公民権運動 — American Culture

『アメリカ黒人史─奴隷制から BLM まで』(ちくま新書)

ジェームス・M・バーダマン(著)、森本豊富(訳)

アメリカの成り立ち、そして世界で起きている人種差別や民族問題への理解を深めるために─

アメリカ黒人の400年にわたるたたかいの歴史です。

2020年12月9日発売です。Click to view on Amazon

【試し読み】
『webちくま』に「はじめに」が公開されました。記事はこちら

Comments from James M. Vardaman:

The first version of this book--now titled Black American History: From Slavery to BLM--covered politics, economics, culture, music, and laws that evolved over four centuries through the early presidency of Barack Obama.

This new edition, stimulated in part by the murder of George Floyd, brings us to the election of Biden and Harris, with special attention to the issues of systemic racism that have stimulated broad support for Black Lives Matter.

Intended for the Japanese reading public, this book covers what the Japanese media does not report on and what Japanese people are, in general, unaware of. It attempts to explain why there are protests and demonstrations, how hard it is to be black in America, and why everyone needs to become active.

公民権運動の時代と現在を比べた場合、黒人差別・人種差別の勢いが強いのはどちらか？一般的には黒人差別が少なくなったと思う。

公民権運動のおかげで、進歩は明らかだと思います。ただ、諸民族がみんな平等な立場になったということではない。黒人、白人、中国系、中近東系の人の中では、幅があります。先のラストベルトの失業した白人、金融界でぼろ儲けの白人、様々な人がいます。黒人の中でも同様で成功した黒人企業家もいる。この幅が広くなって下層が増えて、トップがぼろ儲けだ。皮膚の色はそれほど関係ありません。

Compared with the period of the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968), racial discrimination as a whole has weakened. Discrimination was extremely widespread and violent then; now it still exists, but it is not as strong among the general public.

I believe that there has been clear progress as a result of the movement, but that does not mean that all minorities stand on an equal footing. There is considerable difference between blacks, whites, Chinese-Americans, and people of Mid-East origins. There is a huge gap between whites in the Rust Belt who have lost their jobs and whites in the financial world who are making enormous sums of money. There is a similar gap between successful black entrepreneurs and black laborers who cannot find a job. There is an overall gap between whites and blacks, but there is a huge gap within each group respectively.