Analysis Of The Color-Line

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Recommended: Affirmative action and its role in modern world

The problem of the twenty century is the problem of the color-line,- the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.
This division between races, rooted in racism reserves better paying jobs and economic opportunities to those who society deems as citizens. During reconstruction, Du Bois refers to the tendency of the freedmen to continue to work menial jobs, thus keeping them indentured to the wills of society. The existence of the color-line makes it impossible for African Americans to live within American Society. The division between citizens and non-citizens is rooted in the institution of slavery, and was extend though the advent of the Jim Crow laws. This continued …show more content…

Undocumented workers are not afforded the same job opportunities as whites, they are not granted the same favorable economic status as others. This in a sense, causes greater divisions between the races, thus continuing the problem of the color-line. In his article entitled The “Color Line” Today, Glenn C. Loury exposes the ill affects the the color-line has in the twenty-first century. He proposes that because racism is so entrenched in our society that it may only be fixed through state intervention. He continues …show more content…

They set out to undermine the institutionally entrenched systems that set out to stop democracy to reach all members of society. U The color-line may have been the probable of the twentieth century, but looking to poverty levels of many African Americans today, it would seem that it is also the problem of the twentieth-first century. According to the article Why We All need Affirmative Action, by Jeannette Wicks-Lim more than one in three black children (37%) live in poverty, compared to one in eight white children (13%). And finally, more than one in three black children (38%) attend almost completely segregated schools.
It should be noted that these school are segregated due to economic means and not in the legal terms. The color-line has created a situation in which minorities are at a critical disadvantage. Du Bois tried to bring light to this situation in his book. Today some legislation has been implemented,such as affirmative action, in order to curtail the color-line and promote democracy. Another theme expressed in Du Bois book is the idea of double consciousness, or the idea that African Americans live with two identities. He

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