Dr. West Racism In America

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Racism is the belief that some races are more superior than others due to the specific characteristics or abilities possessed by a race. This social phenomenon has been part of America since the European colonization in the 17th century. Racism ranges from dislike and avoidance of particular racial groups, to discrimination in employment, to violent and aggressive acts taken against and specific race. Racism manifests itself in discriminatory laws, social practices, and criminal behavior directed toward a target group considered a minority. These minorities included: Native-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Muslims, and the most common of them all; racism against African-Americans. Racism is influenced due to sociocultural factors, …show more content…

Dr. West talks about how white people from European descent believe that they are the founders of the United States, when in fact it was the African-Americans who have been living in the United States since many generations that built communities, society, and the United States as a whole. Yet people still want to place African-American people in an inferior level, but as Dr. West states “we must acknowledge that as people-E Pluribus Unum-we are on a slippery slope toward economic strife, social turmoil, and cultural chaos” (West 8). E Pluribus Unum is the motto of the United States, a motto that went from the meaning out of many states one nation to, out of many peoples, races, religions, languages, and ancestries has emerged a single people and nation; but America is not and will never be one if there is racism. Black-on-black prejudice exists as well. African-American people despise other people from their own race because of what they had been thought about by their own race by white supremacists. According to The Mis-education of the Negro, a book written by Carter Godwin Woodson it is stated that “as a rule, therefore, the “educated Negro” prefers to buy his food off of a white grocer because he has been thought that the Negro is not clean” (Woodson 5). Society has built up to the point in which no matter how many times the black person washes his hands he will still be perceived as dirty, even by his own race, because of their characterization in

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