانی و ماین وقتی است طور همان ,ٓاری شده برپا قیامت گویا که میایدپدید غوطه خون در همه افغان اطفال و زنان و مردان و جوانان و- میاید وجود به قیامت هم باز میکنند تجاوز ما ملت وکشور عزیزانمان از بسیاری شدن کشته و ها ماین این انفجار با بلکه ببینی را ٓان مردی وقتی که نیست این تنها ,قیامت میشوندور وجود به دشمنانمان توسط که است ها ماین اینها تمام سبب و میبینیم خود چشم با را قیامت میباشند وجودمان از عضویکه متشکل که است مشکالت تمام منشا که مشکل میگوییم خاطری به مشکل یعنی میم (اول شده گرفته کلمه چهار از ماینمیٓاید میشود منفجر وقتی یعنی است شده گرفته انفجار از که الف میباشد,دوم شدن خانمان بی و معلولیت عذاب بدبختی ویرانیاز چه؟و خاطر چرا؟به میاید وجود به افغانستان گناه بی مردم قلب در ای دلهره و ترس خراش گوش و بلند صدای این شنیدنبا شاهد کی به تا باشد داشته وجود هایشان قلب در دلهره و ترس این افغانستان ی دیده رنج و دیده ستم مردم ؟این کی بهتا ٓارام گی زنده یک نمیتوانند انان ٓایا چیست میزنند,گناهشان پرپر شان چشم پیش که باشند خود عزیزان از بسیاری شدنکشته گی زنده به عزیزانشان کنار در رفاه و ارامش به نمیتوانند انان ,ٓایا باشند داشته انفجاری مهمات و صالح نوع هر از دورو نصیب را ارامش این ما وطنان هم روزی اینکه ارزوی به و کند گی زنده رفاه در که است انسانی هر حق این بدهندادامه
به را بدبختی یک ٓان حرف هر که نیست شدنی تمام دارد همراه خود با ماین این که هایی بدبختی به توصیف بازهمشوند,اما از دارد,یاس همراه به ناامیدی و یاس خود با میگردد اغاز جنگ و میاید ماین وقتی زیرا یاس معنای ی,که سوم میاوردمیان ناامید وطن از دیگر میشنوند را جنگ و ,تفنگ ماین نام مردم وقتی ؟زیرا وطن از یاس گفتیم ,چرا وطن از ,یاس گیزنده که تا میکنند تحمل را خواری و ذلت ٓانقدر و میکنند مهاجرت همسایه کشورهای اینقدر که است خاطر همینمیگردند,به که فرمودند خداوند هم باز ,اما بنهانند بالین بر سر ٓارامش به و نشنوند را ولوله و ماین صدای شده هم دقیقه یک اگرحتی و افراد هم باز امنیتی بی همه این وجود نکند,با غلبه وجودتان بر نگذارید و نکنید همراه خود با را ناامیدی و یاس وقتهیچ را ٓارامش و امنیت این کودکانشان و اینده های نسل تا میکوشند کشور امنیت و رفاه راه در که هستند گناهی بیاشخاص دختر یک ومن مردم این دل دردهای بازهم گردد,اما همه نصیب امید و برود بین از ناامیدی این اینکه امید به شوندنصیب
نابسامانی از که میفهمیم میرسیم ن حرف به ,وقتی دارد هم دیگری های ظلم ماین این زیرا است نرسیده پایان به هستمافغان ارامش احساس که است جایی تنها که یشان کاشانه و خانه رفتن بین از یا و گشتن در به در یعنی است,نابسامانی شدهگرفته افغانان فغان و اه ؟ایا ندارد پایان اندوه و غم این دیگر ایا میگردند دور عزیزانشان از میشوند مهاجر و میگردند اوارهمیکنند دیگر و ماند خواهد برویشان میشود فغان برداریم را الفش افغان از اگر میگویند که اسم این ؟ای ماند خواهد پایانبی میخیزند برپا و نمیکنند تحمل را اشوب و جنگ این دیدهدیگر ستم مظلوم مردم این نه دیگر .نه ماند خواهد صدا بیفغانشان و صلح در و دهیم پایان خونریزی و جنگ این به تا کنی یاری را ما که میخواهیم تو از خداوندا متعال خداوند یاری بهو ازاد. و اباد افغانستان ارزوی امید
 به و دهیم ادامه گی ه زند بهارامش

Blog III
"Role of Women in Society"
Women are an important part of society. Women always try to fulfill their wishes, even though they have many problems. Violence against women and war in Afghanistan have kept women from being able to have an education. I am a woman trying to have a good future. I am an Afghan girl telling you about the many problems women face in my country. Even though I face problems as a woman in my society, I continue my education because I wish to serve my people in the future by being a doctor. People in my family and other people want to hold me back when I try for my education, but I ignore such problems because I want to be successful.
. جامعه در زناننقش
مشکالت دارای جامعه در اینکه با میگردند,ٓانان محسوب جامعه یک مهم اساسی هایشاخه
از یکیزنان
در پی در پی های جنگو
زنان علیهخشونت
میکنند, فراوانی کوشش و تالش خویش های ٓارزوهای به رسیدن برایهمواره
و روشن های ٓاینده داشتن برای همواره که است زن حالیکه بمانند,در عقب تعلیم و درس از زنان قشر تا شد باعث کشوراین
. میکنند زیادی تالش ترروشن
ٓانان گی زنده تهدید باعث که بزنند ناپذیری جبران کارهای به دست زنان تا میبشود باعث مشکالت اینگاهی
دختر یک عنوان به سرگذاشته,من پشت را زیادی خونینهای
پیجنگ در پی های دهه که است کشوریمیگردد,افغانستان
که حالی میکنند,در نرم پنجه و دست ٓان با کشور این در زنان که میگویم سخن زیادی مشکالت از افغانی ی جامعه درافغان
راهم سد که زیادی مشکالت نمیکنم,با دریغ کوششی و تالش گونه هر از ٓان برای که است زیادی ٓارزوهای از مملووجودم
میدهم ادامه خویش تعلیم و درس به هم باز داردوجود
بتوانم و باشم خویش ی جامعهرای
ب خدمت مسدر بتوانم نزدیک های ٓاینده در که اینست من ٓارزوهای ازیکی
چند کنم,هر خدمت سرزمینم مردم تمام و اطفال و پیر اشخاص برای بتوانم باشم,و خود کشور و جامعه برایموفق
دکتریک
و اذیت مهمتر همه از وممانعتفامیل
همچون مشکالتی با گاهی و داده ادامه خویش درس به مشکل هزاران با روز طولدر
برایم تنها و نداشته نظر در را مشکالت و باشم موفق میخواهم و نگردیده مایوس هم باز ولی میگردم رو روبه مردمٓازار
است. مهم کوششم و تالش وموفقیتم

Blog IV
"My Childish World"
Now I am grown and far from my childish time. I remember those times when my only wish was to have beautiful toys and colorful food. My hands were safe in my parents' hands. I went to the bazaar with my parents. I begged them to buy something for me. When I was sick, they took care of me and gave me gifts. I became older and they sent me to another home, which was a school. Yes, my second home was school, and my kind teacher introduced herself as a second mother to me. I learned the alphabet there. How enjoyable this time was. I grew and grew. My thoughts changed yearly. The sweet times of childhood passed. As children, we have an angel that cares about us. A mother and father encourage their children to have success. Then we enter another time when we must solve our problems ourselves. Childhood is the best time of life, before we know pain.
من ی کودکانهدنیای
و رنگارنگ های خوراکی خوردن ٓارزویم تنها که دور,دورانی بسیار ام کودکی شیرین دوران از و ام شده بزرگ دیگرحال تا بود محفوظ مادرم و پدرم دستان در کوچکم دستان که .دورانی بخیر ایام ٓان بود.یاد زیبا های بازی اسبابداشتن خودو های گیری بهانه با من میبردندو بازار به فراوان شوق با ,مرا زند زمین به مرا جمعیت ازدحام و ها ناهمواریمبادا صد با مرا میشدم مریض زمانی میشدم.تا ٓان خواستار و میکردم دراز سویی هر به را دستم خویش ی بچگانه هایشیطنت میخوراندند. من به زیاد های جایزه ی وعده و متفاوت های بهانه با را هایم دارو و میکردند مراقبت نعمت وناز از تر متفاوت خیلی که ,محیطی کردند دیگر کانونی ی روانه خانواده گرم کانون از مرا و و شدم تر بزرگ که زمانیتا پر دستان و میکرد خطاب من دوم مادر را خویش مهربانم معلم که جایی بود مکتب همان محیط ٓان بود,ٓاری ام کاشانه وخانه دوران. ٓان بود گذر زود چه و میٓاموختاندند من به را گی زنده الفبای که بود,جایی من نوازشگرمهرش
و است گذرا کودکی شیرین دوران قبل,ولی ی دوره از تر متفاوت افکاری با بزرگتر و بزرگتر من و میگذشت روز بهروز زیاد تالش جدید چیزهای یادگیری برای و هستند مراقبمان لحظه به لحظه مان گی زنده ی فرشته دو که دورانی میگذردزود میدهند. سوق ها موفقیت سوی به را فرزندانشان خویش دریغ بی های تالش با که هستند مادر و ,پدرمینمایند به رو تری زیاد مشکالت با که شد خواهیم دورانی وارد ٓان بعداز دانست باید را ٓان است,قدر نشدنی تکرار کودکیدوران باید که است این و میشتابند مان یاری به کمتر نماییم حل را خویش مشکالت خودمان اینکه برای هم والدین و میشویمرو شیرین من نظر به نماییم تالش خویش اهداف به رسیدن برای و بایستیم پایمان برسر تا بگیریم یادخودمان تکرار گیمان زنده در دوران این دیگر باری کاش و رهاییم هایی غم تمام از که دوران است کودکی دوران,دورانترین میشد..

[Roya Mahboob is the founder and CEO of Afghan Citadel Software Co., EdyEdy LLC and a member of 2013 Time 100 Most Influential People in the World. Roya is an executive director and board member of the Women's Annex Foundation, and is a member of the 2014 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards and Civic Innovators. Further, Roya is part of different advisory boards such as Jelly and Global Thinkers Forum.]

Lighter-skinned Black and Latino People Look Smarter to White People

White Colorism: lighter-skinned Black and Latino people look smarter to white people

Perhaps reflecting a desire to emphasize the enduring power of rigidly constructed racial categories, sociology has tended to downplay the importance of within-category variation in skin tone. Similarly, in popular media, “colorism,” or discrimination based on skin lightness, is rarely mentioned.

When colorism is discussed, it is almost exclusively framed in terms of intraracial “black-on-black” discrimination. In line with arguments highlighting the centrality of white racism, the present paper contends that it is important for researchers to give unique attention to white colorism.

Using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, an example is presented on white interviewers’ perceptions of minority respondent skin tone and intelligence (N = 223). Results from ordinal logistic regression analyses indicate that African American and Latino respondents with the lightest skin are several times more likely to be seen by whites as intelligent compared with those with the darkest skin.

The article below concludes that a full accounting of white hegemony requires an acknowledgment of both white racism and white colorism.

white colorism