Great video about the black / white wealth gap...

Check out the video in this article...

http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/12/news/economy/wealth-by-race-pew/

6 Of The Fastest-Growing Jobs In America Pay Low Wages...

Please read these two short articles and respond to them on your blog...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/16/low-wage-occupations-grow_n_7065174.html?utm_hp_ref=money&ir=Money

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/15/we-are-spending-153-billion-a-year-to-subsidize-mcdonalds-and-walmarts-low-wage-workers/

What is class?

Answer the following 3 question on your own blog...

1. Yesterday you completed a KWL chart asking the following questions...

What do you Know - What is “class”?  How many “classes” are there?  The majority of people are what “class”?  What “class” are you?  How are the “classes” different?  What is “class consciousness”?

What do you Want to learn?:  What would you like to know about class and class consciousness?

I would like you to reflect on these questions on your blog as well.

2. Take a look at these definitions...

http://udel.edu/~cmarks/What%20is%20social%20class.htm

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/09/13/where-do-you-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

What do the above links tell you about class? Reflect on your blog.

3. Class structure can be a confusing thing.  People have different ideas of what "class" is and what the class structure of our society is like.  Take a look at these images and graphs.  Each is trying to tell us something about class structure in the United States.  Each has a unique point of view or approach to looking at the issue.  On your own blogs, tell me what you think each image is trying to tell us?  What do you think?  Which is the most interesting or tells you the most?  Which tells you the least...

Residential segregation and Chicago...

I would like to hear your thoughts on this article...

http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/7/71/165325/how-segregated-is-chicago-and-does-it-matter

Reflection on lesson from last Thursday...

If you have not already done so, please take time to reflect on the lesson from last Thursday when we explored in depth the difference between individual prejudice and institutional racism.  
* What did you think of the lesson? 
* What did you learn?  
* What did you think of the examples that I used and and that your fellow students came up with?

How does institutional racism relate to the following concepts...

"White Flight"
Redlining
Blockbusting
Gentrification
The black / white wealth gap

Black, White & Latino Wealth Gap in the United States...

We have talked a lot about the Black, White and Latino wealth gap in the United States.  Remember, this is about net worth NOT just income.  It is a family's total accumulated wealth including things like inherited wealth, the value of their home, etc.  As we have discussed, this single statistics tells us more about the continuing racial divide in our society than any other fact.  In the video series Race the Power of an Illusion, produced in the early 2000s, the Black / White wealth gap was 8 times (the average white family had 8 times the wealth of the average Black family.  I mentioned that the statistic was out of date and that after the great recession which began in 2008, things had gotten worse.  The two articles below illustrate just how much worse the situation has become.

Please read both articles carefully and respond on your own blog.  Try to answer these questions in your posts...

1. Why decades after the success of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's, do we still such a racial divide in America.

2. What do we need to do to try to change this situation?  What type of transformation is needed?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/04/30/179907029/what-do-we-do-about-americas-racial-wealth-gap

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs-between-whites-blacks-hispanics/

Race web activity...

We will be using the following website which is a companion to the video series we are watching.  Go to this link...

http://www.pbs.org/race/001_WhatIsRace/001_00-home.htm

And use the website to answer the questions on this document...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9_FvLqe8tUyVDhIVG1WSWxIalU/view?usp=sharing

Answer on your own blogs.