Thinking About Race

According to Du Bois, one of the ways cultural oppression works is by excluding the voices and contributions of a specific group in the history of a society. The Anti-Defamation League has a group exercise called “name five.” The challenge is to name five prominent individuals in each category: Americans; male Americans; female Americans; African Americans; Hispanic Americans; Asian or Pacific Islander Americans; Native Americans; Jewish Americans; Catholic Americans; pagan Americans; self-identified gay, lesbian, or bisexual Americans; Americans with disabilities; and Americans over the age of 65. For which categories can you name five prominent people? For which can’t you name the five? What does this imply about the way we have constructed history in this country? There you will find a searchable database of over 25,000 people whose lives are deemed important (e.g., www. biography.com). Try each of the categories mentioned above. What did you find? You can summarize your finding in a table with a brief paragraph with your conclusions. (20 points).