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White Cracker

White cracker

"White cracker" or simply "cracker" was originally a pejorative term for a white person, mainly used by blacks in the Southern United States. In recent years (as of 2005), the term has gained some currency as a prideful self-description. With the huge influx of new residents from the North, the term is now used informally by some white residents of Florida and Georgia ("Florida cracker" or "Georgia cracker") to indicate that their family has lived there for many generations. Usage of the term "Cracker" generally differs from Hick and Hillbilly, because Crackers reject or resist assimilation into the dominant culture, while Hicks and Hillbillies theoretically are isolated from the dominant culture. In this way, the Cracker is similar to the Redneck. As an insult, "cracker" was and is typically invoked against a white American, particularly (though not necessarily) lower-income, uneducated rural men in the South, especially in Georgia.

Etymology

There are various theories about the origin of the term "cracker." The term has been traced to the 1760s, when it was used by the Earl of Dartmouth to refer to frontiersmen who were "great boasters." It may be derived from the Gaelic "craic," meaning "entertaining conversation." A folk etymology claims the term cracker originated from piney-woods Georgia and Florida pastoral yeomen's use of whips to drive cattle. The word then came to be associated with the cattlemen of Georgia and Florida. Other theories include references to cracking a whip over oxen when driving cotton to market, the 18th century practice of cracking corn to make liquor, or to poor whites having had to crack their wheat because they couldn't afford to take it to the local mill to have it ground. Others suggest that "cracker" derives from the white overseers who cracked the whip to intimidate black slaves. There may also be another possible origin - the first residents of Georgia were British convicts. In this setting the word takes on an illegal or criminal context. The term was used by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species to refer to "Virginia squatters" (illegal settlers).

Politics

On August 20, 2000, Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge reported that Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager, called George W. Bush a "white cracker" while talking to New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

Pop culture

When used in pop culture, the term "white cracker" or "cracker" is sometimes intended to be humorous, though the distinction is not always clear. An example is found in the popular American satirical cartoon television series South Park. One episode features the character "Chef" (who is black) planning to get married. The white children from the grade school where he works as a cook are at his home, waiting to see him to warn him off the marriage. While they wait on the sofa, Chef's elderly black father, as he is telling them a long-winded story about the Loch Ness Monster, refers to them as "little crackers". Chef also refers to many people in South Park as "crackers" in several other episodes. The rustic lives of crackers were the topic of the novels of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. In the John Boorman film Deliverance, Lewis, played by Burt Reynolds, derisively refers to the rural people they encounter as being "crackers," implying that they were slow-witted hillbillies who lived in a world much different from that of him and his friends from a southern city. In the film O Brother Where Art Thou?, the upper class white character "Pappy" O'Daniel, the Governor of Mississippi and host of the radio show "Flour Hour", meets a lower class and uneducated white character as he arrives at the radio station for his program. Pappy is told that he can make $10 for singing into a can inside, whereupon he snaps, "I'm not here to make a record, you dumb cracker." Before the Milwaukee Braves baseball team moved to Atlanta, the Atlanta minor league baseball team was known as the "Atlanta Crackers." The team existed under this name from 1901 until 1965. They were members of the Southern Association from their inception until 1961, and members of the International League from 1961 until they were moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1965. Ironically, an Atlanta team in Negro League Baseball was known as the Atlanta "Black Crackers." The Florida Cracker Trail is a route posted across southern Florida by the Florida Department of Transportation. According to Latino comedian Carlos Mencia, the ultimate Cracker would be a white american male with his head shaved, a tribal armband tattoo on the right bicep, and a name such as Blake, Chad, or Chet. (However, this sounds more like an urban Skinhead.)

External links

- [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/Folklife/CustomsandLocalTraditions&id=h-552 Cracker] entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia
- [http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/essaysA/cracker.htm Cracker] - essay by Karanja Burke
- [http://www.crackertrail.org/ Florida Cracker Trail Association] category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Social classes

Pejorative

A word or phrase is a pejorative (occasionally misspelled perjorative) if it expresses contempt or disapproval. The adjective pejorative is synonymous with derogatory and dyslogistic (noun: dyslogism) (antonyms: meliorative, eulogistic, noun eulogism). Dyslogisms such as "pea-brain" and "bottom-feeder" are words and phrases essentially pejorative by their nature. Although pejorative (adj.) means much the same thing as disparaging, the latter term may be applied to a look or gesture as well as to spoken language— in the evocative languages of gesture, it is not easy to distinguish a disparaging gesture from a dismissive or merely skeptical one, however. Pejorative expressions that are not dyslogisms may also be used in a non-pejorative way, however, and determining the intent of the speaker is problematic— as with any implied meaning. Conversely, a common rhetorical ploy is to apply "pejorative" to a factual descriptor— as "toxic" might be applied to poison— and then decry it as "pejorative" to suit the agenda of those defending the substance as harmless. Not every breath of criticism is pejorative: a "petty distinction" is indeed a petty distinction: in that case, the defender must demonstrate the authenticity and seriousness of the distinction, which may then be simply recognized as dismissive rather than pejorative. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense. This happened with the terms Quaker, Yankee and Ham radio operator, which were originally slang insults which came to be worn with pride. In other cases, some groups have attempted to reclaim formerly offensive words applied against them, with limited success: when usage of a term like nigger, redneck, "white cracker", dyke, queer, faggot, tranny, pervert, Kraut, geek, chav or cripple by someone outside the group is still considered offensive, that is a sign this process of neutralization is incomplete. British English also incorporates many British regional slurs Conversely, a neutral (non-pejorative) term may grow to become pejorative: the term retard, to refer to a person whose mental capacity is permanently held back from development, was originally used as a euphemism, as had been moron before, itself a euphemism for idiot, in order to avoid true dyslogisms like feebleminded, and half-witted. But it quickly grew to have a pejorative sense of its own. Another example is the use of the word cripple being replaced by handicapped. Both of these are considered pejorative with the term "physically challenged" as the current euphemism. This same progression, from neutral to pejorative, may be happening with the words challenged and special, used in the same sense, today. Language writer Steven Pinker has called this process "the euphemism treadmill." Since meanings change over time, an up-to-date dictionary should be consulted for information on specific words.

Etymology

Unrelated to perjury, pejorative comes from the Latin pejoratus, "made worse," and made a surprisingly late entry in written English, 1882, probably deriving from a contemporary French usage, péjoratif. [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=p&p=8]. It is so frequently misspelled as perjorative that the Oxford English Dictionary [http://www.askoxford.com/ website] contains a FAQ [http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/perjorative entry] about this misspelling.

Blacks

"Black" is a term used as a form of ethno-racial classification. It can either be an ascription placed on multiple peoples based on subjective criteria of what Black is, or it can be adopted as an identity by individuals within the groups in question. The ascribed concept of Black was begun by Europeans attempting to classify peoples around the world, but with time many individuals within these populations have adopted the moniker "Black" to define themselves. Though literally implying dark-skinned, "black" has been used in different ways at different times and places. It is somewhat of a misnomer in various parts of the world. While the extremes of human skin color range from pink to blue-black, all people have some level of the same melanin and medium brown skin tones are predominant around the world. There are three distinct trends in identifying Blacks around the world. That of Eurocentric racialism of the last three centuries, that of Afrocentric racialism that has embraced the European concept and used it a s a sense of uniting pride, and that of those who embrace the terms based on racial beliefs and/or as an ethnic identity. When defining Black people, all three of these trends must be considered.

The epistemological challenge

The concept of a "Black person" (or a "White person") is scientifically useless. This does not mean that the terms are inaccurate, nor that there are no Black people nor White people in the world. It means that the terms cannot be defined objectively so that they can independently be tested. Like aesthetic terms such as beauty and balance, religious terms such as sin and grace, and political terms such as liberal and conservative, they apparently reflect something important in the minds of those who use them. Nevertheless, the claim that any specific individual is Black or White cannot be falsified—there is no way to demonstrate it to be an inaccurate depiction of factual reality. Hence, biology, genetics, physical anthropology, indeed the all of the hard sciences ignore the concepts of Black people and White people; they are as irrelevant to the scientific method as is the transubstantiation of the Eucharist. Those who believe in the physical reality of "Black" as a replicable human category use three kinds of definition to advocate the notion: ancestry, appearance, and self-identity. All three definitions are underlain by a subtext of bigotry resulting from the slave trade and inter-cultural oppression resulting from the age of European colonization. All three are epistemologically untenable. The ancestry definition applies the label to anyone with ancestors who were victims of the African slave, regardless of their appearance and regardless of how they self-identify ethnically. The appearance definition is applied to people who "look Black," whatever their ancestry or self-identity. And the self-identity definition applies to those who express a solidarity with Blackness as an ethno-political group, regardless of both ancestry and appearance. A problem with the ancestry definition is that about one-third of White Americans (non-Hispanics who are members of the U.S. White endogamous group and check off "White" on the census) have easily detectable African DNA from the transatlantic slave trade that they inherited from recent ancestors who passed through the U.S. color line from the Black endogamous group to the White endogamous group. Similarly, about five percent of members of the U.S. Black endogamous group have no detectable African DNA, but self-identify as of African-American ethnicity by choice. A problem with the appearance definition is that it is routinely demonstrated in college cultural anthropology classes that "racial" appearance is in the eye of the beholder. The same individual seen as White by a Dominican can be seen as Black by an American. Furthermore, such perceptions have changed dramatically over the centuries. In the mid-18th-century, Americans saw Germans as being physically too swarthy of complexion to ever pass for White. Similarly, encyclopedias of the time described mid-19th-century Irish immigrants as physically non-White, apelike, evolutionary throwbacks. Conversely, the Mississippi elite of the Jim Crow era saw Chinese immigrants as being physically White. A problem with the self-identity definition is that no human society is monolithic. About 40 percent of Puerto Ricans living in the United States check off "White" on the census, fifty percent check off "other" and fill in something that the Bureau interprets as meaning "White," and ten percent check off "Black." Many individuals around the world choose to self-identify (or not) as "Black" in an ethno-political sense, some in obedience to local political leadership, some in defiance of it. A deeper problem is that many if not most individuals change their ethno-political self-identity over their lifetimes; some do so often. In the Afrocentric/Eurocentric viewpoint, the three components (ancestry, appearance, self-identity) of the definitions of White and Black operate in an exclusionary manner for White (all must match), but in an inclusive manner for Black (any one suffices). In other words, the three criteria operate differently (but complementarily) for White than for Black. To be accepted as White in the Eurocentric/Afrocentric view, one must be of mostly European ancestry and "look White" and self-identify as White. To be accepted as Black in the Eurocentric/Afrocentric view, one must be of some African ancestry or "look Black" or self-identify as Black. Nevertheless, the lack of an objective definition expels the very concepts Black person and White person from the world of physical reality. The terms reflect something in the minds of the users but the terms cannot be unambiguously matched to real-world phenomena. Hence, the following discussion is descriptive, not prescriptive. It adopts a neutral point of view to describe how people use the term. It does not suggest that any particular usage is "better" or "worse" than any other, much less does it suggest that Black people are "better" than White people or vice-versa.

A brief history of the concept of Blackness

Since the dawn of recorded history humans have tried to classify each other with various descriptive names in an attempt to organize their environment. The early Greeks and Romans called various dark skinned peoples by various names: Aethiops, referring to their burnt colored skin. Melanogaetulians were dark skinned people in the north, Even the Leukaethiops which meant light burnt faces. On the West side of Africa, the Nigritae were named not for their color but for their proximity to a river. The Berber named Gher-n-gher, or River of Rivers. The Romans Latinized the Berber name to Niger or Nigris. And the people who lived around it as the Nigritae. The dark waters of the Niger and dark skin of the Nigritae would become synonymous would dark colors and the term Niger to refer to dark colored would evolve and the word Negro would evolve to describe these people. Negro would eventually also mean Black colored. And this term was applied to multiple peoples around the world that would subsequently be called Black as well.

Black populations by self-identification

Work in progress African Populations also have sub populations that identify as Black since colonial times and also with the advent of Pan-Africanism. In Niger-Congo populations, where the term was first imposed, the term black is used to refer to themselves by many, but less among tribal groups. Nilo-Saharan populations and Cushitic populations have some populations that do identify as Black and others who don't. Afro-Diasporic Cultures vary depending on the culture they live in. In the Carribean some Afro-Diasporic populations in the Carribbean have adopted the term black, but others feel this term refers to Afro-Americans and not to them. The Afro-American population has fully embraced the term Black to refer to their ethnicity. Afro-Latinos vary by country, and many call themselves negros as well. In Australia, the Aborigines or Indigenous Australians also were imposed the term black by the English, and by and large, refer to themselves as Black as well. In India, the Siddi are a Afro-Diasporic people that may have groups that have embraced the name of Black, but no literature yet to show it. The Dalits in India, have suffered the most opression in history. In the Dalit (outcaste) class, and many have looked to the American civil rights movement for inspiration. Some Afrocentrics have been very pro-active in creating a mutual bond with these populations considering them Blacks as well. Runoko Rashidi, who has been to India three times, [http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/afrodalit.htm]was contrite about the way he represents Dalits in the U.S. "I feel bad about it. I oversimplified to make it palatable to a Black constituency." I’ve given the impression that Dalits are Black people. Dalits, I now find, are a social and economic group, more than a racial group.” Nevertheless, Rashidi holds that “large sections of the Dalits would be seen as Black people if they lived anywhere else” and that the connections between Africans and Dalits “go beyond phenotype.” Many have adopted the Afrocentric beliefs that they are African, and have formed organizations like the Dalit Panthers emulating the Black Panther Party of the USA.
Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism compared and contrasted
In the Eurocentric trend, the term "Negro" originally denoted the Niger-Congo speaking peoples of equatorial Africa. Then the usage would spread to the Nilo-Saharan and Cushitic speaking peoples of East Africa and would eventually spread to mean anyone that they felt resembled these people. Thus many other peoples in Asia were also called Negros or in some cases Negritos. When the English adopted the term and translated it to Black they applied the term even more liberally to peoples around the world including peoples from India, Australia, Melanesia and even Native Americans at different points in history. None of those people at the time considered themselves part of a global "racial" group. When early anthropologists tried to categorize humans into "races," these same lines were followed citing cranial and other anthropometric similarities along with skin color. Genetics has thoroughly discredited this crude approach and that of categorizing separate peoples into mega groups. But with colonialism many individuals within these groups adopted the early terms to refer to themselves and their groups. As Eurocentrism weakened, many populations sought to overcome the stigmas imposed by centuries of colonialism. One approach, called Afrocentrism, seeks to take the stigmas and spin them into a positive light. Afrocentrists do not refute racialism, but instead seek to use it in a way that shows those referred to as "Black" by Eurocentrists and Afrocentrists were actually a global community and that the achievements of these multiple groups not only have been underrepresented, but that those achievements are a credit to the global Black population. In seeking to enlarge this Black sense they have gone seeking even more people to categorize as "Black." As with early Eurocentrism, some of the peoples thus categorized by Afrocentrism have embraced this foreign concept and others have not. Not all of those who call themselves "Black" subscribe to a Global Black sense of identity, and some just call themselves "Black" in a local ethnic sense. In the various definitions of "Black" today, Eurocentrism categorizes Niger-Congo and Nilotic African, Australian, Melanesian Aboriginal, Negrito, and Indian populations and their descendants as Black. Some, like Australian Aborigines, many African populations, and the Afro Diasporic populations through out the Western world have adopted this moniker. Afrocentrism has also promoted these names, but as indications of a global Black community and has actively recruited among other populations in Native American history, as well as aboriginal populations through out Asia. Some oppressed groups, empathizing with the Civil rights movement of Blacks in America have adopted the moniker as a sense of solidarity, as in the case of some of the Dalits of India. It is well known that equatorial populations of Africa, where modern humans likely originated, are the most genetically diverse in the world [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60970-2001Sep8?language=printer]. Afrocentrism believes that this explains the variability of phenotypes among the world's diverse so-called Black groups. As they see it, although there is no single black phenotype, black people generally exhibit varying characteristics of what they call Negroid, Veddoid, Capoid, or Australoid phenotypes, with a great range of variations, due to the overall diversities of black people. (The terms themselves are obsolete categories of human variation, no longer used by physical anthropologists or geneticists because they cannot be falsified—see "The Epistemological Challenge," above.) In the USA, Eurocentrism developed beliefs of hypodecent and one-droppism where people with any amount of ancestry from any of the groups believed as Black would be considered Black as well, thus increasing significantly the parameters of what phenotypes fall as Black. Afrocentrism co-opts these expanded parameters to define Blackness around the world. In other places, like South Africa and the antebellum lower South, admixture produced new populations with their own identity instead of Black, such as Creoles, Coloured, etc. In the United States of the Jim Crow era those populations split between families that were accepted as White and those absorbed into the Black identity and the various ethnic groups now using the term themselves.
Regions affected by Eurocentrism/Afrocentrism
So-called black people are found in various regions based on which group is defining blackness. Eurocentrists and Afrocentrists define a huge variety of groups as Black; Self identified groups exist in parts Africa, the Americas, Australia, and even in some populations in India. Afrocentrists and Eurocentrists believe that Black people are found on every continent, and are indigenous to Africa, Australia, and parts of India and Southern Asia. The belief continues that although originally indigenous to North Africa as well, centuries of intermarriage with Asiatic and Caucasoid peoples have produced populations who exhibit varying degrees of black ancestry, but who currently do not refer to themselves as black. But many people of Africa and other parts of the world with African descent may not see themselves as Black and not believe in Afrocentric racial beliefs or identify with a pan-africanist global Black identity. The Black identity varies by peoples and region. In the Western Hemisphere, self identifying black people are found in high concentrations in the urban regions of the United States and the Bible Belt region of the Southern United States, the Caribbean and sizeable portions of Latin America, including Belize, Panama, with Brazil having the highest proportion (and overall number) of black people in the West. Nevertheless, many individuals in these populations do not consider themselves to be black despite their acknowledging considerable African descent. Therefore, there is contention with both Eurocentrists and Afrocentrists over their identity. People of recent African descent can be found in Yemen, some areas of Iraq (especially Basra. And on the North West Side of India, such as the small group of 20-30,000 Siddis in the Gujarat province of India, the Kaffiri of the island of Sri Lanka, and small communities of Sheedis in the coastal districts of the southern province of Sindh and neighboring Baluchistan. Thousands of Sheedis also inhabit Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. Some individuals of these populations do identify as Black. Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism have also claimed much of Nepal (especially Rana Tharu), the Andaman Islands ( Negritos ), the indigenous Dalit population of India (numbering 160 million) and the larger Dravidian population of India (though most do not consider themselves black), because they "look Black," despite lacking recent genetic connection to Africa. Some Dalits have adopted this belief). Other groups claimed are the indigenous people of the island of Papua , Aboriginals and Melanesians that inhabit various islands of the Pacific Rim. Other African groups claimed are afro-Jewish cultures in East India (see Bene Israel), Ethiopia.
Afrocentric and Eurocentric views of human origins
We do not know what skin tone our earliest ancestors had, but based on our oldest relatives in the KhoiSan populations, we can deduce that they were of light-brown skin tone. Brown skinned humans have existed as the default human type as far back as the human species (homo-sapiens) is known to exist. Afrocentrists claim that: 1) from 1.2 million years ago for a million years, the ancestors of all people alive today were as black as today's West Africans and 2) the descendants of people who migrate North from Africa will mutate to become white over time because the evolutionary constraint that keeps Africans' skin black generation after generation decreases generally the further North a people migrates (Rogers 2004). In fact, almost everyone on the planet is some shade of brown. The world-unique pale complexion and melanin-deficient hair common to Nordic adults is the exception. This phenomenon's cline is densest within a few hundred miles of the Baltic Sea and, unlike other Old World skin-tone distributions, is independent of latitude (the natives of lands at higher latitudes than the Baltic are invariably darker than Nordics). Mainstream scientists can only speculate on ancient hominid skin tone, but believe that the skin of early H. sapiens was probably of medium tone as of the KhoiSan, and with time some populations got darker through selective environmental processes, and other got lighter through different processes. See Human_skin_color for an overall explanation of skin-tone distribution. See [http://backintyme.com/Essay021215.htm The Paleo-Etiology of Human Skin Tone] for an explanation of the near-albino paleness of Nordics and the lack of variation in Native Americans. Africans are believed to have expanded from Africa in two, possibly three distinct groups, the older Aboriginal Australians and smaller Negrito populations and recent Nilotic and Niger Congo population types. According to current thinking, H. sapiens evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago. They spread throughout Africa, and a small band crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb about 70,000 years ago. Their descendants colonized the rest of the planet. Those who remained retained their distinctive skin color or got darker, while over time, some Eurasian populations got lighter. The unique Nordic adaptation took place much later, about 5,500 years ago, and only within a few hundred miles of the Baltic Sea. The very dark skin tone of the Bantu-speaking peoples may be equally recent. Others, in India, and across the southern areas of Asia either retained or independently developed dark brown complexion. They also have other features that Eurocentrists and Afrocentrists agree make them "look Black." Early Neolithic settlement patterns indicate that descendants of these early migrations spread out to inhabit much of the Indian Ocean coastline, contributing greatly to the Indian-Ocean cultures of the early historical period. Eurocentrists and Afrocentrists identify these people as Black and believe the societies of the Indus Valley Civilization, Indonesia, and the Middle East have Black heritage. Afrocentrists believe that prehistoric black Africans (however defined) were in fact present in Asia. Mainstream scientists disagree and point out to those early migrations of people who looked like Aborigines and KhoiSan, and not Black. Of course some of these peoples have adopted the term Black to define themselves. But even this does not mean they identify with today's Africans. Modern anthropologists note these aboriginal populations have ranged throughout Southeast Asia. Some of these populations, such as the Negritos still remain. As the legacy of both the trans-Atlantic and Islamic slave trades, many people of indigenous African descent can be found throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, as well as parts of the Middle East and South Asia. Some Afrocentrists claim that Africans may have already been in the Western Hemisphere before Columbus. They base their claims on the faces of sculptures such as the Olmecs and certain indigenous groups. On the other hand, geneticists have found no link between Native populations such as the Olmecs and Africans. Indeed, DNA studies have persuasively shown that Native Americans descend from Mongolian mammoth-hunters who crossed Beringia shortly before the end of the last glaciation (about 20 kya), and this is the current scientific consensus. The majority of African slaves in the Americas came from either West Africa or Central Africa, and the slaves in the Arab world came from both East Africa and the Horn of Africa. Afrocentrists and Eurocentrists claim the Negrito, Australoid and Melanesian populations as well. These include some South Asians, a variety of East Indians, and Melanesian populations of the Pacific Ocean. These populations are distinct from Africans but show genetic similarities to the Khoisan and pygmy populations of Africa. Eurocentrists have claimed that variations of people outside of West Africa are due to different degrees of intermixing among Negroid, Caucasoid and Sinoid people. (Again, these terms have no meaning in anthopology today.) Afrocentrists, on the other hand, believe that human variations do not spring from intermixing but from environmental adaptations. The latter (Afrocentrist) belief is more correct, given that everyone is of 100 percent African ancestry (from the band that crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb about 70,000 years ago). Nevertheless, genetic admixture and inter-population gene flow have been remarkably constant and of large volume throughout the past. Genetic studies have shown admixture on the East side of Africa between Eurasian populations, KhoiSan, and even back migrations from India. Thus admixture is still considered at least partially a factor in Nilotic features.
Defining characteristics of black people
Throughout the Modern Period, blackness as a belief of racialism has been determined mostly by three criteria: Skin color, faciocranial phenotype and sometimes hair texture. On other places hypo descent beliefs and/or ethnic identification have led to blackness based more on lineage than complexion. Very light-skinned individuals may consider themselves black, and very dark-skinned people may not. Often, the perceptions of society and of the individual will conflict. In Brazil, Mauritania, the U.S., Sudan, Cuba, and parts of India, these issues remain unresolved. Due to the lasting legacy of colonization, the definition of 'black' is often imposed on black people by a non-black government or ruling class. In these situations, the definition will either be embraced or rejected by the people in question, depending on their perceptions of their heritage, again often reflecting the sentiments of the surrounding society in which they live.
Varying definitions of the term "black"
The definition of a black person changes from region to region and period to period. Often it is imposed at the convenience of the non-black ruling establishment of that nation or region. In other cases, as in Brazil, the name is synonymous with low social status. The use of the term "black" is divided into four sections. #Africans living in Africa who have adopted the term black from colonialism(excluding those whose ancestors were not originally from Africa, like Afrikaners). Many populations have not adopted the concept of Black to describe themselves, but with the growth of Pan-Africanism, many groups have adopted a sense of Blackness as equated to being African. #People claimed by Afrocentrists and/or Eurocentrists whose ancestors have lived outside of Africa since historical antiquity. The various "Black-looking" Asians fit this category. Blackness has been used to describe Aeta Filipinos, the original inhabitants of Taiwan, large groups of East Indian populations throughout history and various southeast Asians, Papuans, and Melanesians. Their experiences range widely and there is relatively less information regarding their self-perception in relationship to other people who see themselves as Black throughout the world, as they have had little contact with African and black people of the western hemisphere. #Those who live in Latin America and in some islands of the Caribbean. Their relationship to Spain and Portugal create a distinct heritage. Their self perception is usually tied to their skin color and less to a sense of family heritage. Often those who are lighter skinned see themselves as non-black, even as other relatives in their family (even siblings) label themselves black. #Those who live in the United States, Jamaica and South Africa. These groups share a similar and unique experience of being ruled by English speaking colonizers and were legally separated into two groups blacks and coloreds. But with hypo descent beliefs and one drop rules incorporated many associate their blackness more with their descent than literal skin color, partially due to the one drop rule, and also to a moral stand against racism and discrimination.
Self-identified and imposed blackness
There are two ways that a person can be defined as a black person. There is the imposed method, whereby political and social forces will label a darker skinned person as black. This has occurred in India, the islands, the Western Hemisphere, and throughout Africa. This method has been used to divide ethnic groups as well as to create a caste system of privilege and control in many colonized areas. The second, the intrinsic method, is where a person or group of people independently identify themselves as being black; African Americans have adopted and accept the concept of Black to describe themselves. Family ties, the importance of solidarity against anti-black racism, resistance to colonialism, and opposition to perceived white supremacy or Eurocentric philosophies motivate people with varying degrees of Niger-Congo and Nilotic lineage to identify solely as black. Since the 1940s, with the established viewpoint in the Western world shifting, many groups once considered "black" by colonizing powers; even as recently as a century; have now lost that identity in official policies, e.g. national census reports, established anthropological studies, historical and archaeological reports. In the United States, black people of mixed race groups had for the most part reintegrated with the fully black population, but recently, due to a new movement to recognize biracial children of black/white couples, the division of black and biracial people has been re-introduced into America's social identity. The one-drop rule and hypodescent have been weakening, and like other cultures, Americans are becoming more willing identify with all their ancestries. As modern communication develops around the world, most of the varieties of black people have become aware of each other, and many self-identified black people (especially in the United States) are working to change the sometimes negative perception of non-European looks, culture, and heritage in order to increase the political, economic, and social well-being of black people around the world. Many also approach this role with an Afrocentric approach which seeks to uplift Black identified people by reversing the stigmas and identities placed on them through Eurocentrism instead of combating the identities themselves. Since the nuances of black identity have changed outside of the US, this message is received differently by the various groups in the world. Many modern societies attempt to observe no distinctions between human races or identities; others do exactly the opposite. Sometimes, those who have the core characteristics of dark skin and phenotype exclude those who lack it, even though both share ancestors and/or historical experiences. Some countries, like Brazil, have always celebrated their African heritage, while other countries like Egypt and the northern areas of Sudan tend to denounce it entirely whenever possible, holding on to Arabic or Semitic influences as their primary heritage. Arabization has been a major imposition on the native Africans of various areas of Africa throughout the 2nd millennium, affecting African identity even to the present day. The Caucasus peoples of Abidjan, and Crimea are sometimes called black because, relatively speaking, they are darker and less European in their appearance. The term has been used also to describe Southern Italians and some Arabs, almost always pejoratively, as these groups resent being labeled as black.
20th/21st century controversies
There is a discontinuity between older historical accounts describing African people, and modern scholarly consensus. Many archaic literary accounts, including the Bible, supposedly describe black people in Hebrew according to the centrists. However, scholarship took a brief paradigm shift in the late 20th century, with some indicating that Kushites and Ethiopians were in fact not Black, but merely dark skinned or tanned Caucasians. Due to vague similarity in skull shapes with other Caucasoid types. and instead insisted that Kushite described a dark-skinned but non-black person. Usually, East Africans from as far north as Egypt to as far south as Rwanda were variously recast by modern scholarship as non-black Caucasoids, whose heritage was not truly connected to the greater populations of Africa. Currently, the mainstream scientific belief is that admixture and population adaptations have led to clines where populations slowly vary from one group to another such that there are no set divisions in these populations. East Africans are as closely related to people of the Middle East as to their neighbors to the west.
See also

- African diaspora
- Colored people in the United States
- Coloured people of South Africa
- Creole
- Race
- Race and Intelligence
- Racial segregation
- Negrito
- Negro
- Nilotic
- White (people)
Groups

- African American
- Afro-Argentinian
- Afro-Brazilian
- Afro-Cuban
- Afro-Ecuadorian
- Afro-Latin American
- Afro-Mexican
- Afro-Peruvian
- Afro-Trinidadian
- African American culture
- African American music
- Black British
- Black Canadian
External links

- [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html PBS Africans in America series]
- [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0009/feature3/zoom3.html National Geographic pictures of the Rana Tharu of Nepal]
- [http://www.jphpk.gov.my/English/May04%2012.htm Sheedi people of India and Pakistan]
- [http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/people/siddi.htm Siddi people of India]
- [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4271003 Black Iraqis and African heritage in an Islamic State.]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1077982.stm India's Lost Africans] BBC News of African oriented people in east India and Pakistan
- [http://www.saxakali.com/caribbean/ Various works describing the complex relations between East Indians, Blacks, and Latinos across the Caribbean.]
- [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0607_wiregullah.html Gullah culture of South Carolina.]
- [http://www.catchpenny.org/race.html What race were the ancient Egyptians?]
- [http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/race.htm Egypt–the world's first melting pot]
Historical links
Category:Ethnic groups

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded¹ from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

As of 2005

2005

Florida

Florida is a Southern state in the United States, situated upon a large peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. "Florida" is a Spanish adjective which means "flowery." The peninsula was discovered and settled by Juan Ponce de León on Easter Sunday, March 27, 1513, which is known as Pascua Florida in Spanish. Its U.S. Postal abbreviation is FL while its traditional abbreviation is Fla.

History

1513 Archaeological finds indicate that Florida had been inhabited for many thousands of years prior to any European settlements. Of the many indigenous people, the largest tribes were the Calusa, Tequesta, Timucuan, and the Tocobago tribes. Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish navigator, named this new land in honor of his discovery of the land on Easter Sunday, March 27, 1513, which is called by Spaniards Pascua Florida, "Holy Day of Flowers." From that date forward, the land became known as "La Florida." Over the following century, the Spanish and French both established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success. Spanish Pensacola was established by Don Tristan de Luna as the first European settlement in the current United States in 1559 (its settlement was interrupted by a hurricane). Six years later, in 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés established Saint Augustine as the first permanent European settlement. These two cities would come to be the capitals of the British and Spanish colonies of East and West Florida. The area of Florida diminished with the establishment of British colonies to the north and French colonies to the west. Control of parts of Florida passed among Spanish, British, and American control. Spain finally ceded Florida to the United States with the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819, in exchange for the U.S. renouncing any claims on Texas. On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States of America. Florida seceded from the Union on January 10, 1861 and was one of the founding members of the Confederate States of America (CSA, also known as the Confederacy). Florida joined the CSA on February 10, 1861. After the fall of the Confederacy in 1865, Florida was readmitted into the Union on June 25, 1868. Until the mid-twentieth century, Florida was the least populous Southern state. However, migration from the Rust Belt combined with Florida's warm climate made it a haven for newcomers. Today, Florida is the second most populous state in the South (behind Texas and the fourth most populous state in the United States. The USS Florida was named in honor of this state.

Law and government

USS Florida The basic structure, duties, function, and operations of the Government of the State of Florida are defined and established by the Florida Constitution, which also establishes the basic law of the state and guarantees various rights and freedoms of the people. The state government consists of three separate branches, the judicial, executive and legislative. The Florida Legislature enacts legislation, such as those in the Florida Statutes, which are signed into law by the Governor of Florida. The Florida Legislature has a Senate of 40 members and a House of 120 members. The current governor is