Racism In America

Racism in America
"Stranger in the Village" by James Baldwin is a masterpiece that remains relevant to the contemporary world in general and to America in particular. Racism is synonymous with the history of America, although the citizens of the world held their breath as America ushered in Barrack Obama as the first African-American president. It was assumed the Americans had finally given racism a wide berth and that it was setting in of a utopia in racism-free America. This essay asserts the position that the issue of racism is much more complicated and that the election of President Obama was not significant in overcoming the challenge. The paper also demonstrates that the "dawn of a new America" after 2008 was a fallacy and that the issue

Rather, the aftermath of the event only shows ignorance of the American people regarding a problem that silently defines their way of life. The fantasy that America had achieved a milestone by overcoming racism could not have been far from the truth. The fallacy can only qualify for the movie theaters where all that counts is entertaining the audience. Baldwin (389) describes the racism arena as "foolish and dreadful spectacle", to depict the casualness in which Americans treat the issue. The author despises the ignorance in which people hold in the definition of the race relations. The United States of American is not about to overcome the stumbling block, mainly because the public does not acknowledge the magnitude of the issue. Rather the public is dancing on imaginary graves of racism even when the issue suffocates all across the racial spectrum. Although the 2008 Obama victory was a milestone in the history of America, it would be proper to assess the challenge from all perspectives (Hill 32). It was a moment when the American populace went into slumber only to wake up to a harsh reality. Any thinking that America had eventually conquered the racial monster would be tantamount to proclaiming a healing of chronic ailment just because the patient has had what Baldwin describes as "good day" in the park. The

The survey established that that more than 50% of Americans hold negative perceptions towards blacks, and there were a bigger proportion of the Americans who held negative attitudes towards the Hispanics (Biney 67). The statistics were a wake-up call to a nation that is keen to embrace a different route in its demonstration of the progress achieved in its emancipation from racism. The poll revealed what the American media has ignored for long, and it was even more significant to know that less than half of the white Americans voted for Obama. Further interrogation of the findings provided a complex matrix that the history of racism cannot easily explain. The study revealed that more than 40% of the African Americans are anti blacks, and 30% of the white Americans hold negative attitudes towards fellow whites. Overall 88% of the American population holds some form a racial prejudice (Biney 69). It is, therefore, clear that the web of racism is getting more intertwined and America is further from the utopia of a racism-free nation. The findings are self-defeating and expose the contradiction that characterizes the US. The issue of racism in America is therefore much more complicated than any American would admit. The voting and eventual announcement of the results in 2008 was a mere recess before the Americans went back to an issue that they are united to