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Slavery of african americans
Slavery of african americans
Slavery of african americans
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“We no longer want 40 acres and a mule, we want justice” an anonymous quote used to describe the fire behind the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Reparations for the legalized enslavement of African Americans is an idea that can be looked at as nonexistent in modern society. First, no amount of land or money can erase the emotional scarring of my ancestors. Secondly slavery has evolved into a new vehicle called systematic racism, that keeps most black working manual labor jobs ,more often than not under the authority of a white counterpart. The biggest question is how? How could you possibly amend slavery? Do you sue the descendent of a slave owner? Do you sue each state who legalized slavery? Even though at one point slavery was legalized in all states. …show more content…
Furthermore, whenever the American System calls themselves doing something for the Black Community to make it better, there's always the fine print at the end of the contract. By that I mean there is nothing created by the government solely for the betterment of black people that does not remind our community of white privilege. For example the government created Obama care, many can argue that poor Caucasians benefit from it as well, but the reality is Obama care was created for poor black on welfare, and another way for the ACA to institutionalize the class dividends in America. Through Obama Care, people are only getting the amount of health care they can actually afford, not the amount of health care they need. Once again middle to upper class whites are the ones who can afford proper health
In terms of racial equality in America, the government was instrumental in giving the freed slaves a boost and putting them on equal footing as the whites and creating a country of equality. But as we can see from history, they didn’t do such a good job at that. Du Bois states, “ the Negro farmer started behind,--started in debt” (91). When you start behind, in a world run by men who see you as inferior and for years ranked you with cattle and pigs, it’s hard to ever get ahead. The white men, especially those of the South, were determined to carry out slavery through cloaked measures such as controlling the freed slaves wages, feeding on their lack of knowledge of saving and spending and their lack of knowledge in general. Du Bois claims this was “the crime of a happy-go-lucky nation which goes blundering along with its Reconstruction tragedies, its Spanish War interludes and Philippine matinees” (91). The US has a history of helping other countries “solve” their problems while ignoring what’s going on at home. The figure of authority, in this case the government, started efforts to make the black man equal to the white man, but before any real change could be made, they jumped right into another problem without finishing the previous one. Whoever holds the authority and power must be able to see things through and ensure that their plans are carried
Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the article “The Case for Reparations” presents a powerful argument for reparations to black African American for a long time of horrendous injustice as slavery plus discrimination, violence, hosing policies, family incomes, hard work, education, and more took a place in black African American’s lives. He argues that paying such a right arrears is not only a matter of justice; however, it is important for American people to express how they treated black African Americans.
Being African American has never been easy. At birth, we are born with a target on our backs for simply being a different color and whites are born privileged. One would think that when slavery was abolished that the target would be removed but that isn’t so. King states in his article that “…white supremacy saturated public culture...”
In American history, there are centuries upon centuries of black people being deemed less than or not worthy of. Never in were black people equal, even in the sense of humanity. White people declared black people as three-fifths of a human, so to the “superior race”, because one has darker skin that automatically takes away 40% of their humanity. Now, in white history they repeatedly dominant over other nonwhite groups and especially the women of those groups because they feel anything that isn’t white is inferior.
In “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates sets out a powerful argument for reparations to blacks for having to thrive through horrific inequity, including slavery, Jim Crowism, Northern violence and racist housing policies. By erecting a slave society, America erected the economic foundation for its great experiment in democracy. And Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history. Paying such a moral debt is such a great matter of justice served rightfully to those who were suppressed from the fundamental roles, white supremacy played in American history.
Though social problems affect a wide variety of people from all races, classes, and cultures; minorities, specifically African Americans, encounter social problems on a multi-dimensional basis. Poverty, employment rates, discrimination, and other social problems strike African Americans in such a way that it is nearly impossible to separate them; each individual has different background, socially and physically, that would determine in which order his or her social problems need to be solved. Impoverished blacks in the inner city may have difficulty finding or keeping jobs, while others may have jobs, but face troubles with work discrimination that prevent them from moving upward .Underemployment, workplace inequalities, and unbalanced medical attention are three closely related social problems that, if ameliorated together, could increase upward mobility, decrease poverty levels, and tighten the lifespan gaps for not only blacks, but also other minority groups. The purpose of this paper is to show what effects these three problems have for blacks.
For 246 consecutive years, blacks have been kidnapped, whipped to death, mutilated, and raped. From 1619 to 1865, these generations of slave families were living as property rather than human beings. History would agree that the crimes done against these set of selected people do not compare to those of other races. Many people don’t know that there were sex slave farms that practiced a process known as “buck breaking”. “Buck breaking” was when a slave master would bind and whip his male slave for defiance. Then this master would proceed to rape the slave in the presence of all other slaves. It has been 151 years since such horrific tragedies, and the ruined descendants of these slaves have yet to be given reparations. Reparation is defined as “the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury”
Reparations Although the talk of reparations of slavery has been in discussion for over a hundred years, it is beginning to heat up again. Within these discussions, the issue of the form of reparations has been evaluated and money has been an option several times. However, reparations in the form of money should not be obtained for several reasons. Firstly, it is not a solution to the problem, secondly monetary reparations have the ability to worsen discrimination, thirdly, who gets paid, and how is it regulated, and lastly, the money can be misused.
For most American’s especially African Americans, the abolition of slavery in 1865 was a significant point in history, but for African Americans, although slavery was abolished it gave root for a new form of slavery that showed to be equally as terrorizing for blacks. In the novel Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon he examines the reconstruction era, which provided a form of coerced labor in a convict leasing system, where many African Americans were convicted on triumphed up charges for decades.
In an article by ABC news it was written that “there’s no disputing that African American suffered centuries of enslavement. What’s far less certain, however is what kind of debt is owed to the descendants of those slaves.” They also said “many group of influential lawyers and scholars have profited from slavery.” This goes to show that the people responsible for the enslavement of hundreds of people are profiting from slavery, and that if they did want to pay reparations, they’re unsure how to give it. The article then goes to mention other cases of reparation that have been paid like Germany paying $60 billion to holocaust survivors, and the united states paying $20,000 to over 100,000 Japanese Americans sent to internment camp during world war
...health and their life expectancy is also higher than black, poor, and/or unemployment people since there are no accumulation of stresses, and they have enough resources to control their daily stress. To solve this problem, based on the documentary series, reduction of the gap between poor and rich people should be considered by educational long-term investment (providing free college education), making life better for families with young children, and eliminating racism (California Newsreel, 2008). In my opinion, the health insurance system should be controlled by the U.S. government, like the health insurance system in Europe, so everyone will have health insurance with an acceptable price.
Black people are paid almost half of what white people are paid, which forces them to live in low income communities which tend to be unsafe, and also put their whole family in danger. Due to their low income, they might not be able to afford health care which causes them to “lose more work because of illness, have more carious teeth, lose more babies as a result of both miscarriage and infant death…” according to William Ryan from Blaming the Victim page 648. People who have low income due to the wage gap tend not to be able to afford college compared to white people, which hinders their future and their ability to succeed. In fact, on page 214 in Shades of Belonging: Latinos and Racial Identity, Sonia Tafoya states “Hispanics who identified themselves as white have higher levels of education and income and greater degrees of civic enfranchisement than those who pick some other race category.” This shows how minorities are mistreated in society unlike white people. In the end, it doesn’t matter what your abilities are because if you are not white you are not treated equally. “If you’re not white, you’re black,” (141 Sethi). Anyone who is not white in the United States are seen as inferior. If you’re not white, you 're not treated as an equal. Non-whites are judged based on their appearance and are made fun of due to their accents. Numerous non-whites are harassed and are told “you are in America, learn how to speak English!” When in fact, there is no official language of the United States. According to Sonia Shah in Asian American? on page 217, Asians are paid less in the workforce even when they have the same level of education as whites. Regardless of whether non-whites receive the same education level as whites, they are still not equal, not even in the work
Black social, political, and economic solidarity where essential to the achieving racial justice. However, this vision is not necessarily consonant with American democratic and liberal ideals.
Today, African Americans are still unequal economically, exhibiting how the pursuit of democracy remains incomplete. The origin of this inequality can be traced back to the “Jim Crow” Era. From 1939 to 1959, the average African American made from 44% to 59% of what the average white worker made. Meaning that the average African American salary was about half of the average white salary. An imbalance that resulted in large economic inequality. With more money the white population was able to pay for more luxurious houses and items, as well as better schooling. This led to two main results. First, class based housing became based on race, where white citizens lived in rich suburbs and African Americans lived in poor ghettos. Not only did this
Slavery was not illegal in the Unites States until after they thirteenth amendment was passed, therefore reparations would not be a fair justice to those who partook, because they were not committing a crime by having slaves work for them, as the government had no laws against slavery. Reparations would not be necessary, or fair to those now and days because, it was not their doing, as less than 4.8% of southern whites partook in slavery, about 1.4% of all whites in the country. Lastly, the slaves families did not go through the pain and agony that their ancestors went through, therefore why should those of us have to pay now for people just trying to get money because they feel discriminated against, because it doesn’t change the pain the