Every country has its own unique culture and history. I believe that each individual gets part of their identity, along with physical traits, from their heritage. Having dual citizenship has been a big contribution to how my life has turned out to be. My father is a white male from the United States, where as my mother is Argentinean. Each of them grew up with completely different lifestyles and both also experienced living in each other’s country. Structural racism is system used in society that produces inequalities based on race in institutions and the social realm (Wikipedia 2013). Being the daughter of parents from different countries has led me to the conclusion that my family has been both advantaged and disadvantaged to structural racism. I as well have personally experienced both advantages and disadvantages of structural racism.
First I’d like to explain my father’s side of structural racism. My father being a white male and from the United States has already given him a greater advantage in life than others. My father did not grow up wealthy compared to other white families, but compared to other race families my father was better off. White privilege did play an important role in my father’s life. White privilege is where immunities and rules are granted in favor of one being white (Schaffer 2012: 38). My father grew up in a decent neighborhood, went to good schools, and participated in extracurricular activities. My father was able to fool around and skip school in high school without having a fear of getting into too much trouble. My father also had the opportunity to get a higher education and attend college. He was able to obtain jobs quite easily and was never given any issues based on his race. My father ex...
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...the opportunity to have advantages, but I do feel like it is not fair that other people who are mixed do not receive the same advantages as me because they actually look like their heritage. I do not want to be given special treatment compared to others. That is just how I am. I would rather be treated equally than any other person. No one can help where they come from but society can help how one’s backgrounds are treated. I think society needs to reevaluate their ways and try to really change to make social equality among races. As you can see I have been given advantages and disadvantages based on structural racism.
Works Cited
Schaefer, Richard T. Racial and Ethnic Groups 13th. Ed. Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.
Wikipedia contributors. "Institutional racism." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 6 Oct. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013
Institutional racism, maintains the unequal outcomes in the criminal justice system result from the practice, resides in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions – reinforcing individual prejudices and being reinforced by them in turn’(Sveinsson, n.d.). This approach was generated by the Macpherson report, Stephen Lawrence, a young black
Next, Institutional or systemic racism refers to the laws, policies, practices, rules and procedures that operate within organisations, societal structures and the broader community to the advantage of the dominant group or groups and to the detriment and disadvantage of other groups. Institutional racism may be intentional or unintentional. Jim Crowe is a great example of institutional racism. Jim Crow laws were the name of the racist caste system put in place to segregate African Americans, Hispanics and any ethnic minority. Theses laws made it so non whites could not integrate with minorities. These laws applied to hospitals, buses, toilets and drinking fountains and restaurants. For example Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated
In American, there is a big problem that is racial discrimination. Because the long-standing institutionalized discrimination results in this problem. So what is institutionalized discrimination? How has discrimination become institutionalized for various ethnic subpopulations in the United States?
Because institutionalized racism is a factor that affects how individuals engage with race, Packer’s “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Stories” proves that institutional racism aids in causing segregation. In the article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools,” Samuel Brodbelt goes into great detail about how institutionalized racism is seen in many public schools today. He also further explains how the effects of institutionalized racism may cause segregation between the races. Brodbelt states “today, the public schools serve as an example of the extent of institutional racism” (Brodbelt 699).
Racial discrimination is a pertinent issue in the United States. Although race relations may seem to have improved over the decades in actuality, it has evolved into a subtler form and now lurks in institutions. Sixty years ago racial discrimination was more overt, but now it has adapted to be more covert. Some argue that these events are isolated and that racism is a thing of the past (Mullainathan). Racial discrimination is negatively affecting the United States by creating a permanent underclass of citizens through institutional racism in business and politics, and creating a cancerous society by rewriting the racist history of America. Funding research into racial discrimination will help society clearly see the negative effects that racism
Prior to beginning my readings on white racial identity, I did not pay much attention to my white race. If someone had asked me to describe my appearance I would have said short blond hair, blue eyes, average stature, etc. One of the last things I would have noted was the color of my skin. Growing up in overwhelmingly white communities, I never thought to use the color of my skin to differentiate myself from others. Over the course of this dialogue I have learned that my white racial identity is one of the most defining aspects of my appearance in this society. There is a certain level of privilege that I am afforded based solely on the color of my skin. According to Peggy McIntosh, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks” (71). All these objects listed by McIntosh are things I have access to and certainly take for granted. Due to a history of non-white racial oppression, which transformed into decades of racial discrimination that still lingers today, the white race has dominated our society in terms of resources and prosperity. The ideas of wealth, higher-level education and ambition to succeed are all traits commonly linked to people of the white race that collectively define privilege. The aspect of privilege can also produce disadvantages for people of the white race as well. In the book Promoting Diversity and Justice, the author D. Goodman notes that people of advantage groups develop a sense of superiority, which will sometimes lead them to wonder if, “their achievements were based on privilege or merit” (107). Along with a diminished sense of accomplishment, the cost ...
“Never trust anyone who says they do not see color. This means to them, you are invisible.” The Police System needs to be fixed but it’s not going to accomplish in 1 day. In America, structural racism is every day. White Americans don’t see how dreadful Structural Racism is and how it affects people of color that are suffering from racism, police brutality, and inside of poverty. America is not aware of how serious structural racism is. Maybe they weren’t taught correctly or maybe they were taught to not care about it.
While I never knew my father, I did grow to know the challenges faced by African Americans. I first began to feel different when I transferred from public to private middle school. People began asking about my ethnicity for the first time in my life. Until this time, it had never seemed important. Although I had never been overly fond of my curly hair, it, along with other traits deemed too 'ethnic' looking, now became a source of shame. I had a few not so affectionate nicknames because of those curls. I was shocked to realize that people considered me different or less desirable because of these physical traits. Being turned away from an open house in my twenties was just as shocking as being ...
Racism and discrimination are common factors that current society faces, but these are not only contemporary problems. For instance, research has shown that since the nineteen century, “when cultural anthropology became an established academic discipline, one of the underlying objectives of the scholars in the field was to probe that blacks and other nonwhite ethnic groups were genetically and cognitive inferior than whites.” (The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 24) Through history constant studies and techniques have developed in order to test theories that justify discrimination, and as the quote states, one common goal was to establish white superiority among all races. This racist pattern has been repeated in America since the times
Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year old African American boy who was murdered in Money, Mississippi after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Since he was from the north, he did not know that he was not allowed to talk to a white woman in the south. Till was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region, when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam went to Till's great uncle’s house. They took the boy away to a barn, where they beat him and gouged out one of his eyes, before shooting him through the head and disposing of his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river. Roy and Milam were acquitted of murder because of the all-white, all-male Mississippi jury. At the same time, Sheriff Strider booked Levi "Too Tight" Collins and Henry Lee Loggins into the Charleston, Mississippi jail to keep them from testifying. Both were black employees of Leslie Milam, J. W.'s brother, in whose shed Till was beaten. Therefore, racial bias effects jurors’ ability to give an impartial trial.
In Nathan McCall’s “Makes Me Wanna Holler,” he describes the difficulties he must face as a young black boy experiencing the slow, never-ending process of the integration of blacks and whites. Through this process, his autobiography serves as an excellent example of my theory on the formation and definition of racial identity; a theory which is based upon a combination of the claims which Stuart Hall and George Lipsitz present in their essays regarding racial identity. Therefore the definition I have concocted is one in which racial identity consists of an unstable historical process through which one comes to know themselves in relation to an outside group. In this paper I will present Hall and Lipsitz’s arguments, describing how they confirm and support one another, leading to my theory concerning racial identity. I will then show how this theory is clearly exemplified in the story of McCall’s childhood.
In the United States, racial discrimination has a lengthy history, dating back to the biblical period. Racial discrimination is a term used to characterize disruptive or discriminatory behaviors afflicted on a person because of his or her ethnic background. In other words, every t...
If the system undoubtedly favors one race over another then it should be easy to point out the privileges. Paula S. Rothenberg mentions in her book “White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism” that we cannot avoid this problem, “As for the concern that looking at whiteness and white privilege will deflect our attention from racism, this could not be further from the truth” (Rothenberg 2). Failure to observe things from the side of the privileges overlooks many of the benefits of the institutional racism. By examining the benefactors of the system two things can be learned: who benefits from the system and how they do it. It is quite easy to shame racism and call it deplorable but it is much harder to realize that white privilege is other side of racism. However, failure to recognize this allows racism in our education systems to exist and flourish. Only when people in privileged positions fight for the equality of others will the institutional racism be defeated. One simple way to the privilege in the school system is when you compare how minorities learned about race and how white people learned about race. Often time minorities learn about race through a painful experience or a realization that they are different. In contrast many white people were probably unaware of their whiteness because it was the norm an everywhere. Robin
Racist and racism are provocative words in American society. To some, they become curse words. They are descriptive words of reality that cannot be denied. Some people believe that race is the primary determinant of human abilities and capacities and behave as if racial differences produce inherent superiorities. People of color are often injured by these judgements and actions whether they are directly or indirectly racist. Just as individuals can act in racist ways, so can institutions. Institutions can be overtly or inherently racist. Institutions can also injure people. The outcome is nonetheless racist, if not intentional (Randall).
Racial discrimination, from the early fifteen hundreds until today, continues to be a major problem in the United States and in other countries. Despite the different acts and laws put into place, hardly any reassuring results was shown to prove that racial discrimination has ended throughout society. Racial discrimination can vary from housing location to stereotyping to police brutality to comedians mocking a specific race or ethnicity.