The Issue of Overcoming Racial Inequality in the United States

2642 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: racial inequality in today's society

The label of inferiority poses immense challenges on the structure of a society. Branding a group of people as “savages” creates divisions in society that drastically affects how individuals are supposed to interact with these “inferiors.” It makes you think of someone who is uneducated or unsocialized, one who is not granted full rights and privileges. Other words that might have the same the sort of connotation for many in the United States today are “alien,” “immigrant worker,” or “illegal immigrant.” For immigrants who arrive on the shores of America for opportunity, a bleaker outlook has to be realized due to the constant threat of deportation. This creates an environment where immigrants working as “undocumented workers” can be exploited by those who are looking to make a turn a profit using cheap labor. Historically U.S. American society has institutionalized types of people as based on their physiognomy and an Anglo-American interpretation of a foreign society. Democracy in the United States as recalled in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is a “…government of the people by the people for the people…” (Lincoln). But who is actually granted the privileges of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and who is subjected to inferior treatment (US Declaration Ind.)? Just the color of one’s skin could grant a state of opportunity or a state of slavery. The racism that exists against black people, Native Americans, or illegal immigrants might appear absurd to some, but assigning people to a lower social class based on race has had a profound impact on the history of our nation.

Shaping society in the U.S. was a complicated process that involves many ideas that cannot be understood without invoking sociological theories and reco...

... middle of paper ...

...thology of Writings, 1760s-1930s. Norman, OK:University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. Print.
Ripley, C. Peter. The Black Abolitionist Papers. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 15 Oct. 2013.
“Slaves and Slavery." The United States Magazine, and Democratic Review (1837-1851) 10 1846: 243. ProQuest. Web. 24 Sep. 2013.
The Holy Bible: King James Version. Biblehub.com. Web. 23 Sep. 2013.
Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Trans. Mansfield and Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Print.
Turner, Nat. “The Confessions of Nat Turner.” Project Gutenberg, 12 March 2005. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.
United States Census Bureau. 1860 Census. Washington: GPO, 1864. Web. 24 Sep. 2013.
Whipper, William. “Non-Resistance to Offensive Aggression.” The Colored American. Sep. 1837. Print. Blackpast.org. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Slavery's Constitution By David Waldstreicher

    732 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slavery’s Constitution by David Waldstreicher can be identified as a very important piece of political analytical literature as it was the first book to recognize slavery 's place at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. Waldstreicher successfully highlights a number of silences which most of the general public are unaware of, for example, the lack of the word “slavery” in the Constitution of the United States of America. Also, the overwhelming presence and lack of explicit mention of the debate of slavery during the construction of the document.

    Read More

  • The Fires of Jubilee: How Reliable is It?

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    Greenberg, Kenneth S. ed., The Confessions of Nat Turner and Related Documents. New York: Bedford Books, 1996.

    Read More

  • Slavery In Woody Holton's Black Americans In The Revolutionary Era

    1667 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are many contradictions pertaining to slavery, which lasted for approximately 245 years. In Woody Holton’s “Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era”, Holton points out the multiple instances where one would find discrepancies that lie in the interests of slaveowners, noble figures, and slaves that lived throughout the United States. Holton exemplifies this hostility in forms of documents that further specify and support his claim.

    Read More

  • Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    Democracy in America has been a guiding principle since the foundation of the country. Many over the years have commented on the structure and formation of democracy but more importantly the implementation and daily function within the democratic parameters that have been set. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian born July 29, 1805. He is most famously known for his work Democracy in America. Democracy in America has been an evolving social and economic reform, and has continually changed since it’s founding.

    Read More

  • The Hypocrisy of American Slavery, Through the Eyes of Frederick Douglass

    1599 Words  | 4 Pages

    Douglass, Frederick. “American Slavery.” Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England. 22 May 1846. Report of a Public Meeting. Retrieved from http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.uky.edu/sas/infomark.do. Speech.

    Read More

  • Freedom for African Americans in Democracy in the America by Alexis de Tocqueville

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bracey, Meier, and Elliot Rudwick. Free Blacks in America, 1800-1860. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1971.

    Read More

  • The Fundamental Diffferences Between The Black Abolitionists And The White Abolitionists Movements

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lawrence J. Friedman: Gregarious Saints: Self and Community in American Abolitionists, 1830-1870. Cambridge, Mass., 1982.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Many Thousands Gone

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998.

    Read More

  • Racial Challenges During The Progressive Era

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    In an era of addressing social issues and inequality, many African Americans were segregated and divided; they fought for justice but racial tensions still formed. The Progressive Era: a time of major movements of the American population. During the decades between the 1890s and 1920, Americans were faced with many challenges and in turn, they entered a modern era of change. The states and cities were experiencing a newly diverse and urban society. There were new technological advances and industrial economics were growing rapidly since the Civil War. Although, not all innovations made during this time were beneficial. With the large innovations in society and the progressive mindsets, the lives of African Americans dramatically changed. The

    Read More

  • New York City Draft Riots

    1762 Words  | 4 Pages

    Harris, Leslie M. “In The Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. New York: University of Chicago Press, 2003. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/317749.html

    Read More

  • Life in Early America

    1243 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ave Exposes Slavery,” in Kennedy, David M. and Thomas A. Bailey. The American Spirit: United States History as Seen by Contemporaries. Vol. I: To 1877. Eleventh Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

    Read More

  • Alexis De Tocqueville's Democracy In America

    1643 Words  | 4 Pages

    Democracy, the form of government that is emerging exponentially around the globe, does not, to the bewilderment of many, protect against tyranny (252). This notion echoes throughout Alexis de Tocqueville’s two-volume work, Democracy in America. Tocqueville is careful to explain that there is no perfect government. Consequently, the strength of freedom associated with democracy can easily be displaced; such power can be usurped by an unkind and unjust majority, resulting in tyranny, not the liberty desired by the people. While Tocqueville’s thoughts regarding this concept are flawlessly articulated, they wavered to a small effect. The tyranny Tocqueville imagines initially, the vision of despotism he concludes with, and the shift that

    Read More

  • The Central Theme of Southern History by Ulrich B. Phillips

    1616 Words  | 4 Pages

    Writing around the same time period as Phillips, though from the obverse vantage, was Richard Wright. Wright’s essay, “The Inheritors of Slavery,” was not presented at the American Historical Society’s annual meeting. His piece is not festooned with foot-notes or carefully sourced. It was written only about a decade after Phillips’s, and meant to be published as a complement to a series of Farm Credit Administration photographs of black Americans. Wright was not an academic writing for an audience of his peers; he was a novelist acceding to a request from a publisher. His essay is naturally of a more literary bent than Phillips’s, and, because he was a black man writing ...

    Read More

  • Biography of Frederick Douglass

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.

    Read More

  • Slavery and Abolition

    1581 Words  | 4 Pages

    Knowles, H. J. (2007). The Constitution and Slavery: A Special Relationship. Slavery & Abolition, 28(3), 309-328. doi:10.1080/01440390701685514

    Read More

More about The Issue of Overcoming Racial Inequality in the United States

Open Document