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Life for black americans modern day
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Yesterday, I read a post from a friend, who is a POC stating that she was standing in her apartment crying; that is how stressful, fear inducing and overwhelming it is to be Black in America right now. I can't imagine how terrifying it is to be: a person of color, Jewish, trans, gay, or a member of any other marginalized group right now. I'm sad, angry, depressed, frustrated, despondent, furious, disillusioned, overwhelmed and losing hope myself, and I don't have to fear for my life/safety when I leave the house. I am calling out racism and bigotry everywhere I see it, from one on one conversations with fellow white people in hopes of making them understand that silence is violence, to writing/calling my congress critters, to donating money …show more content…
How many people who are just trying to live their lives feel this way and aren't comfortable sharing it out? How can we as a nation allow this shit to continue? We MUST stand up against hate, we MUST stand up against discrimination. We as white people with privilege MUST use that privilege to dismantle the system that allows not only the overt displays of hatred and bigotry, but the underlying issues that cultivate it. The KKK, neo-Nazis, any group that is based in hate and superiority is a CANCER that has no place in the body of this country. Anyone or group that supports or makes excuses for these people, up to, including and especially the current occupant of the White House need to be shut down. No, there aren't "many sides". There are two sides, "right" and "wrong". For those of you who "don't want to be political". That's privilege right there because it doesn't affect you personally. You want to respect/let people have their views because you've known them since 2nd grade? You're part of the problem. You want to get out of taking action by claiming to support "free speech"? The first amendment does not protect speech that incites people to violence/to commit illegal
A few years ago, my mother told me something thought provoking: we had once lived on the same block as the leader of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. That had been in Charlotte, North Carolina, around 1994. The Ku Klux Klan, according to Blaine Varney in Lynching in the 1890’s, used to “…set out on nightly ‘terror rides’ to harass ‘uppity Negroes’….” They are far more infamous, however, for their “lynching”—nightly “terror rides” that included murder—of African Americans. Varney tells us lynching levels reached their pinnacle in 1892, with 161 recorded murders that year. In modern times, most Americans would agree that the Klan, along with any form of white supremacy, has no place in society—and pointing out its survival is a good way to imply that we, as a people, are still not perfect.
Freedom of speech has been a controversial issue throughout the world. Our ability to say whatever we want is very important to us as individuals and communities. Although freedom of speech and expression may sometimes be offensive to other people, it is still everyone’s right to express his/her opinion under the American constitution which states that “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press”. Although this amendment gave people the right express thier opinions, it still rests in one’s own hands as how far they will go to exercise that right of freedom of speech.
In this world today, hate is becoming increasingly more abundant, especially as it concerns race. Whether it be an unarmed black man shot by a white police officer or the use of racial slurs towards someone, it seems like racism is all around us. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, it shows a little girl named Scout using racial slurs. Racism is so culturally accepted in the town that it’s okay to use racial slurs such as the N-Word that even Atticus, a lawyer representing a black man falsely accused of rape, uses it a couple of times. Earlier this year, the Ku Klux Klan, a group of white supremacists, held a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and proved that racism isn’t a thing of the past.
In the first amendment, it is stated that all people have the Freedom of speech, religion,
We study the beginning of America and the movement of settlers into a new land. Then we look at the formation of the United States through the Revolutionary War. But nothing has ever changed this country from the inside as much as the Ku Klux Klan invasion into the country. The Klan’s influence and ability to cause destruction within a society inspired leaders and dictators such as Adolf Hitler. During the height of the Klan’s power and influence, it was doing many things right. It had attracted mass amounts of people with a simple message and used them to complete a secret agenda. Had the KKK continued to find new ways of bringing people to their cause and working to achieve superiority first, they may have caused an unforeseen amount of damage to the United States. Mistakes that were made by the members grew attention to them and caused society to see them as they were. The Ku Klux Klan of the modern day is still alive. It is barely breathing but growing and changing everyday. The hate will live on through the young, but the good people in the world are the key to truly changing the world for the
We have a long history of racism in America that has been structured to favor White people. Structural racism can be defined as, “a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It identifies the dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time”(Structural Racism, 2004,p. 11). Overt racism became illegal during The Civil Rights Movement that took place between 1954-1968 (Tuck, 2015). Although society seemed to be heading toward a more socially acceptable society, the movement enabled white people to blame the struggles black face as a character flaw. White people will believe that black people have a lot of problems because their culture is bad or they have bad values. The message they are reinforcing is that being black is inferior, and this is an example of structural racism operates. Structural racism is a system of forces that keeps people of color in a permanent second-class status, and it is the foundation of racism in our society. Society is structured in a way where the hierarchy of white people oppresses Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, etc and has
Despite all these accepted images of successful black people "selling" the idea that the color of a person's skin is irrelevant, racism still exists and will forever exist in America. It is a never-ending phenomenon that is ingrained in American life. Racism is America, just as America is built around the idea of racism. As the civil rights activist and scholar Derrick Bell would say, "Racism is an integral, permanent, and indestructible component of this society." He proclaims that no matter what blacks do to better their status, they are doomed to fail as long as the majority of whites do not see t...
If the power elite can keep us at one another’s throats then we won’t rise up and fight against the power elite. We won’t realize that we really don’t have anything. There are examples of this all over. We take peoples jobs away and give them to minorities or another minority. This produces hatred toward that minority. If we do this then they won’t take to changing their life around them The same is within education and making sure that some people are given a right to enter a college not based on scores, but on color of skin. This gives us hate. We think some group is trying to take our stuff. The Ku Klux Klan believes that blacks are taking all their jobs or because they are there they are running the companies out of town. The power elite enforces this rhetoric and only causes the people to continue the cycle of hate.
Many years ago the KKK was labeled a Hate group for obvious reasons. Lately a new group, Black Lives Matter have emerged in our society creating the same threat and domestic terrorism as the KKK. -Michael Hamilton of Denver,
When the individual gets attacked verbally because of their controversial statements, they claim that they had the right to speak their mind no matter how disturbing their words were. They use the First Amendment as a cover for their wrong-doings, and that is never okay. They need to be educated on what they can and cannot say. Just because the First Amendment guarantees a person the freedom of speech, does not mean that they are entitled to say whatever they please. The article “Freedom of Speech” explains if an individual were to use “fighting words” then they are automatically not covered under their First Amendment. The Supreme Court decided in the case Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire that “fighting words” were not constitutional, so they would not be protected under the First Amendment (2). Many people misunderstand that much of their opinions that they speak consists of words that are unclear. More than half of the time the words they use in their statements are considered to be fighting words, for they are rude and ignorant. There is no need for the obscene words that they use to be protected under the First Amendment. They must become aware of their lack of knowledge for what “fighting words” are; furthermore, they
...eir new and young members that the different people are bad and all kinds of things. These lessons, which new members of these hate groups are learning, are wrong because they provoke the anger on its members and therefore the members commit hate crimes against those they hate for being different. That is why not only Blacks, Homosexuals, Asians and Hispanics, but also white people think that these hate groups should be banned so they can not commit crimes anymore.
...at are being fed to us by the media. This is definitely the harder way of doing things but there is power in numbers and even more power when those numbers are the people of the United States. We could leave the media powerless so that nothing they write even matters because we already know who we are and we refuse to fall into any kinds of racial stereotypes. One last thing that I’d like to mention is that it’s important to know that even if you are white and you think that racial injustice doesn’t affect you, it does. It’s also very important that you are aware of what is going on in your society since as a majority of the people it is your duty to help the minority of the people. Everybody, regardless of race, should be an advocate for social and racial justice because that is what being a decent and good human being is. So don’t be ignorant or encourage ignorance.
The Ku Klux Klan has existed since the mid nineteenth century. The Klan has had periods membership numbered in the millions, whereas nowadays they do not have as much influence as in the past.What has ceased to change is the media depicting the Ku Klux Klan as a hateful group of bigots wanting to solely wipe out any non-white race. However, the media has not only surfaced many misconception but they fail to realize that the Klan is actually within US Constitutional rights. Because the Bill of Rights guarantees American citizens the freedom of speech and to peacefully assemble, the Ku Klux Klan has the right to continue their practices. With that being said, excluding some violent outburst conducted by Klan subgroups, no one has the right to stop the KKK from protesting, speaking their beliefs, or celebrating their heritage.
In the ideal of civil rights when it comes to being judged by race Americans have made huge steps in the right direction, but we still have miles and miles to go. A large source of the racism present in our society stems from one's pride in his or her own race. Many people, especially those associated with racist groups; find it necessary to put down other ethnic groups in an attempt to strengthen their own. This train of thought usually results in extreme hatred of other races and an overall sense of bigotry. Reasoning in this manner causes too many consider associating with racist groups. Many people believe that we have far left the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) in the past, but in my research I have learned sadly that is not the case there are eight active KKK tribes in Oklahoma alone. The KKK is just as violent as ever in Mississippi there is believed to have been twelve murders committed by the KKK in t...
Our textbook clearly says that, “everyone has the right to an opinion – even if it is a horrible opinion. We can punish criminal behavior. We should never punish people for simply expressing their views.” The First Amendment made it possible for people to voice their opinion whether it be hurtful or not.