African-Americans and Political Participation
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In the 1960s, the American civil rights movement culminated with historic victories as Congress enacted legislation that evened the playing field between the races. In the decades that have followed, African Americans as a whole have made significant strides towards bridging the economic status and political participation gaps that separate the two races. Political participation is key to the functioning of a democracy, and Blacks as a whole have become increasingly active in the political arena. However, within the Black community there continues to be a gap between the political participation of men and women. African-American women have to overcome two social stigmas. They are black, in a country that to this day discriminates on the basis of race, and they are women, in a country that to this day includes a glass-ceiling. It is thus not surprising that black women have tended to be underrepresented at all levels of government and that tend to abstain from voting. This paper will analyze the participation of African American women in the American political process. We will see that their participation lags well behind that of Black men despite the significant advances made by African Americans over the past several decades. However, while their participation in political work has lagged behind, black women are more likely to vote than black men. The latter part of this paper will explore some potential reasons for this dichotomy, chief among them being the econ
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ican population. What is interesting, however, is the dichotomy between the voting rates of black men and women and their participation in the political process. As we have seen, African American women are less likely to participate in the political processłto run for office, to work in the field of politics, and to campaign for candidatesłthan African American men. There are a slew of potential reasons for this dichotomy, however.
What are the causes for this inequality? One of them appears to be economic: the history of black economic inequality is very much a story about genderłalthough gender has not received nearly as much systematic analysis as it deserves" (Katz, 77). Studies have shown that social and economic distress has "pulled black civic activity downward more consistently than measures of political empowerment pushed them upward." This suggests that "rising inequality within the black population diminishes the capacity of black civic organizations to coordinate mobilization across class lines, pushing aggregate levels of black civic activity in a negative direction" (Harris, 1160).
National government statistics would seem to bear this out. Black women are far more likely to live in poverty than black m
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Approximate Word count = 1676
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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