First Assignment Fall 2014
Class 1
1) Read Omi and Winant “Racial Formations” at http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jdowd/omi%20and%20winant%20-%20racial%20formations.pdf
2) Please read the following materials on the Susie Guillory Phipps case:
a) http://1nedrop.com/susie-guillory-phipps-the-state-of-louisiana-and-the-one-drop-rule/
b) Doe v. State, 479 So. 2d 369 (1985) (find on Lexis or Westlaw, download, bring a paper copy to class)
c) http://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/30/us/suit-on-race-recalls-lines-drawn-under-slavery.html
d) Consider the then-relevant statutory language: La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 42:267 (1970) (repealed by 1983 La. Acts 46):
In signifying race, a person having one-thirty second or less of Negro blood shall not be deemed, described or designated by any public official in the state of Louisiana as "colored," a "mulatto," a "black," a "negro," a "griffe," an "Afro-American," a "quadroon," a "mestizo," a "colored person" or a "person of color."
3) Please type up your answers to the following questions, referencing the assigned reading materials. Be prepared to share your answers with the class and to submit a printed copy of the responses at the close of class 1:
a) What is race?
b) What is racial formation?
c) Consider how the statute applied in the Phipps case is written. What do you observe about the use of words? Why do you think the statute is drafted in the way that it is?
d) Think back to definitions of property from your Property I course. Might Susie Guillory Phipps have been more successful if she had claimed that her whiteness was property? Explain.
e) Do you feel sympathy for Susie Guillory Phipps' claim? Is so, why? If not, why not? Would your answer change if she were raising her claim in 2014?
Class 2
1) Continue discussion from Class 1
2) Please type up your answers to the following questions and be prepared to share your answers with the class and to submit a printed copy of the responses at the close of class Class 2.
a) What is your name?
b) What is your class year?
c) What is your hometown?
d) What is the last book you read for pleasure?
e) What is the last film you viewed for pleasure?
f) What do you hope to get out of taking this course?